mBeaconSAM - Small Chip Brings Huge Possibilities for the Payments Industry

mBeaconSAM - Fintech Innovation for Payments Acceptance

The first mobile OS application and terminal agnostic Security Access Module with BLE (Bluetooth LE) capabilities compatible with ISO 7816 Smart Card standard. The mBeaconSAM provides legacy and new payments terminal infrastructure with proximity payments, marketing and loyalty applications in a standard 2FF card form factor that seamlessly integrates with the card reader SAM slots.

Open Interface Accelerates Innovation

With a unified smart card API, an open SDK and BLE 5.0 capabilities, our mBeaconSAM adds IoT-like features to existing and new card reader infrastructure thus ushering a new era of mobile interactions between the payment infrastructure and smartphones, wearables and other devices. An open interface enables devices to connect with the POS via BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) so that there is no more dependency on the walled gardens built by mobile device manufacturers or network operators and more data can be captured during the transaction.

Advanced Security

The mBeaconSAM with bank-grade encryption enables white-label mobile wallets and loyalty applications fully integrated with your card reader infrastructure without costly upgrades or impact to your PCI compliance.

How Netclearance Can Help

We can help enable your existing payment terminals to accept mobile payments from smartphones and wearables outside the 'walled gardens' of Apple, Google and other NFC systems. Click here for more information on how our next generation mobile payment beacon provides a compelling proposition for retailers and fintech companies.

Understanding PSD2 Impact on Payments Infrastructure

2018 is a game changer for retail banking as the PSD2 regulations become active. For those who have no idea what PSD2 is, well, PSD2 (Revised Payment Service Directive) enables both businesses and consumers to use third-party providers to manage their finances. In other words, soon, you will use Google or Facebook to pay your bills, analyze your spending, making P2P transfers while still safely moving your money into your current bank account.

This development will enable third parties to build financial services on top of banks. However, banks are still obligated through open APIs (Application Program Interface) to provide these third parties with access to their customer's accounts. PSD2 will have various impacts which may include:

Improved customer experience

The impact from PSD2 is significantly notable. For a professional indication on how the payments sector should operate, it will have long-term consequences for the broader banking sector. It will also grant opportunities for both existing banks and new start-ups to improve customer experience around financial decisions.

Architecting infrastructure

PSD2 will lie on top of a bank's existing banking applications and process API calls to and from account information service providers (AISPs) and payment initiative service providers (PISPs). These new divisions of the organization will replace the card schemes in managing requests for payment and reporting from customer accounts.

Security technology, and its perception

Naturally, for PSD2 to work, safety is always stronger than ever. Crucially, it is also tighter so as to solely to instill confidence in the open API process. PSD2 adds facial, voice, and retina recognition systems in addition to the already existing PIN and password codes. 

How Netclearance Can Help

Our next generation payment technology enables payment terminals to accept mobile payments from smartphones and wearables. Crucially it features enterprise security with crypto processor and memory enabling fintech companies to build more appealing and more secure value added services as a result of PSD2.

Contact Us to find out more.

APIs for Mobile Payments Will Streamline Brick-n-Mortar Retail Businesses

For brick-n-mortar retail businesses, sticking to traditional approaches in business will only edge them out of the competition. In the face of the stiff competition from online retailers and other businesses with web-enabled mobile services, brick-n-mortar businesses face a challenge to increase their sales.

Much brick-n-mortar retail has found a way to capitalize on the new technology by shifting focus on APIs for mobile payments to try to save their businesses. The method is easy; use mobile efficiencies to lure customers to your stall. So, what benefits lie in place for the industry?

Increased customer service efficiency

Mobile applications allow you to analyze a client’s big data that includes their shopping patterns, shopping behaviors and the like. By having information, you can help the customer in your store and engage them, hence making their shopping experience worthwhile and in turn increase the rate of customer retention.

