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ROI Case Study: Shopping Mall generates $61 per visitor

Purple is working in partnership with Networxs Software to provide a guest WiFi and analytics solution for malls in Australia. One such installation is at Waterford Plaza, a mall in Perth, Western Australia. Networxs installed Purple’s content filtering, enabling Waterford Plaza to become the first venue in Australia to achieve the Friendly WiFi accreditation, which ensures that inappropriate material cannot be accessed at any time.

About Waterford Plaza

Waterford Plaza is owned by the Lease Equity group. The mall has been refurbished in recent years and is home to big brands like Domino’s, KFC, Nandos, Subway, Vodafone and Specsavers, along with a number of boutique retailers, supermarkets, cafe’s, bars and restaurants.

The mall is right next door to Curtin University, the biggest university in Western Australia. There are over 60,000 students enrolled at Curtin University, and many of them visit Waterford Plaza during their free time. For Waterford Plaza, this meant that offering free, fast and family-friendly guest WiFi at the mall was a necessity to meet the needs of their visitors.

Waterford Plaza also attracts a large number of Asian visitors from Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong due to the university’s multicultural student community.

Fuss-free deployment

The deployment of the solution was managed by our partner, Networxs Software, who were able to achieve excellent coverage with only 10 Cisco Meraki access points. The access points were placed carefully in order to provide reliable WiFi coverage at the mall’s indoor and outdoor areas.

The experience of the team at Networxs, implementation of a trial period and the quality of the equipment meant that deployment was a smooth process.

Networxs + Purple = a recipe for success

Together, Purple and Networxs Software can offer over 30 years of technical experience with best in market analytics to provide a tangible return on investment for Waterford Plaza.

The joint solution has meant that running costs have been halved. Although another Australian WiFi analytics company bid for the deal, Purple was chosen as our analytics dashboard was easier and more intuitive for Waterford Plaza’s marketing team to use.

Another factor in Waterford Plaza’s decision to choose Purple was the ability to cater for its student visitors using an array of social login options.

The solution in action

Waterford Plaza are primarily using Purple to improve the customer experience and influence dwell time in the mall. This is being achieved by identifying patterns of footfall, analyzing demographic information about visitors and pinpointing which zones they spend most of their time in.

All of this information is helping Waterford Plaza’s marketing team to personalize their campaigns, increase dwell time and communicate with customers effectively.

A clever revenue sharing model

Purple and Networxs were able to present a cost-neutral solution, as Waterford Plaza are providing an advertising package through Rubicon, with a percentage going back to the mall.

Rubicon have a portfolio of large advertising clients looking for third party ad space filtered by demographic data, and this is provided through the WiFi service both on the login page and e-shots. Revenue is generated for both Waterford Plaza and Networxs Software on a per-click basis.

That’s pretty cool stuff, but how do the numbers add up?

For every minute a customer spends at the mall, retail sales equate to 75 cents, according to recent Australian shopping mall research undertaken. It’s therefore encouraging to see that the average time a WiFi user spends on the network at Waterford Plaza is a staggering 1.37 hours, which works out at an average spend of $61.65 per customer per visit.

In just four months Waterford Plaza has recorded 1895 users; if we multiply the average spend of $61.65 by the number of users, the additional revenue stream is potentially worth $116,826.

The number of profiles collected from December until March (including those users accessing WiFi on multiple devices) has increased by 450%, whilst the number of unique users has increased by 441%. Waterford Plaza have been able to identify that their most popular users are females between the ages of 18 and 34.

Looking at the mall’s presence data, we can see that on an average day, 106 male visitors and 157 female visitors log in to the WiFi. We can also see that at the mall’s busiest recorded time, 4872 male visitors and 7331 female visitors logged in.

What do the team at Net-worxs think?

“Net-worxs Software have been extremely encouraged with the reaction from clients by combining Net-worxs and Purple into a single platform. As a result of the outstanding performance showed at Waterford Plaza, Net-worxs Software has been inundated with clients reviewing their current Wi-Fi solution and are looking at changing to the Purple + Net-worxs solution.

Net-worxs Software look forward to the combined effort from both companies to provide the premier solution for our clients and the continued development for the WiFi industry.”

Alan McAndrew, C.E.O Net-worxs Software and Chairman of McAndrew Enterprises Pty Ltd.

