Company: element 5
Company Description: element 5 offers software publishers e-commerce solutions and marketing services. More than 8,500 software publishers in more than 150 countries use element 5's e-sales solution and thus offer their customers global payment solutions, e-marketing services, multilingual customer service and fulfillment options.
Nomination Category: Company, Office & Product Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Overall Company

Nomination Title: element 5

Tell the story about what this nominated company achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

element 5 story

The company
The vision of using the Internet as a sales channel for software products led to
the founding of element 5 in 1998. The founders created an e-business solution
for fast, safe and efficient software distribution over the Internet for
software buyers and publishers. Today more than 8,500 software vendors use these
solutions to sell their products via the Internet. element 5 currently has 140
employees in offices in the United States, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and
Sweden.

Business activities
element 5 develops and manages e-business solutions and marketing services to
help software vendors and publishers to quickly and easily sell their software
products via the Internet. Software sales and profitability are maximized for
these vendors because the e-commerce solution is efficiently outsourced to and
hosted by element 5. No investments in technology or services are required — the
hosting approach offered by element 5 ensures continual upgrades and support.
Order handling, payments, shipping, licensing, logistics, customer service, and
a wide range of online marketing options are core components of element 5's
e-business solutions, which offer software publishers immediate access to the
global market.

Accomplishments
One of element 5’s most noticeable accomplishments was being recognized as a
promising company who received two rounds of venture capital funding, in 1999
and 2001 — in the midst of the dot.com crash. While thousands of e-commerce
start-ups were declaring bankruptcy and laying- off the majority of its staff,
element 5 continued to thrive. In fact, element 5 has experienced strong growth
since its establishment:

· 1998:     8 employees:           $2.2 million US revenue
· 1999:   18 employees:           $5.4 million US revenue
· 2000:   58 employees:           $13.2 million US revenue
· 2001:   90 employees:           $24.9 million US revenue
· 2002: 120 employees:           $61.93 million US revenue
· 2003: 160 employees (est.):  $95 million US revenue (est.)

The past year
element 5’s success is based on the concept of providing extensive services in
order to enable publishers to outsource the whole process of marketing and
selling their software.
In 2002, element 5 added several features to its service including Reseller
Management (helping manage the processes of ordering, payment and shipping of a
product) and Promotion Management (helping boost sales by creating attractive
online sales offers). Furthermore, element 5 expanded the number of languages to
ten, increased its currency offering to 15, and opened a sales office in Italy
to provide its Italian customers with a local presence.

In May, 2003, element 5 launched “Global e-Marketing Solutions,” a new division
to consolidate the marketing consulting, direct marketing and website
optimization groups. The division is focused on creating and implementing
individual and comprehensive online marketing campaigns for software publishers
to help grow their e-business globally.

Outlook
Until the end of this year, element 5 plans to expand its outsourcing solution
to provide software publishers the possibility to access the Asian market: its
ordering process and customer service will be offered in Japanese.

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

http://www.element5.com/press_echo.html?sessionid=74880824&random=f2dee92ed3bbb6914744f5070790d85d
http://www.element5.com/press_releases.html?sessionid=74880824&random=f2dee92ed3bbb6914744f5070790d85d
http://www.element5.com/press_echo.html?article_id=5381&year=2002&sessionid=74880824&random=f2dee92ed3bbb6914744f5070790d85d

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated company:

Gerrit Schumann, Chief Executive Officer
Gerrit Schumann is co-founder and chief executive officer of element 5. The
company, established in 1998, provides software publishers and vendors with
outsourced solutions for global Internet software distribution.

Prior to the creation of element 5, Schumann co-founded the web company
share-it! in 1996, to market software products on the Internet. share-it! is
integrated into the element 5 solutions today.

In former positions, Schumann acted as an independent software developer and
consultant for McDonald's Deutschland Inc. and McDonald's A/P Hong Kong and in various European locations for U.S. IT service provider, Sequoia.