Executive Summary:Founded in 1996, over the past 15 years Ariba has grown to become the world’s leading provider of collaborative business commerce solutions. Born from an initial idea to create a better solution to the costly and paper-intensive process of buying goods and services, Ariba now provides over 500,000 companies – including more than half of Fortune 500 - with a solution for better commerce.

Thanks to Meltwater, Ariba now benefits from:• A more strategic way of developing and tracking communications delivered to the

market• A simple, cost-effective tool for tracking press coverage and market news that’s as

relevant to the in-house team as it is to Ariba’s communications agency• The ability to shape and hone communications campaigns and messages to ensure

that Ariba maintains its leadership position within the market• Tracking of competitor announcements and statements to ensure that Ariba is

positioned in the best possible light• Improved media relations thanks to the ability to react in real-time to articles and

stories being posted by journalists within Ariba’s circle of interest

Ariba’s Meltwater News Story

“ Beyond just a clip service, Meltwater is a strategic tool that allows us to track and manage our messaging on a global scale and adjust our communications strategy as needed to ensure that we achieve our objectives .”

Karen Master Senior Director, Corporate Communications, Ariba, Inc.

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the Background“Ariba prides itself on defining markets,” begins Karen Master, senior director of Ariba’s corporate communications division. “And from a communications stand point, this means we must be out in front with our messaging, testing the waters with reporters and analysts. And this requires a unique set of tools that Meltwater is uniquely positioned to deliver. ”

It’s no easy task staying ahead in the communications game. While having the market leading position is obviously great news for everything from staff morale to the bottom line, it also results in a constant pressure to understand and react to the sensitivities of a changing industry. When that industry happens to involve heavy use of technology, that means changes that happen by the second, rather than the day.

The world of collaborative commerce is a busy one, the market comprised mainly of a few large firms and a vast number of smaller players catering to some of the more niche demands. As a result, the press surrounding the industry is equally cluttered, with every vendor looking to get their point of view across to the journalists who cover this area. Complicated though it may be however, keeping abreast of breaking news is vital from a positioning standpoint.

It was precisely that challenge that first brought Ariba together with Meltwater. “We’d been using news monitoring services from other vendors before we chose Meltwater,” explains Master. “But they were overly complicated.. We wanted something that could bring us relevant news that could be easily accessed and shared across our global operations.”

The need to keep internal teams, especially at executive level, up to date with the latest market developments – both from the point of view of Ariba and its competitors – is a top priority for Master and her team.

“That was the primary reason for us to engage with Meltwater in the first place,” she continues. “News monitoring plays a critical role in helping us to figure out our messaging strategy, and we needed a partner that could help us do that more effectively than we had in the past.”

Enter MeltwaterIt was around the beginning of 2010 that Ariba brought Meltwater onboard. Electing to move to Meltwater’s News service, the impact was immediate. “From very early on, we knew that Meltwater News was going to be more than just a tracking tool for us,” explains Master. “It blended one-click simplicity with some really powerful analytics that helped us immediately get a better handle on who was saying what in the market and what it might mean for us.”

Ariba buys in to strategic news monitoring with the help of Meltwater

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The need to keep internal teams, especially at executive level, up to date with the latest market developments – both from the point of view of Ariba and its competitors – is a top priority for Master and her team.

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Meltwater News is the world’s leading online media monitoring service. Offering a broad range of search capabilities, it monitors more than 162,000 online publications worldwide and provides everything from analysis to the ability to repurpose search results into custom newsfeeds and newsletters. Delivering coverage from over 190 countries and localising content from 100 different languages, Meltwater News provides the ultimate standard in online news tracking.

For Ariba, that translates into clearer, smarter news monitoring. “As much as we use Meltwater News to track our communications, we also use it to help shape them. If I see a journalist reporting on a story that we’re involved in or have an angle on, I can go straight back to them with our take, or offer them comment from one of our experts in the future.”

“ The results that Meltwater News generates allow me to present strategically to my CMO and work out what we’ll say about the company on an ongoing basis. We’re always looking forward and considering how we’re going to lead the market.”

Karen Master Senior Director, Corporate Communications, Ariba, Inc.

Strategic tracking “We’re fortunate enough to have an executive team here that’s really engaged with our communications activity,” continues Karen. “The results that Meltwater News generates allow me to present strategically to my CMO and work out what we’ll say about the company on an ongoing basis. We don’t have to focus on where we are today, because we’re always looking forward and considering how we’re going to lead the market.”

The strategic value delivered by Meltwater News is echoed by Jessica Bolduc of PAN Communications, Ariba’s PR agency. “We’ve been using Meltwater News for Ariba since day one, and it has helped us to develop new relationships and opportunities with a range of contacts that we hadn’t necessarily engaged with before. That helps us to keep Ariba front and centre when it comes to the newsmakers out there.”

delivering the results “As is the case with just about any organisation, not everyone immediately understands the full value of PR and marketing,” Karen continues. “So being able to provide those kind of metrics and showcase the kind of value that it can drive is really important to us.

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“ Meltwater has helped develop new relationships and opportunities with a range of contacts that we hadn’t necessarily engaged with before. That helps us to keep Ariba front and centre when it comes to the newsmakers out there.”

Karen Master Senior Director, Corporate Communications, Ariba, Inc.