Comment from the Customer

“During the past 10 years or so I have been saluting the efforts and ongoing works of Net-worxs for their WiFi solutions platform and their ongoing efforts to improve the use of free WiFi through the shopping centres I have managed. The analytics available to us to use for marketing our products both as a whole and for individual retailers to promote them and increase both their sales and therefore the centre asset is just amazing.”

Leanne Chaproniere, Senior Asset Manager Lease Equity.
WA Shopping Centre Awards 2013 Shopping Centre of the Year; WA Shopping Centre Awards 2013 Excellence in Marketing

(Quote from LinkedIn 3/17/2016)

18th January 2016

Purple WiFi evolves into Purple, the Intelligent Spaces company

January 18, 2016: Purple WiFi, the cloud-based marketing and analytics WiFi software company, today becomes Purple, the intelligent spaces software company, to better reflect the organisation’s wider scope of focus.

Since 2012, Purple has been changing the WiFi landscape starting with easy to access social WiFi for the customer and a range of WiFi marketing and analytics tools for venues to enable better understanding of, and communications with, their customers.Read More

22nd June 2015

Purple WiFi appoints Collin Tan as Regional Manager ASEAN

June 22nd, 2015: Purple WiFi, the cloud-based Social WiFi software company, today announced the appointment of Collin Tan as Regional Manager, ASEAN reporting to Allen Pan, VP Asia Pacific.

He will be based in Singapore and will be responsible for all Purple WiFi’s business in the ASEAN region. He will be working to develop the distributors and reseller channels across countries in ASEAN, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar and engage directly with key service providers in these countries.

Collin was previously the Managing Director of Singapore start-up, 1Care Global Pte Ltd, providing after sales services, such as equipment protection and extended warranty. Under his leadership 1Care enjoyed tremendous growth and customers in the Asia Pacific region which includes the world’s Top 2 PC manufacturers.

Before joining 1Care Global, Collin spent 10 years with Intel Corporation, serving as Country Manager for Intel Singapore before he left in 2013. Previous roles with Intel include leading the regional OEM team for one of Intel’s largest MNC customers and Manager for the Field Applications Engineers Team based out of Taiwan.

Purple WiFi is expanding globally following a $5m investment announced earlier this year. The investment was raised in order to accelerate product development and recruitment of a truly global sales team, which already has strongholds in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas.

The WiFi offering focuses on engaging, understanding and delivering value by allowing users to gain free access to a public WiFi network through their existing social media accounts or a short form. The user gets access to family friendly WiFi, while the benefit to the business hosting the service (such as a restaurant, hotel, retailer, museum, sports stadium or shopping mall) is valuable analytic insights into the profiles and movements of their customers and a sophisticated built-in marketing platform.

Thousands of venues globally have been secured and deep technology partnerships established, most notably with Cisco, Cisco Meraki, BT and Verizon but also many others.

Collin Tan, Regional Manager ASEAN, Purple WiFi, comments: “Purple WiFi provides the perfect solution for companies that wish to monetise their free WiFi, as well as enabling direct targeted marketing to users within its proximity. It also combines the four fastest growing technology sectors of Mobile, Cloud, Social Media and Analytics in a single product, making it extremely valuable as a service and technology organisation.”

Allen Pan, VP Asia Pacific, Purple WiFi, comments: “Collin brings the perfect combination of experience and drive to the role and we’re excited to have him onboard. The market in ASEAN is growing quickly and Collin’s in-depth knowledge of the region will allow us to capitalise on the opportunities for Purple WiFi.”

1st June 2015

Purple WiFi appoints Lars Elbaek Kristensen Regional Manager Northern Europe

June 1, 2015: Purple WiFi, the cloud-based Social WiFi software company, today announced the appointment of Lars Elbaek Kristensen as Regional Manager Northern Europe.

Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, Lars is set to expand Purple WiFi’s strategic expansion into Denmark, Sweden and Netherlands before branching out to Northern Europe.

Considered a pioneer in Big Data and Neuromarketing, Lars has two decades of experience in setting up new business, strategies and driving sales for networking and security solutions including establishing Kaspersky in the Nordics and playing a pivotal role in the global turnaround for HP.

