Projects awarded under the Mobile Solutions CFC will benefit over 150 user companies in the retail, F&B, hotels and attractions sectors.

For businesses in the Retail, Food & Beverage (F&B), Hotels and Attractions sector, the smartphone presents an unprecedented opportunity to streamline operations, improve productivity and enhance customer outreach and engagement.

Take MOGi, for example. The “mobile wallet” app is helping the Indochine group of restaurants, bars, hotels and resorts to strengthen customer relationships by integrating pre-paid cash cards and vouchers with loyalty programmes and promotions.
Using the app, customers can make in-store payments, send gifts, redeem rewards and enjoy promotions. It also opens up a new way for customers to interact with the merchants they frequent, without having to carry around stacks of loyalty cards or vouchers.

As for the businesses, they can now manage their customer loyalty and rewards programmes, m-commerce transactions and mobile-based marketing campaigns and sales promotions on a single, paperless platform. With MOGi, they can cost-effectively sell and promote cash cards, vouchers and promotional coupon over the mobile platform. This presents them with additional sales channel and an opportunity to cut down on production costs for print collaterals. Already, the IndoChine Group anticipates an estimated 3-8 per cent increase in sales revenue in their restaurant business simply by operationalising MOGi.

MOGi is one of 28 projects that are being rolled out under the Mobility Solutions Call-for-Collaboration (CFC), a multi-agency effort led by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore in collaboration with SPRING Singapore, the Singapore Tourism Board and NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute. Launched in June last year, the CFC generated substantial interest from industry, with a total of 46 proposals received.

At imbX 2012 on 19 June 2012, Minster of Information, Communications and the Arts Dr Yaacob Ibrahim announced that the projects awarded under the CFC will benefit over 150 user companies in the Retail, F&B, Hotels and Attractions sector and result in projected ICT expenditure worth S$12 million.

Another project developed under the CFC is the Urban Pay solution by the Lo and Behold Group. This encompasses an interactive restaurant menu and mobile ordering system that allows customers to place their orders as well as view upcoming events, F&B menus and featured items on their smartphones. By reducing the need for manual order taking, the system helps speed up the ordering process and eliminate human errors. Payment can also be made directly by the customers at their table, instead of having the staff travel to and from the cashier’s counter. These changes have resulted in more efficient use of manpower resources for the group.

Other examples of projects develop under the CFC include a Table Management System which a automates table allocation for guests, and a Cube Platform which helps businesses to rapidly develop interactive mobile solutions for a wide range of functions such as rewards management, a recommendations engine, mapping and navigation.