Streamlined services and customer engagement

With mobile applications, customers can get information about your store promotions or new products on their cell phones and even place an order to come and pick up later. The mobile applications also give employees a platform to interact with the customer even when they are not in the store.

Increased shopping assistance

By integrating your prospective information with mobile applications, shopping for customers becomes a delightful journey since they know where to get what quick and easy. By having assisted shopping, customers save on time hence reduced stress, and that leads to the enhanced customer experience.

Paperless economy

Another benefit of mobile applications for brick-n-mortar retail is mobile payments. Many customers hate the idea of carrying money. Enabling use of mobile payments for your store makes shopping easier and safer for the customers.

PSD2 Impact on Mobile Payments

Recent revisions to the European Parliament's payment services directive 2, or PSD2, have businesspeople wondering what this means for the fintech (financial technology) industry. One of the most important changes is that it opens up new markets to companies that were previously excluded. In particular, it forces banks to make their accounts accessible to third parties such as payment initiation service providers.

This accessibility comes in the form of an API for payments. By using this, mobile payment providers can connect to bank accounts to process payments in a streamlined fashion. Such a method allows them to work with customers outside of the typical credit card acceptance networks.

How This Directive Can Affect People Outside of Europe

The PSD2 directive is unlike its predecessor because it activates even if just one of the involved parties has a European presence. Since many banks are multinational and have such a presence, they will be held to the new rules. While they may not be forced to offer the service in the United States, there is a good chance that some will go ahead and do so. Later, as with any technology that turns out to be a true upgrade, the practice will spread until it becomes ubiquitous.

How Can My Company Make Use of This Change?

One of the best ways is to get set up is to start with hardware meant to use the new system. Our Netclearance mBeaconPay hardware makes it easy to connect to a variety of alternative payment methods. Of course, our systems will also work with MasterCard and Visa if you choose to integrate with them, but such integration is not a technological requirement. Instead, you'll be able to hook into any institution that offers API access. Through this, you can set up your own payment acceptance network or join an existing one - all without paying the high costs associated with the big credit card networks.

Contact Us to find out more.

Mobile APIs for Payments: A Step Toward a Cashless Society?

Once again, science fiction is becoming a reality. Now, it's the cashless society that has made a big stride in this direction. Thanks to a convergence of technological advances and an EU directive, banks and other financial institutions are opening up to those who want to be able to transact with them via direct means. This makes it possible for people to electronically access their funds to make payments without the intervention of one of the big credit/debit clearinghouses.

For merchants, one of the big benefits of this change is that it allows them to reach the unbanked and underbanked in new ways. Cash can be put into merchant-sponsored accounts and then accessed by the customer's cell phone when it comes time to buy things. This saves customers from having to carry thief-attracting wads of cash when they go to the store. On the store's side, it increases loyalty since the store is where the cashless account is located. It also opens up the ability to offer special loyalty programs on top of the accounts themselves.

These benefits aren't limited to those who will not or cannot deal with regular banks. Loyalty and rebate programs work well with any segment of the population, and tying them to store-branded accounts gives customers even more incentive to do their shopping at the sponsoring store. Some large stores are already using programs of this nature.

Getting set up to deal with cashless payments is easy. All you need to do is get Netclearance's mBeaconPay system. This system does not require any connection to Visa or MasterCard to work, though these credit card processors may be added if desired. For private programs, it uses the new API for Payments technology. This technology allows the system to seamlessly hook up with local banks and other institutions. Best of all, customers don't have to stop and sign up with these banks to use the mBeaconPay cashless payment option. Everything is branded to your store to create a professional payment system that is simple for customers to use.

To learn more about mBeaconPay and how it will help catapult your company up to the next option in payments, just contact us. We'll be glad to explain everything.

Will Credit Cards Become a Thing of the Past?

Have you ever thought about how inefficient credit cards are? Probably not. As merchants we like to accept them in order to compete and as consumers we only see the advantages. After all, it's nice to be able to buy what we want, when we want it, without having to stop at the bank. But let's take a look at what's really happening when we use our credit cards.