Purple WiFi is expanding globally following a $5m investment announced earlier this year. The investment was raised in order to accelerate product development and recruitment of a truly global sales team, which already has strongholds in Europe, Asia-Pac and the Americas.

Lars Elbaek Kristensen, Regional Manager Northern Europe, Purple WiFi comments “A strong economy and the World’s best WiFi infrastructure, positions Northern Europe as the spearhead for fast new technologies. I’m thrilled to be working with Purple WiFi to offer the very best of Social WiFi networking, collaboration and powerful analytic tools to our users.

“With our agnostic platform we not only add new business critical features, we also enable our strategic partners and resellers to build a flexible recurrent revenue stream without moving focus from their core business.”

Eric Law, VP of Worldwide Sales, Purple WiFi, said of the appointment: “I am certain that Lars will cement Purple WiFi as a leader in Northern Europe for WiFi software, accelerating our ever growing customer demand in the region. Our aim is for our customers to generate revenue at the same time as improving customer experience in venues. Lars’ invaluable experience will be crucial for us to help our customers engage their customers in new ways, understand and ultimately derive value from their WiFi investment.”

4th March 2015

Purple WiFi appoint Eric Law, VP of Worldwide Sales

Purple WiFi are expanding globally following a $5m investment announced earlier this year. The investment, led by a group of high net worth individuals in influential positions, was raised in order to accelerate product development and recruitment of a truly global sales team.

Introducing Eric Law. Our new VP of Worldwide Sales, joining Purple WiFi from Cisco Systems. Eric was an 18 year veteran at Cisco Systems, where he had experience leading Sales and Business Development teams in the Enterprise and Channel. His most recent role was as Director of Sales Strategy and Business Development, for the Enterprise & Public Sector as well as the Technology Architectures in the Europe, Africa, Middle East and Russia – representing approximately $8B in revenue.

He has extensive experience leading high performing teams across multiple countries, technologies and segments. He creates effective strategic partnerships with customer executives by aligning IT solutions with business priorities and with Partners by creating differentiation and profitability.

Eric will take global responsibility for growing the Purple WiFi sales organisation, focused on driving revenue through and with Purple WiFi’s Customers, Distributors, Service Providers and Channel Partners. He will expand Purple WiFi’s business in the 61 countries where there is a current presence, by landing resources to support our customers across the world.

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO of Purple WiFi, said of the appointment:

“I’m delighted to welcome Eric on board. I have no doubt whatsoever that he is going to make an incredibly valuable part of our team and will be instrumental in taking us quickly to where we need to be, globally. Eric will use his in-depth knowledge of Channel Sales and his proven experience of building a global team, to attract partners and maximise success with scale.”

Eric Law adds:

“I joined Purple WiFi because I could see the tremendous potential for us to impact customers, using data and analytics to enable them to interact better with their own customers. The true entrepreneurial spirit of the team and the caliber of investors will allow me to empower the team to delight our customers and help drive their success.”

27th February 2015

We certainly turned Harvey Nichols Purple

Future of Customer Engagement for Retailers Event at Harvey Nichols

Fantastic turn out (in fact, standing room only!) for our event last week, which took place on the 5th floor of Harvey Nics in London and was all about the future of retail. Lovely to see so many trusted partners, customers and friends there, as well as industry analysts and journalists. Thanks again to everyone who attended and thanks to Cisco Systems who sponsored the event. A huge thank you to Graham Franklin from Cisco for organising it with me.

First off we had insight from industry veteran Bob Willett, into the retail landscape and how to ‘do’ good customer engagement. We were pleased to see Retail Week publish his point about the UK making strides when it comes to joined up retail channels, compared with the rest of the world. We also liked his point that employees are not your cost centre but your profit centre!

Chrid from schuh impressed everyone with her learnings from in-store WiFi; how people like to engage on their own devices and how she uses Purple to faciliate online stock checking in store. Lee from Harvey Nics made everyone stop to think, as he took a stand on the pros – and cons – of using customer WiFi for marketing purposes.

Sarah Eccleston was fascinating as ever providing anecdotes about how we are connecting more and more ‘things’ and why that’s interesting for retailers. She gave the example of the ice cream running out and the freezer ordering you some more…without you even needing to know. Dan in the audience tweeted ‘that woman from Cisco is scaring me. I bet she knows what colour pants I’m wearing’!

