Category: Geolocation Technology

Mobile app could be the solution to trash issues

| July 2, 2015

A cloud based application could help scavengers to clear out a great deal of the garbage piling up in Jakarta.

Jakarta may soon be following in the footsteps of Bangalore, India, in the use of a mobile app that would help to empower scavengers who play an important role in reducing the rising garbage problem that is piling up in the city.

The mobile application that is designed for this purpose has been called “I Got Garbage”.

The project manager for “I Got Garbage”, from Mindtree IT services company, Prashant Mehra, has designed the mobile app to make it possible for scavengers to offer services of track picking to households that are seeking improved waste disposal options and additional garbage management services. The scavengers simply download the app and register with it so that they can start the process of taking part in the service that will allow households to hire them for their services.

This mobile app is geared primarily toward rag pickers who will receive training from the company.

Mobile App - Waste CollectionMehra explained that “A group of rag-pickers can register their group on our application. We then will provide them with one-day training on the dos and don’ts on doing their jobs, how to keep themselves safe [from dangerous substances in the garbage] and how to act politely with their clients.”

Every scavenger who wants to take part in this program is equipped with a smartphone based on Android and that has the I Got Garbage app installed on it, as well as one of the company’s uniforms.

Residents who choose to use the service can also download this mobile application, which is equipped with geolocation technology, making it possible for the homeowner to connect with a worker who is located nearby. From that point, the app user will “enter into a service contract, which requires each house to pay around US$2 per month for the service.” The rag pickers who are hired by this program can serve as many as 200 houses.

At the moment, the mobile app has 6,500 participating scavengers serving around 100,000 houses in Bangalore. This is quite the accomplishment as it has been only two years since the creation of the program.

Ford pilots beacon geolocation technology program to woo buyers

| June 22, 2015

The automaker will be attaching devices to feature models to broadcast information to customer smartphones.

Ford dealerships could soon have a new way of making sure that customers visiting showrooms will learn about the hottest features associated with certain models as the company pilots a geolocation technology based marketing program.

This would send key info about a model directly to a consumer’s smartphone as he or she approaches it.

The hope is that this geolocation technology will help to make it easier to close a sale. The consumer will receive information only about the models that have caught his or her attention, as the tech sends the information about the models that the potential buyer has approached, as he or she walks around the vehicle. IGeolocation Technology - Ford Marketingt is as though the vehicle will be able to give its own sales pitch, regardless of whether or not an associate is present at that specific moment.

The geolocation technology will allow customers to enjoy a more independent sales process.

Many consumers do the majority of their research online, using an automaker’s website to be able to learn about the features, options, and pricing of a vehicle. Actually visiting a showroom floor is essentially at the very end of the purchasing cycle, when the consumer is quite close to making a final decision.

This indicates that consumers are more interested in finding out a large portion of the information about various vehicle models on their own, and that an actual sales associate at a dealership has a notably smaller window of time in which to close a sale.

The Ford.com digital manager, global and mobile, Trisha Habucke, pointed out that “Even five or six years ago, people would actually go to the dealer four or five times (before making a purchase). Now they’re doing so much research independently that when they get to the dealership they don’t want to start over, they want to continue on and get their pricing and get their ‛why buys’ right there. And sometimes they want to do that independently,” ahead of actually speaking with one of the dealerships sales team.

The geolocation technology marketing is meant to help consumers to do that, so that they can still inform themselves in the way and timing that they prefer.