Once you swipe your credit card, it goes into the store's system, through a sales organization and eventually to a payment processing network. From there, the transaction must go to the issuing bank for verification, then back to the merchant for processing. That's a long process, but unfortunately, it's not quite finished.

Once you, the consumer, have verified the transaction, it must go back to the issuing bank, who can then send the money through the processing network to the merchant's bank. There are actually 10 steps involved in getting the money from your credit card to the merchant's bank, and each step presents its own security risks. Add to that the fees associated with each step, and you can see that credit cards aren't really all they're cracked up to be. But there is an alternative.

At Netclearance, we have developed a system that allows consumers to make purchases using their smartphones and transferring the money directly into the merchant's bank account. It's called mBeaconPay. 

You may be thinking that this system isn't any different form other smartphone pay systems, but it is. Apple, Google and other existing pay systems are set up to work just like a credit card using the 10 step method to make a payment. mBeaconPay accomplishes the task in just three utilizing Bluetooth LE - a fast, secure and low power variant of the traditional Bluetooth technology, thereby cutting out the "middleman" and all the fees that go along with it. Contact us today to find out how you can incorporate this exciting, new technology into your business. 

The Impact of PSD2 on Buyers and Sellers

As PSD2 goes into effect, both service providers and consumers wonder what that means for them. PSD2 is an EU directive meant to regulate payment services and payment service providers throughout the European Union. Big credit card companies are upset because the regulations allow for direct access from merchant to consumer, bypassing them completely. But what does this mean for you, as a consumer and a merchant? Let's look at 4 main topics that PSD2 addresses.

Extension of Scope

The first major change is that PSD2 expands the reach of the original PSD regulation. Before, both parties had to be located within EU borders for the regulation to be applicable. But with the new regulation, only one party needs to be an EU member. PSD2 also broadens the definition of a "payment institution" to include more types and categories.

Third-party Access

The purpose of PSD2 is to level the playing field by opening access to external parties. Currently, we use a debit card or credit transfer to exchange money. Both of these services are provided by the bank, which means that the bank acts as the middleman in each transaction. It also means that they can charge whatever they want to act as the go-between. PDS2 allows a third-party to directly access the account, thereby bypassing the bank and its fees.

Prohibits Surcharges

Another area that PSD2 addresses is surcharges. In the past, each individual country imposed their own rules. The new regulation outlines a standardized approach and directs that no surcharge will be allowed for consumer cards affected by the Interchange Fee cap.

Security

Of course, there are risks involved with opening third-party access to accounts. PSD2 addresses those by introducing new security requirements, as well as new security challenges, to ensure the consumer is protected.

PSD2 is the regulation that allows consumers to transfer money directly to the merchant without a middleman. mBeaconPay can speed up the implementation of a new payment acceptance infrastructure that can take advantage of PSD2. Contact us today to find out how mBeaconPay can work for you.

Location of Things Technology Ensures You Never Lose Your Equipment Again

Has your company lost productive time simply because people couldn't find essential items for the job at hand? This situation is all too common in many factories and even offices. Over time, people take tools and inventory to random locations as their jobs require, but something comes up before the things can be returned to the proper place. Then, when they're needed again, your workers may have to spend minutes or even hours hunting them down before a task can be started.

Now, there is an easy way to prevent this scenario from happening. With Location of Things (LOT) technology, every item can be fitted with a beacon that tells your system its exact location. Work will then progress without a hitch - even if the needed materials were originally left hundreds of feet away from where they belonged.

Setting up such a system is easy when you combine our mBeacon BLE beacons with our mBeacon gateways. The beacons tell the gateways where they are, and the gateway then displays this information to those who need to have it. These people include you, your company's supervisors, project managers, and other such personnel. Once everything is set up, your employees will be able to find whatever they need just by asking their managers.