Finally Bob Willett hosted Q&A with Sir Terry Leahy, the main draw of the event. Caroline from Retail Week, Teresa from Telesperience and Amanda from Morrisons all got to quiz him on his thoughts on where we are today and where we are going to be tomorrow. I’m not going to give away what he said now – we are making a highlights video so you will have to wait for that! However, one question that we asked them both, was to explain why they both decided to invest in a start up WiFi technology business. Sir Terry answered that Gavin had impressed him with his vision, and that WiFi is the next piece of the puzzle for understanding and engaging customers; whilst Bob Willett commented that he sees many companies with style over substance – but he was impressed by the fact that Purple WiFi has both style and substance.” Thanks Bob. We like your style and substance too!

Finally, congratulations to Eleanor Victoria from Pandora who won the £100 prize for her extremely creative tweet.

See you all at the next one.

24th February 2015

Purple WiFi looking forward to WiFi (and really sore feet) at MWC 2015

It’s gonna be big. No, really big

Did you know that MWC is the size of fifteen football pitches? A truly global event with over 85,000 attendees coming from 84 countries. Luckily it’s one of those properly smart cities with WiFi enabled services throughout. Their free internet access network is available to all citizens and is the largest free public WiFi in Spain, and one of the largest in Europe.

Taking a stand

After attending last year’s notoriously oversized event, Purple WiFi are excited to announce that we will be exhibiting at this year’s Mobile World Congress 2015, which promises to be even better than last year, including speakers from Facebook and Wikipedia amongst others. The event will take place again at Fira Gran Via in Barcelona, Spain.

However for us, it’s not just about the fact that we have a Purple WiFi stand 7B19. This year our involvement has moved to new levels.

Cisco and Purple WiFi at the event

We’ve joined forces with Cisco to assist in the WiFi provision and onboarding. This means we’ve worked with some of the greatest Cisco WiFi engineers to do some clever stuff that enables the 1800 exhibitors to get onto the WiFi easily.

This is the WiFi Splash Page that people will see at MWC. Ooh look, powered by Purple WiFi!

image of login page

Stop that bus!

Finally we are proud to be a part of the Cisco showcase stand, located in Hall 3 stand # 3E30. Purple are featured as a part of the Cisco Internet of Things ‘Connected Bus Stop’ of the future. We will be demonstrating how WiFi can help enable delivery of useful customer information that’s relevant to where you are standing, plus the powerful analytics profiling that happens behind the scenes.

So who can you meet from Purple WiFi?

Representing Purple WiFi at the event are our newly appointed Vice President of Worldwide Sales, with Anne Lakstigala, Vice President Service Providers and James Dale, Account Director.

You’ll find us at stand 7B19, talking about our thing, customer engagement and analytics over WiFi!

We will be wearing our comfortable shoes, that’s for sure, and have been told the secret is brand new socks, one pair for every day of the event. You can have that tip, on us, for free.

12th February 2015

Do you want to work for a global technology business?

We are hiring!

Could you be part of the Purple WiFi revolution?

At Purple WiFi we are innovators of cloud-based social WiFi. We have just secured $5 million investment funds and we are experiencing rapid growth on an international scale. We are also looking for talented, enthusiastic, driven individuals from around the globe with a can-do attitude to help expand our company further.

Work with a great team of people

We are a bunch of extremely passionate technicians, designers, marketing, sales and business professionals who all have one aspiration – to turn the world Purple!

Don’t just take our word for it. Have a look at the case studies from some of our employees and see what they have to say. Key things that people say about working at Purple WiFi are: the roles are varied; the teams are ambitious and hardworking and there is support to guarantee success from a knowledgeable and driven set of professionals. Innovation and creativity are nurtured, all within a friendly environment.

Opportunities at Purple WiFi

Purple WiFi are leading the way in the customer WiFi and analytics space, with an ever growing list of client success stories. Purple WiFi employees have the opportunity to work with large global brands and the potential to travel or work abroad. Our head office is in Ashton Under Lyne and we have offices in America and Asia.

Interested?

Be part of our success. See our current vacancies here.

3rd February 2015

Purple WiFi partners with Molson Coors to provide WiFi hotspot-driven CRM system

Participating pubs can increase social media engagement and customer interaction

February 3, 2015: Purple WiFi, the cloud-based social WiFi software company, today announced its partnership with Molson Coors, one of the UK’s biggest brewers to create a solution called “Molson Coors Cloud”.

