Software firm taps cloud model

A three-year-old local software company – 2 3 Perspective – has diversified to provide social and mobile analytic services over the cloud platform through a spin-off company called Shoppening that was set up late last year. 

Shoppening was established in late 2011 with seed funding from angel investors, venture capital funds and corporate investors.

2 3 Perspective’s founder and chief executive officer and the managing director of Shoppening, Thanaphongphan Thanyarattakul, said that this year, 2 3 Perspective will tap the regional market with the cloud model. The company plans to expand its business to serve potential customers in the Asean region. In addition, it has set itself revenue target of Bt100 million this year in the domestic market.

“We are going to be a regional provider. Using the cloud model, we will develop and make available our cloud services. This model will help us to expand our business coverage to the Asean region easily,” said Thanaphongphan.

He added that 2 3 Perspective is a service platform, which includes social analytic, mobile analytic, mobile campaign, mobile game, and mobile application. Services are available over the website. Customers can access and have tailor-made fitting for their business requirements. 

“This year, we went abroad for the first time. We kicked off our go-regional direction last month at the CommuniAsia in Singapore. 

2 3 Perspective started its business in November 2008 with the social network platform and launched its first project called Shoppening, which won the Thailand ICT Awards 2011 (TICTA 2011) in the Communication Applications category and Start-Up Company category.

Currently, the company’s major clients include Bangkok Tourist Division, Canon, Central Pattana, Department of Export Promotion, Ministry of Commerce, Kasikornbank, L&H Property, Nokia, Terminal 21, Tourism Authority of Thailand, and Starbucks Corporation. 

“We are now providing online solutions for our clients’ communication planning, including social media analytic platform, Facebook games, augmented reality service, interactive display, location-based as well as mobile application and mobile games across platforms including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry.

Under the cloud-computing platform, its services are flexible, scalable, and in the meantime increasingly stable and integrative, he said.

“We have social media API, augmented reality functionality, and location-based services to build brand awareness and positive aspects to our clients’ prospective users. With our experience and expertise in the digital world, we can help our clients’ business to meet the growing demand of integrated social media, mobile applications, online games, and complete Web portals,” said Thanaphongphan.

Meanwhile, Shoppening Co is set t o provide a mobile application and campaign management platform, giving business owners the ability to create mobile coupons, allowing customers to obtain rewards with paperless coupons. 

There are Shoppening modules for businesses and for consumers. Shoppening for Business provides a variety of monitoring services for business owners to track every progress of their businesses.

Shoppening for Business offers a variety of monitoring services for keeping track of every business progress.

“We just launched the Shoppening for Business, for both the iPhone and Android platforms, last month. We will launch an app for Windows Phone in the near future. It is our new business so we do not yet have revenue from it but we already have end-users who have the Shoppening app in their mobile phone. Now, we have about 400,000-500,000 users, which includes former users since we launched Shoppening as a project under 2 3 Perspective three years ago,” said Thanaphongphan.

Shoppening’s concept is to facilitate end-users who use smart phones, to not need to carry too many discount coupons and member cards with them when shopping. Just having the Shoppening app in their phone is enough.

He added that shopping with Shoppening requires only three easy steps – download the Shoppening app; find the preferred coupons or loyalty cards and show them to the cashier; and then click “Use” and scan the QR code from the cashier to start saving money and get rewards.

“People can also collect points on their mobile loyalty card and get rewards via their smart phone wherever they are,” said Thanaphongphan.

He added that social, local, and mobile are the main perspectives that software developers have to thinking about when designing and developing services. Now, both his companies – 2 3 Perspective and Shopping – are on track for the present moment and to cope with the future of the software industry.