If your company routinely does jobs that require materials or tools to be moved around, you'll surely see major productivity improvements - and profit improvements - once your people aren't spending half the day trying to find things. To learn how easily you can implement our LOT solutions, just contact us. We'll be glad to help you get set up.

Increase Compliance and Productivity with Wearable Technologies

If there's anyone who knows where they can hide within your building, it's your employees. This knowledge is typically used to sneak some extra break time, but it can also be used for more nefarious purposes such as theft. Therefore, it's in your best interests to know where people in your company are during all of the time they're on duty.

This is just one of the ways you can use our new smart badge. It includes LOT (Location of Things) technology so that you can track each badge's location individually. As long as the badges are worn by the employees, this means you also know where they are. If some respond by taking their badges off before hiding themselves away, you can easily find out by checking the badge's location. You can then take the appropriate measures to prevent further policy breaches by that person.

Once this is done, you are likely to find that productivity increases. It'll no longer be easy to slack off without being noticed, so actual work time will grow.

This is just one of the ways our mBeaconCard badge will help your company. Another popular use for the technology is to monitor workers' speed as they use in-facility vehicles like forklifts and electric cars. You'll easily be able to spot dangerous speed demons just by how fast the dots that represent them move on your screen. Then, corrective measures can be taken to improve safety practices.

To learn more about mBeaconCard and our related LOT technologies, just contact us. We'll be glad to advise you on how you can use it to improve your operations.

Wearable Technologies Make it Easy to See Who is Where

If your company has ever had to make a customer wait or delay an operation because nobody could find the person needed to move forward, you know one of the reasons that it's important to be able to track employees' locations. Until now, however, finding someone within a sizeable location meant either paging that person or sending a runner to physically look for him or her. Neither of these are optimal solutions - pages may not be heard, and whoever is sent to look for a person could have been doing something else instead.

Our mBeacon smart badge puts an end to this problem. It constantly beams its location to a central router, which then displays that location on a screen. Simply have all of your employees wear their badges while on duty to have real-time information on exactly where they are.

If you run a retail establishment, you'll soon see your customer satisfaction improve due to the improvement in service. Your store will seem far more professional when the person with the answer to a customer's question can be found and brought over within a couple of minutes instead of 10 or 20. On top of this benefit, you'll be able to serve more customers since time won't be wasted with unnecessary delays.

For those who operate warehouses and factories, the ability to find key personnel, such as supervisors, will bring greatly increased efficiency to the company. When someone has a critical question or there is a snafu, the appropriate manager can quickly be located and brought into the loop. This will reduce the amount of waiting involved and let people get back to work much faster.

These are just some of the benefits of outfitting your employees with our mBeacon badges. Contact us to learn more.

Cashless Economies: IoT Payments Making it a Reality

Since the invention of cash, most people have seen it as an absolute necessity. Only science fiction writers and their fans envisioned the day when it would be rendered obsolete. That began to change with the arrival of mobile payment apps that made it easy for anyone, not just big stores, to accept money in forms other than the standard cash, checks, and credit cards.

Now, however, cash is being seen as more than an inconvenience. Recent events in India and Venezuela, where badly-handled mandates to remove bills from circulation resulted in chaos, riots, and looting, show that it can be a huge liability. There, inflation had rendered the most popular denominations almost worthless, so the governments simply ordered them removed from circulation. This left the people with no way to pay for things before they could exchange their bills for the new ones.

Such problems wouldn't exist in an economy that didn't rely on cash. Fortunately, solutions already exist that make the transition to a cashless economy possible. One solution for transitioning to a cashless economy is mBeaconPay.

mBeaconPay is a cashless terminal that works at all sorts of points of sale. What makes it different from traditional POS systems is its mobility. This is a great help for vendors and service providers who need to be able to complete transactions away from a cash register. Customers will love being able to charge or otherwise pay for things even when they're miles away from your store or office.