As part of a new trial, Molson Coors is offering a secure gated access point for a pub’s WiFi where Molson Coors brands are stocked, such as; Carling, Coors Light and Cobra. The access point also enables the licensees to engage with their customers directly to build loyalty and provide them relevant information and offers.

The licensed venue can also use the Molson Coors Cloud to achieve social media engagement, customer interaction and loyalty, data collection and ROI from additional food and beverage sales.

Alpesh Mistry, Molson Coors Customer Marketing Director, says: “Being a significant On Trade supplier that continues to have a direct relationship with our customers, we know publicans are looking for new modern ways to drive sales. The idea of having a resource that would capture customer data and then use this to attract these pubgoers back would have historically been left to those with significant time and budget. By creating Molson Coors Cloud, our hope is we are enabling any of our customers to have this ability.”

Daniel Dearlove, General Manager – Backyard Bar & Backyard Comedy Club says: “The Molson Coors WiFi portal is already driving more traffic to our free WiFi service and the marketing opportunities it enables are easy to implement and helping us to engage in new ways with our customer base. With a better understanding of our customers we can also identify new markets for our events and improve the service we offer, resulting in increased numbers of returning customers.”

Upon logging in, the customer will be given the choice of how to access the free WiFi, either by a short form or their chosen social media account. When accessing via social media, the venue can ask for a Facebook ‘Like’ or a Twitter ‘Follow’ and gain the opportunity to engage via social media or email.

Users must agree to the terms and conditions, allowing the following data to be collected during login: name, age, gender, location, email address and mobile number.

Each customer that accesses the WiFi provides their consent to the venue access to some of the information captured during the login process. This information is stored securely in the MolsonCoorsCloud.com portal and can be used by the venue to view insights and analytics about their customers.

All data is stored in line with all legislation and best practice, and can be used by the venue.

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO, Purple WiFi comments: “The drinks industry was one of the first to recognise the demand for free WiFi. Over the past few years there has been a noticeable increase in the number of pubs that provide a WiFi hotspot for their customers. But the supply still isn’t meeting demand and WiFi is often unsecured, whilst offering little or no benefit to the venue.Molson Coors is paving the way within the drinks industry, turning that situation on its head by providing free WiFi and getting something tangible in return.”

Upon a successful trial across 20 venues throughout the UK for a period of 6 months, Molson Coors will be looking to launch this to all outlets across the UK with clear analysis on the benefits of using this portal.

The trial has been set up using TP-LINK wireless equipment running custom Purple WiFi firmware, enabling remote management using a web-interface.

The TP-LINK dual band router, WDR3600, is an affordable, high power and feature rich solution that comes pre-configured with Purple WiFi’s technology, resulting in a cloud managed WiFi access point. This gives Molson Coors and the participating establishments peace of mind that in the cloud, TP-LINK could replicate what could be achieved with more expensive products. It also meant that they could configure, diagnose and troubleshoot remotely.

14th January 2015

Purple WiFi raises $5 million investment for rapid international expansion

Investment funds will be used to accelerate product development and for staff recruitment to aid global expansion, targeting EMEAR, APAC and the Americas

January 14, 2015: Purple WiFi, the UK-based WiFi social login and location analytics platform, today announced new funding to accelerate its rapid international expansion. The $5m funding was led by Sir Terry Leahy, Bill Currie, Iain MacDonald and Bob Willett from the William Currie Group with participation from Juno Capital, a leading Angel Syndicate.

Purple WiFi has also appointed new board members as part of the process, including: Sir Terry Leahy, former Tesco CEO who took the retailer from the third largest in the UK to the third largest retailer in the world, launching the Clubcard during his tenure; and Ian Kelly, Serial Entrepreneur in Telecoms, Energy and other markets.

The large scale investment interest from both the retail and telecoms sectors demonstrates a recognition of the value and potential for WiFi in these verticals; incorporating the future of shopping, showrooming and enhancing customer experiences in-store for retail, and telecoms recognising the need for valid data offload solutions.

