GFT presents CODE_n: Viewsy the “Google Analytics for the physical world”
At the end of last year I took a very quick look at the startups from the UK who are the current CODE_n finalists. As the excitement builds here at GFT’s UK headquarters in the run up to CeBIT we wanted to take a look at them a bit more closely. Over the coming weeks I’ll be putting the startup spotlight on these emerging big data players.
The first to get our attention is St Katherine’s Dock headquartered Viewsy. Founded in 2011, this location analytics startup has pioneered the combination of sensor and analytics technology to allow the anonymous and unobtrusive capture of data from smartphones. It then takes this big data and uses smart analytics to allow its customers (from retail, real estate, telecoms and event management) to map and better understand patterns of customer engagement, acquisition, loyalty and dwell time.
The Viewsy solution is already being deployed around the UK and mainland Europe. One client of particular interest to us was Level39. According to CEO Eric van der Kleij in a recent interview with Insider Trends ; “Viewsy shows dwell time. It can produce heat maps. It can show mall owners which stores are the most valuable, which ones have the most footfall, which top three brands people look at before going to eat something. We didn’t have a lot of insight into traffic flows and footfall before. Viewsy is one example of the type of business we’re keen to help.”
With endorsements like that and a growing, if still confidential client roster, it isn’t hard to see a bright future ahead for Odera and his team.
The retail angle is pretty clear, but with our interest in financial services we wanted to see if there was a role for Viewsy beyond the good use that retail banking could make of it to maximize its bricks and mortar presence.
According to Odera, he can definitely see a role for Viewsy data in capital markets. “The investment community will be able to use Viewsy data to get more real-time information on their investments or companies of interest in a particular retail space. For example, our Oxford Street index could shed light on how well brands with flagship stores in that location are doing. And if investors correlate data with postcode and other location information of retail brands, this will be a valuable additional indicator of how well a retailer is doing in their stores before any figures are published.”
As they say knowledge is power and it seems Viewsy is well positioned to ensure that the retail, real estate and events sectors have a lot more of that asset at their disposal.
I am also delighted that Odera, Viewsy’s CEO will be joining CODE_n, GFT, Clemens Weisshaar and EY for the media preview of CODE_n 2014 on February 18th. Media interested in attending should contact the GFT PR team on gftteam@omarketing.com. Unfortunately, everyone else will need to wait until CeBIT on the 10th March.