Thanks to this type of technology, the dream of bringing cashless transactions to an entire society is not out of reach. Someday soon, every vendor will be able to accept electronic payments wherever they are. Then, there will no longer be any need for cash.

Office Space Analytics: Understanding the Millennials

The walls are tumbling down. Due to the increasing presence of Millennials and mobile technology, the days of repetitious, creativity-sucking workplace cubicles are numbered. Corporate executives are responsible for adapting the work environment to suit the generation that reached young adulthood by the year 2000, expected to consume 3 out of 4 jobs by 2025. It is all for the purpose of improved productivity.

Open spaces, comfortable breakout areas and trendy cafés are replacing isolated offices on the far perimeters of buildings with floor to ceiling walls blocking out the natural light. Why?

The last 5 decades have seen a revolution in the attitudes of workers toward their positions within a company. The “cubicle” mentality employee performed his or her job in fearful obedience, but with thought leaders such as Google appearing on the corporate scene, workers are rewarded for team collaboration and for unleashing their creative minds.

The Baby Boomer generation was just the beginning of the trend to a laid back, yet ambitious group of “up and comings” in the corporate world. Millennials are highly productive in socially conducive spaces with mobile technology at hand. They are collaborators rather than seekers of privacy.

What does this mean for your office real estate? It necessitates implementing design changes that support your work force productivity and it does not involve guesswork. Office space analytics provide the necessary data to strategize a setting that ushers your company into the new era.

At Netclearance, we partner with you in collecting the statistics that define where and how to adapt your office space to increase the efficiency of your work force.

Cashless Vending: The Inconvenience of Cash

Cashless Vending is on the rise worldwide. It growing hand-and-hand with society's need to convert to a cashless world. It dovetails with the seeming need to dispel traditional means of doing business. Filling the vacuum is the ever-present mobile phone. Not only can consumers watch movies, or listen to music, or tend to their social needs, or online shopping using their mobile devices, they can pay for items available in vending machines.

Presently, twenty-five percent of vending machine purchases take place using a mobile device. It fits perfectly into the current lifestyles and demands of the public. Racing down an airport corridor, or the halls of some skyscraper before an important meeting, one needs only stop for a second to grab a bag chips with the mere wave of their phone over the smart beacon.

Catapulting this fast-evolving revolution are the two key interrelated demands of speed and convenience. 

The mBeacondVend just introduced by Netclearance now stands at the forefront of smart beacon technology. The plan is to extend convenience and speed by using vending machines to deliver products to people as they go about their hurried business.

This innovation pushes the vending machine industry and others into innovating. If consumers adjust to purchasing goods (and possibly services) through vending machines, the operators will quickly discover ways to offer more goods. It also seems to compliment the fast food industry.

This latter industry is undergoing change in order to reduce payroll costs. Re-invention of the automats that provide the food and drinks is growing. With the mBeaconVend, merely waving the phone over the Smart Beacon avoids having to make an order.

This last example is speculation, but very possible. One innovation seems to always pull along other industries into innovating and vice-versa.

Please visit our website at http://www.netclearance.com to learn more about Netclearance's mBeaconVend and the promise this new industry holds.

The Future of Cashless Economies: Why Governments and Consumers Should Migrate to Cashless Payments

Ever since the fall of fiat currency and the rise of credit and debit cards, countries around the world have been edging closer and closer to the cashless economy. However, as with any revolution, the transition period to this new paradigm of value transfer has proven to be more difficult than proponents expected.

What happens when cash unexpectedly disappears?

As a prime example, observe what happens when governments remove existing paper currencies from circulation. India's ban on 500- and 1,000-rupee notes has caused a scarcity of cash, causing interminable lines at ATMs. The economy is also suffering as the millions of vendors in India that previously relied solely on cash transactions experience a drastic reduction in sales.

The transition in Venezuela went even worse when their president invalidated the 100-bolivar note, the most common bill in circulation, before replacement bills entered circulation. The loss of this note meant that citizens have been unable to pay for even the most basic necessities, causing subsequent riots and looting as people strive to secure their needs in the absence of cash.