Additional investors include: Bill Currie, Iain MacDonald and Bob Willett from the William Currie Group; Jonathan Hammond and Steve Ashton from the beverage distribution industry; Juno Capital a leading Angel Syndicate, including high profile investors such as Sir Nigel Rudd, Chairman at Heathrow Airport Holdings Limited (formerly BAA) and formerly Chairman Alliance Boots, and three senior Ernst and Young partners, who facilitated the round.

Purple WiFi allows users to gain free access to a public WiFi network through their existing social media accounts or a short form. The user gets access to family friendly WiFi, while the benefit to the business hosting the service (such as a restaurant, hotel, shop, museum, sports stadium or shopping mall) is that they are rewarded with valuable analytic insights into the profiles and movements of their customers and a sophisticated built-in marketing platform.

Purple WiFi was originally established due to a recognition of the world’s growing need for fast, free public WiFi. The service has been purposefully designed to be user friendly, to be technology ‘agnostic’, cloud based and scalable across geographic boundaries. It meets the growing user demand for fast, secure WiFi enabled spaces, with the added value of giving something back to the company who invested in the WiFi.

Purple WiFi’s social media authentication covers an extensive number of global social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram, Weibo and VKontakte. The login journey and analytics platform are localised into 18 languages.

Thousands of venues globally have already been secured, with strongholds in Europe, Asia-pac and the Americas. Deep technology partnerships have already been established, most notably with Cisco, Cisco Meraki, BT, Telstra and Vodafone, but also many others. A channel organisation, Purple WiFi have distribution agreements with Ingram Micro and Westcon Comstor who are the two biggest in the world, along with a number of country specific ones.

Sir Terry Leahy, former Tesco CEO, comments: “Having been in the retail space for many years, I have seen how technology has and will continue to revolutionise the industry. Purple WiFi is a brilliant example of how additional value can be driven from an existing infrastructure. I’ve been incredibly impressed with what Gavin and the team have achieved to date. I very much look forward to helping them drive global expansion and adoption.”

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO, Purple WiFi comments: “WiFi is something that is expected, for free, just as we expect access to heat, light and water. But the big question in recent years has been how to monetise WiFi. Purple WiFi has created an innovative low cost solution that gives unprecedented analytics and insights, whilst driving true ROI for businesses. We have seen unimaginable interest and demand for the product, not just within the obvious sectors of retail, leisure and hospitality, but also unexpected sectors such as social housing, education and healthcare, where they want to use WiFi to communicate better and deliver services. I’m absolutely delighted with this new investment and expertise, which will help us accelerate our product feature set and further build out the team that I am already very proud of.”

View Purple WiFi’s current recruitment drive including a list of available roles here.

Purple WiFi’s latest investment round was facilitated by Ernst and Young and legals were handled by Andrew Sturge, Partner at Turner Parkinson LLP of Manchester.

5th November 2014

Plus Dane Group installs Purple WiFi and Cisco / Cisco Meraki

Social housing provider, Plus Dane Group, has signed a three year contract with Purple WiFi to provide their WiFi solution across 31 venues in Merseyside and Cheshire. The WiFi solution will be available in all premises owned by Plus Dane and also in communal areas for tenants.

The social WiFi overlays the existing telecoms provision meaning that the service can be installed without any disruption to existing internet connections.

Currently there are 21 Cisco access points in place at the Plus Dane Group Head Office. The plan is to roll out the guest WiFi across 30 sites with one Cisco Meraki AP each, including community and leisure premises managed by the Plus Dane Group.

The big attraction for the Group to install Purple WiFi is that the software solution is completely family friendly; something essential to a social housing provider working within local communities. As a member of the Internet Watch Foundation, Purple WiFi provides content filtering, which protects users from viewing potentially abusive or illegal content.

Tenants will be able to get online within a couple of clicks, by using their existing social media authentication or a short form. Once they have logged in once to Purple WiFi, they won’t need to keep filling out a registration form or remember complicated usernames or password on subsequent visits. The system will simply remember them and they’ll be online seamlessly.

In addition to providing tenants with safe and secure online access, the Group will be able to use the Purple Portal tool to provide relevant content to those using the WiFi, enabling them to communicate meetings, new services available to those living in the community, opening hours of public spaces, updates on any repairs being made across the estate, etc.

