Smart Scandinavian with nuclear family meets reliable Chinese partner: The pairing of CCI Europe and AWT System in China and southeast Asia reads like a match made in heaven.

And it is, according to Mike Garland, who helped engineer the exclusive strategic partnership, which sees AWT delivering and supporting CCI’s NewsGate product.

“We’d been interested in breaking into the China market for about three years, and had held meetings with some very large IT organisations,” says Garland, CCI’s Melbourne-based regional sales director. “Then we met (AWT chief consultant) Terrence Fok at the World Newspaper Congress in Bangkok and realised we had objectives in common.”

AWT – which has its own comprehensive software suite – was looking for a way to extend its offering and at the same time, shorten the time to market for the multichannel products it wanted. Meetings during the second half of last year progressed to a “look under the hood” of NewsGate in Denmark, discussions with chief executive Dan Korsgaard and the formation of partnership ideas.

“The timing was very good for us,” says Fok. “With the digital trend finally having an impact on this region, we were interested in working with an existing developer and have progressed from there.”

The new agreement covers China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia for NewsGate and associated solutions including online and digital.

Both parties see it as significantly more than a reseller agreement: “This is a genuine partnership agreement we’ve entered into with CCI that will see us working very closely with them,” Fok says, while Korsgaard says AWT’s profile in the region – coupled with an experienced IT and editorial support organisation – were important factors.

The two are working together to bring the Chinese language to NewsGate and extend features to tailor it to the needs of users in the region. Over 20 years in the industry, Hong Kong headquartered software developer and system integrator AWT has gained a leading place in Asia’s Chinese publishing industry, with about 30 daily newspapers and 30 magazines using its editorial and advertising systems. Customers – including publishers, TV channels and marketing companies – are supported through branch offices in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan and representative offices in China.

Now with training for its 40-strong team underway, AWT will offer its customers an upgrade path to CCI’s NewsGate, dealing with local issues such as linguistics, censorship and operating platforms in the process. “Chinese is our strength,” says Fok.

Both are enthusiastic about the opportunity: “The beauty with AWT is the involvement and respect,” says Garland. “We don’t push in.”