Avoid catastrophe with cashless payments

As these events prove, when one is unable to use cash for common transactions, one loses access to food, medication, and services essential to one's survival in society. A good way to prevent this is to follow Sweden's example, and slowly discourage cash payments over time via methods such as cash ATM closures and negative interest rates.

One of the key methods by which cash transactions can be gently reduced is by adopting an alternative mobile payment system. This allows customers and vendors to interact without the need for a physical exchange of cash. This has another benefit of mitigating one's vulnerability to sudden changes in a country's currency model.

Our mBeaconPay system, designed for accepting mobile payments at retail point-of-sale, is one way vendors in Scandinavia are making it easy for their customers to reduce their dependency on cash by making easy payments using only their smartphone. To find out more, contact us today for information on how we can help your business seamlessly adapt to the cashless economies of the future.

Three Reasons Why Cashless Vending is Growing

Imagine a world where your wallet, that ubiquitous accessory so vital to commerce, is no longer necessary. That world is rapidly approaching with the advent of Netclearance's mBeaconVend, a revolutionary cashless vending technology that enacts vending machine transactions by way of its unique mobile payments solution.

Why adopt mBeaconVend? Here's three reasons that prove why incorporating mBeaconVend into your fleet of machines is simply good business sense.

1. The faster and easier your transactions, the more of them there are

It's common knowledge that quicker transactions attract repeat customers and reduce walkaways during rush times. Additionally, easy transactions help the people who are most likely to use your vending machines: folks who are traveling. These customers tend to be overburdened and in a hurry, and if they have to dig for change they may give up on the transaction.

2. No change? No problem

People might leave their keys, wallets or umbrellas at home, but rarely do they forget to bring their phone. And when someone who already has their phone in hand passes a vending machine with mBeaconVend, it's just one short step to wave it over the smart beacon. Joggers and others who typically leave the home without cash will especially appreciate the ease with which they can buy essentials such as bottled water.

3. Effortlessly track purchases and analytics

Smart vending machines connect to the internet wirelessly to provide a range of data. Beyond the traditional analytics that vending machines provide, because mBeaconVend utilizes an app on the consumer's phone, much more data becomes possible, such as how often that person visits that machine and with what frequency they buy which products.

Thanks to mBeaconVend, you can explore the future of vending today by incorporating mobile payments into your existing machines. Looking for more information on how easy it is to get started? Contact us at Netclearance for a free consultation on our process.

Enhance Workplace Productivity with Office Space Analytics

The advent and rapid acceptance of the Agile development model has significantly impacted the design and layout of office spaces. In the past, a typical office space would be composed of row after row of cubicles with a few individual offices set aside for higher level employees and meeting areas. Now, group collaboration is more highly prized leading to open floor plans, "touchdown areas", standing desks and other innovative designs.  However, this shift to customized work space layouts has greatly increased the need for accurate and timely office space analytics. 

    Office space analytics encompasses a wide variety of topics such as:

• Tracking employees indoors
• Office space utilization and optimization
• Asset tracking inside an office building
• Furniture utilization

The information gained through analytical reports for each of these areas has a significant impact on facility management decisions. In addition, operational reports detail the overall level of efficiency in facility management processes allowing an organization the ability to strive of greater levels of optimization. 

Tracking Employees Indoors

The open and custom floor plans found in many facilities often results in employees and project teams migrating throughout the building either to make use of the limited meeting rooms or interacting with other groups as part of a technical exchange. Through office space analytics, employee location and movement can be tracked giving insight into processes that can further drive productivity.

Office Space Utilization and Optimization

Understand how office space utilization provides valuable insight into facility usage.  Through analytics, identifying infrequently used areas within the facility allows re-purposing of these areas for more productive and profitable use. In addition, an optimal scheduling of areas within the facility that are in great demand is possible through the detailed reports generated by the analytical software.