On the decision to install Purple WiFi, Neil Hill, Network Infrastructure Analyst at Plus Dane Group, said: “As part of our Ni-Di Initiatives (Neighbourhood Investor – Digital Inclusion), we were looking for a way to give free Internet access to our tenants. I was tasked with finding a guest wireless solution that would be easy for tenants to use, with no intervention from the IT support team necessary for them to get online. I also wanted a solution that would overlay on our corporate systems. Purple WiFi offered me the perfect solution and I had the freedom to choose the hardware it operates on. I’ve been delighted with the service I have received from both Purple WiFi and Cisco Meraki.”

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO of Purple WiFi commented: “Social housing management companies are approaching us more and more, as things like Digital Inclusion and Universal Credit climb higher up on their agenda. In providing free guest WiFi housing groups and associations are answering a need for their tenants to be always connected which is becoming more and more important as governments move their services online. It’s also giving the people access to free WiFi in their community spaces, which is what they want and expect. Purple WiFi are also providing the Group with a level of reassurance, as we have family friendly content filtering in place and follow legal and security best practice.”

We also asked Craig Hill, Social Housing Account Manager at Cisco to comment on the partnership. Craig told us: ‘Housing associations are looking for low cost, easy to manage WiFi solutions so that they can get their tenants online quickly and provide them with digital services. Associations can now set up a low touch solution using Cisco Meraki cloud wireless. It’s incredibly easy to set up and run for the IT teams and comes with a simple dashboard.

The combination of Cisco Meraki and Purple WiFi is an incredibly competitive solution. It makes sense commercially, and makes Digital Inclusion a cost effective reality for housing associations.’

Plus Dane Group purchased the Purple WiFi license from Pennine Telecom and the Cisco Meraki hardware was purchased and implemented by Eison.

24th October 2014

SIP opportunity for Cisco Partners and Purple WiFi

Purple WiFi is a Cisco Preferred Solution Partner, Cisco Compatible and has a joint solutions incentivepromotion in place, which rewards partners for creating innovative business solutions by offering incremental discounts.

Purple WiFi are also a Cisco CMX (Connected Mobile Experiences) Ecosystem partner and work with the tools available in CMX. WiFi users login via social platforms and venues benefit from more detailed customer reports and demographic information that is not available with CMX alone.

The partnership between Cisco and Purple WiFi allows for enhanced customer social profiling and demographics data; an advanced analytics interface, including heat-mapping and footfall reports; social marketing management tools such as social posts and e-vouchers; and marketing tools such as drag and drop geofencing and location based services.

IVT

The Cisco Compatible logo was awarded to Purple WiFi on successful completion of Interoperability verification testing (IVT).

The interoperability testing was conducted in a third party laboratory based on testing criteria given by Cisco. Cisco and Purple WiFi have worked together to simulate typical customer configurations and test them thoroughly. All Purple WiFi’s products and technologies are Cisco Compatible and formal recognition of this can be found on the Cisco Marketplace.

Cisco customers faced with a choice between tested and untested products are likely to prefer a product that has gone through IVT. Cisco customers will be reassured knowing that Purple WiFi has been pre-tested, which reduces integration costs, accelerates deployments and minimises risk of failure.

What is SIP?

Cisco’s Solution Incentive Program rewards partners that invest in the development and sales of innovative new business solutions, multiplying the power and versatility of Cisco technology. Cisco partners who develop, package and promote unique customer solutions incorporating Cisco® technology can accelerate partner success. Purple’s channel approach means the SIP integrated with Purple WiFi’s applications and services may be able to add value.

The Cisco and Purple WiFi partnership

The partnership between Cisco and Purple WiFi enables full identification of customer needs, creates solutions for meeting those needs and develops a business plan for deriving full benefit from these new opportunities. Qualifying partners such as Purple WiFi are rewarded with premium engagement opportunities with the Cisco marketing and sales teams.

The SIP opportunity enables the potential for Purple WiFi to successfully increase revenues in critical markets, increase the business relevance of networks, expand network bandwidth and support the channel partner value model. The Purple WiFi and Cisco solution enables partners to benefit from a greater level of incremental discount through SIP.

Take advantage today

For Cisco partners wishing to know more, speak to your Cisco account manager or email us at Purple WiFi on info@purplewifi.com.

You can download the Cisco / Purple WiFi SIP form here:

Purple WiFi Presence and Location Based Services approved for SIP.doc

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