Nokia has teamed up with Intuit to provide automated mobile marketing services for small businesses that will also have a knock-on benefit for mobile operators, the two companies announced at Nokia World 2010 in London on Wednesday.
The pair aim to help companies in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segment of the market get more business by creating personalised offers and marketing campaigns, using location information and the mobile channel. Nokia brings its experience in location-based services and mapping to the table, alongside U.S.-based Intuit’s business software expertise.
“Nokia and Intuit have formed a strategic alliance,” said Mary McDowell, executive vice president, mobile phones, at Nokia, announcing the deal alongside Alex Lintner, president of Intuit’s global business division. In a joint presentation, the executives noted that their potential customer base is made up of around 500 million SMEs worldwide.
“Many of them lack the basic systems manage their businesses effectively,” said Lintner, in some cases relying heavily on mobile, rather than fixed, communications and connectivity.
“Our services will help increase their revenues at a modest cost,” he added. Location-based marketing and communications “will increase the foot traffic to their small business by at least 10%.”
For Nokia, the deal represents, “a great opportunity to leverage the strengths of Ovi Maps,” said McDowell. There will be “benefits for operators as well,” she added.
“Operators can increase their ARPUs,” as more businesses take up data plans on the back of these new market services, she explained.
The companies have yet to release further details on exactly what services it plans to launch, but more information is expected shortly.
“”We expect to launch these first services by the year-end,” said McDowell
No comments:
Post a Comment