Asset Tracking within an Office Building

One of the most painstaking and tedious tasks within a facility is monitoring all of the physical assets. Laptops, disk drives, scanners and other movable assets tend to migrate throughout a facility over time as employees carry them when moving from one area to another. In addition to discovering the location of a particular asset, this software allows an organization to identify how often it is used and whether additional assets are required to promote future business growth.

Furniture Utilization

In many facilities, the cost of office furniture rental is the price of doing business. Through office space analytics, furniture that is not used for a period can of time can be tracked allowing an organization to return unnecessary furniture saving several hundred, if not thousands, in monthly rental costs.

Through office space analytics, an organization will achieve a more optimal use of office spaces, assets and furniture leading to higher employee productivity and an excellent ROI. Contact Netclearance to learn how this software solution benefits both your employees and organization.

Office Space Analytics Use Case: Optimizing Furniture Utilization

Businesses always pay attention to how efficiently their employees are working, but what about the chairs they're sitting in or the tables they're sitting at? Office furniture is an investment in a business's productivity, and if it's gathering dust in a forgotten supply closet, it's not an investment that's paying off. Netclearance's Office Space Analytics product can help businesses of any size optimize their furniture resources in two key ways.

Office Space Analytics provides accurate, real-time furniture inventory

Cost Owl estimates that a computer desk for an employee at a typical business can cost up to $2000. Multiply that figure by the count of employees in your office, and chances are you have a surprisingly large dollar amount invested just in desks, to say nothing of chairs, bookcases, retail shelving units, etc. Businesses like hotels and hospitals have an even larger furniture inventory to manage. Using Netclearance's office space analytics ensures that you have real-time knowledge of how much furniture you have and exactly where it is currently located, allowing maximum flexibility of use.

Office Space Analytics controls furniture costs through data-driven insights

Better data leads to better decisions. By zeroing in on how much your business spends on furniture purchase and replacement, you can gain control of your furniture budget and make sure your desks and chairs are working as hard as you are. Analytics can also help you identify key furniture needs and plan ahead for the future. 

Regardless of your industry, Netclearance's Office Space Analytics can help your business gain an accurate picture of your furniture usage and in order to optimize both utilization and cost.

Trade Show Space Analytics Benefit Vendors, Customers, and Organizers Alike

Trade shows can be overwhelming in their size and layout. It is easy for a vendor's booth to get lost in all the chaos. It is also easy for a customer to get lost and inadvertently miss some booths. There is, however, a simple solution. That solution is space analytics.

Space analytics improve profits for vendors and organizers alike and there are many simple applications that can help accomplish this task. Generating a smart-phone accessible map of the show is one particularly easy task. Tracking visitor flow through the use of sniffers or even just overhead cameras or ground level sensors is another.

Space analytics can help track particularly important exhibit components and thus provide a level of security that has seldom been possible in the past. Space analytics can also track employees and their movement, or lack thereof.  

Vendors know that some booths at big events like trade shows are more optimally located than are others. Vendors, particularly those that attend a show year after year, covet particular spaces but treat others as though they were tainted with some incurable disease-causing organism. Space analytics can be used to validate a vendor's contention that they are not getting their share of foot traffic or dispel it.  

Space analytics can help show organizers address any problems relating to traffic flow. Space analytic programs facilitate the logical rearrangement of space, furniture and exhibits. This data also justifies the utilization of a sliding vendor booth fee. If one area continuously gets more foot traffic than another then it is certainly logical to charge more for the booths that are in that area. 

Space analytics programs are now available that prove what vendors have known all along, some spaces at trade shows are more valuable than others in terms of higher foot traffic and potential leads and sells. There may be possibilities for correcting any blatant layout flaws or, if that fails, there may be a way to actually reap more profit from those flaws. If you would like to know more about space analytics and what it can do for your trade show, please contact us.

