Company Generates New International Sales in Record Time with Unique Internet Matchmaking Service; Parasystems/Minuteman Finds Speedy Solution to Shrinking Domestic Market.

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 24, 1996--Parasystems Inc. makers of Minuteman uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), has found a way to dramatically speed up the process of increasing overseas sales.

Using a new Internet resource called TheChannel that helps companies identify compatible business partners in foreign markets, Parasystems was able to ferret out, negotiate with and sign on three new international distributors in less than two months. Two more are in the works.

"For our particular product category, the opportunities domestically are shrinking, but the opportunities internationally are tremendous, and we need to significantly increase our sales overseas in a relatively short time," said Judson Rogers of Parasystems, one of the top UPS suppliers in the U.S.

"TheChannel has quickly put us into markets where we had no penetration, enabled us to upgrade distributors in markets where we already had a presence, and allowed us to do background research that made us more effective in targeting new business partners. If we had tried to accomplish the same thing using the traditional method of shopping for distributors at international trade shows, it would have taken us months if not years."

Parasystems has sold its power supplies internationally since the company's inception in 1988, and overseas sales currently account for 35 percent of its business. The domestic market for its product is nearing a saturation point because of the drop in first-time PC sales and the transferability of power supplies from one computer to another.

The international market for UPS is largely untapped, however, and power supplies are even more important overseas than in the U.S. because of the poor quality of the power delivery system in foreign countries.

Enter TheChannel, a high-tech matchmaking service that draws from a database of 20,000 international distributors in the computer, telecommunications and office automation industries and the vendors they do business with. By searching the database for distributors carrying complementary and competing products in each desired geographical market, Parasystems quickly zeroed in on the most compatible business partners.

The company also used TheChannel to conduct market research on trends in UPS sales. Analysis of TheChannel's hit list, for example, revealed that most distributors carrying competitors' products also carried a specific brand of computers. Parasystems then searched the database by that brand and pursued distributors who carried that brand of computer but did not yet carry any UPS products.

The result: new distributors in Tunisia, Brazil and Venezuela almost overnight, all of them large national distributors that expanded on regional distributors Parasystems already had in those countries. The company is now negotiating for distributors in two new markets and plans to target Europe this fall.

CONTACT: S&S Public Relations 

Mary Beth Griffin, 847/291-8420 ext. 231

Julie Mousel, 847/291-8420 ext. 276

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