Moscow & Hong Kong - October 9, 2018 Glue Up, a leading cloud-based engagement management software company, has officially announced its expansion to the Russian market via a joint venture with Andrey K. Zhukovskiy, founder of RussСom IT Systems. The collaboration combines the market-leading strengths of Glue Up’s all-in-one software management solutions with Mr. Zhukovskiy's experience in the event and association market to bring Glue Up's solutions to Russian corporations, event organizers, associations and other organizations. Formation of this partnership (www.glueup.ru) is a significant milestone in Glue Up’s global ambitions following the recent opening of new offices in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Founded in 2013 by CEO Eric L. Schmidt and COO Olivia Jingshu Ji, Glue Up has since become a leading event and membership management technology company in the Asia Pacific and the United States. Glue Up has offices in the US, Hong Kong, Singapore, China and India, and its award-winning Event Management Software, Association Management Software, and Chamber of Commerce Management Software are used by customers in more than 28 countries.
CEO and co-Founder Eric L. Schmidt said, “This partnership is an important cornerstone for Glue Up’s growth. We are proud to be joining forces with successful technology veterans in the MICE space in Russia and are excited to introduce our cutting-edge software to the market. We have been working hard over the last few months to localize our platform to cater to the specific needs of the Russian market, and are eager to enable the professional communities from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok with Glue Up solutions.”
Mr. Andrey K. Zhukovskiy is a highly successful entrepreneur who has a stronghold within the tech and meetings industry. In 2001, Zhukovskiy founded RussСom IT Systems Group of Companies, a company providing a number of exclusive services designed for event organizers, such as accreditation, business program, and B2B meetings, exhibition personnel and IT solutions for the MICE industry.
Zhukovskiy is also Chairman of the Marketing and Research Committee of Russian Union of Exhibitions and Fairs, member of the Committee on exhibition, fair and сongress activities at the Сhamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, member of the Exhibitions Committee at the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, member of the Marketing Committee of the Global Association of Exhibitions UFI, and member of the interdepartmental working group on exhibitions of The Russian Export Center.
Mr. Zhukovskiy says, “Having re-analyzed the Russian market of IT solutions for MICE industry and associations’ management, two important conclusions have been drawn. The first being, we have a rapidly growing market with a huge potential and many companies working on the MICE technology. The second, none of these many companies offer all-in-one integrated solutions like Glue Up that would work in real time and satisfy all clients' requirements. After close consideration, we have decided to partner with Glue Up to bring the best event and association management solutions to Russia that is hungry for the technology that can meet all the needs.”
This partnership presents a plethora of opportunities when the Russian event industry is incredibly vast and varied, where to date there are currently over 100 cities with the infrastructure to cater for events. Russian's share on global MICE industry is currently estimated at less than 1%, and with around 13,000 congress events organized each year, International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) places Russia at 22nd place in a number of events organized.
Both Moscow and St. Petersburg are among the top 100 of the most popular congress destinations in the world. Coupled with this, there are more than a 1,000 event organizers, associations, and unions. These figures prompt an important reconsideration that showcases Russian locations as up and coming in the events market. Positive prospects significantly complement Glue Up's ambitions to become the leader in event and association management software space in Russia.
General Manager of Glue Up Russia, Mrs. Maria Makarova, commented, “When observing the rapid growth in the Russian event market, setting ourselves apart from the competition as a provider of innovative all-in-one solutions is critical when attracting our targeted audiences. Glue Up provides the necessary resources to automate day-to-day processes, particularly tasks that are commonly time-consuming for event organizers and associations alike. I am sure in a few years Glue Up will be the leading choice for management software solutions in the Russian market.”
Glue Up Russia has already opened some basic operations a couple months ago in Moscow to ensure that the product was optimized to fit all the requirements specific to the Russian market. Localizations include integration with the local payment gateway, data compliance under Russian law, set up of glueup.ru domain and translation of the platform and mobile apps into the Russian language.
COO and co-founder Olivia Jingshu Ji expressed, “With our client base spreading across almost 30 different countries, we are ecstatic to extend Glue Up's technology to Russia via this joint venture with a local expert in the field! At Glue Up, we are honored to establish this new relationship and look forward to the on-going cooperation. I would like to thank and extend my appreciation for the tireless efforts put in by both teams - this joint venture would not have been successful without them. This is certainly a great moment in Glue Up's history.”