Optimize your Exhibit and Engage attendees with Trade Show Space Analytics

Trade shows can be a great place to highlight your brand innovations and target potential clients in a high demand setting. 

Designing your exhibition to showcase featured products in a way that stands out from the rest, and effectively reveals your company vision, is the first step. 

Additionally, engaging attendees with pre-show marketing will boost visits and get them to your table, where it's up to your staff to shine the spotlight on the quality products you offer. 

However, thanks to recent technological developments, there's now even more you can do to ensure a successful run. 

From planning and set-up to attendee arrival, trade show space analytics software can help you optimize each minute at the event.

Foot-traffic analysis

See live updates on hot and cold traffic areas with a bird's-eye view. Track staff and attendees inside the event, and make adjustments as needed to maximize contact, visibility and engagement opportunities. 

Optimize your space

Your paying for your slice of carpet, so make sure it's set-up to maximize every square-inch of your investment. Space analytics technology can help you determine the best utilization of the space available, from where to put the furniture, to the layout of your marketing materials and signage. 

Network live

Use mobile apps to connect staff and attendees during the show. You're going to be in direct competition with other brands from your field, some of which will likely have similar products on display. Engage visitors throughout the event, even after they walk away from your table, so you stick out in their memory and stay connected. 

At a trade show, there's no room for passivity; you are there to network, boost business and increase your marketing profile. 

For more information on using our space analytics solutions to fuel your trade show appearance and drive ROI, contact us for a consultation.

Wearable Technologies in the Enterprise: Modern Keys to Efficiency

Wearable Technology on the Rise

With new technologies emerging constantly, all aspects of life are rapidly evolving, even for the least tech-savvy individual. From personal fitness and health trackers to home infant vital monitors, wearable technology has already proven it's value and demand in the consumer market.  While these are popular for making life easier for individuals, other forms of wearable technology both simplify and enhance businesses processes in any industry.

Wearable technologies in the enterprise simultaneously offer simplicity and multi-functionality, and are quickly on the rise among businesses. According to Wearable Tech, "[Analysts] estimated that more than 16 million wearables – from activity trackers to healthcare monitors and from 3D motion trackers to Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) – will ship for business use in 2016."

Cut Down the Downtime

 Wearable devices, such as this smart badge created by Netclearance Systems, Inc. posses the potential to significantly reduce wasted lean time in several ways. Equipped with a Near Field Communications module (NFC), Bluetooth Low-Energy radio (BLE), and 2 kilobytes of memory, each card is traceable and locations given are accurate to within a few meters. This allows employers to:

• Easily ensure employees are in correct locations at any given time.
• Quickly locate specific people whenever needed.
• Securely track high-value product or equipment.

Six Sigma Online states "Downtime can be caused by all kinds of things, such as equipment problems, employee problems, and order problems. For every instance of wasted time there are also lost profits." Quite simply, time is money. By reducing the amount of time wasted searching for human resources or equipment, a higher level of efficiency is achievable.

Collect Crucial Data Effortlessly

 An access-control system is set up by utilizing the mBeaconGW and an external NFC reader. Tracking information is securely transmitted to Netclearance's mCloud, then continues on to the selected analytic software and applications. With this easily gathered data, employers are able to archive, analyze, and control human resource locations and movement. The ability to knowledgeably make decisions regarding human resource allocation is pertinent to many industries, making the collected information a beneficial asset.

Simplify by Consolidating Processes

The uses and benefits of the all-in-one badge do not end there. The card is also capable of being used as a form of payment for employees by taking advantage of the badge’s NFC module. By combining several employee identification and tracking processes, as well as the payment functionality, the mBeaconCard provides a simple, yet versatile, solution to multiple business needs.

Embrace Emerging Technology

Globalization and technology are constantly changing the way the world does business, making it crucial to continue improving methods and utilizing revolutionary technologies. For more information on state-of-the-art technology in the enterprise, contact us.