Ivory Coast capital Abidjan has recently seen the launch of Diaspo4Africa funding platform, intended to provide innovative companies and entrepreneurs with investment and funding from abroad. Diaspo4Africa got technical support from African Development Bank, as well as the institutional partnership of the Ministry of Integration. Diaspo4Africa is envisaged to connect African diaspora investors with local companies and startups looking for funding, contributing to the development of African economies and diversification of African enterprises.

The platform was launched by Ivory Coast-based LUMEN Corporation, a technology enabler for enterprises and startups that also provides African companies with consultancy and functions as a startup accelerator and funding platform. LUMEN’s cloud technology and hi-tech portfolio blend with incubator and integrator aspects, making it a unique organization in Africa.

On behalf of the Infobip team in Abidjan, Dro Alain Bamba and Mariane Aby were proud to attend the official launch celebration. As technology partners of the LUMEN Corporation, and a company with a pan-African blueprint, we understand the opportunities this funding platform offers African startups and enterprises, and Infobip is honored to participate in the project with our communications technologies and solutions.

The event took place at the headquarters of CGECI (Ivory Coast Confederation of Enterprises) in Abidjan and brought together startups, private companies, African Development Bank representatives, representatives of the Ministry of Integration and Ivorians from abroad, as well as online businesses, IT companies, insurance companies and NGOs that seek to advance opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Making waiting in queue a positive experience is what Lineberty offers, thanks to the virtual ticket. The virtual ticket lets the end user do other things while Lineberty queues instead. The user gets a ticket via a mobile app or via an Infobip-powered SMS using an interactive terminal, which lets the user know when it will be their turn and alerts the user when it’s time. The user shows the ticket and goes through without having to waste time waiting.

Lineberty is using 2-Way SMS and a dedicated number to increase customer satisfaction, for cultural venues, like the Paris Catacombes and since December, Galleries Lafayette. This upmarket French department store chain, is serving customers waiting for their tax refund.

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Lineberty has already received the trust of the city of Paris, National Monuments Center, Galleries Lafayette,  Air France, to name just a few, and is currently tested by major retailers like Carrefour, Intermarché and Leroy Merlin.

At the Mobility for Business event held in Paris, the Lineberty – Infobip partnership was highlighted with the Heart of the Jury award.

When sending large-scale time-critical communications, you need the flexibility to readily deploy, secure and manage your messaging activities. There can’t be any confusion about what you’re sending, no errors inside the content you’re sending out and no delays in getting your message across. With templates and collections available inside the Infobip Portal, we’ve provided a way for you to easily solve data governance and reduce human error that normally hinders massive campaigns.

Use templates to build effective communications

Templates allow you to seamlessly create a baseline configuration inside the Infobip Portal that can serve any messaging need. Available directly from the left side menu, the new module gives you complete control when creating SMS, Push, Voice and Email campaign templates. Regardless of the channel you’re deploying a template for, the process is relatively straightforward. We’ve built the templates functionality while keeping in mind the regular campaign creation flow – it’s built for speed. You are able to create a template just like you would any regular SMS, Push, Voice or Email campaign, so even if you haven’t created any templates yet, you’re familiar with the process.

With templates, you immediately impact sending speed with pre-set messaging scenarios. Building separate messaging flows for individuals or groups and create as many templates as you need to be able to quickly react to any scenario. By using templated campaigns, you gain the needed flexibility, positively impact sending speed with less room for error. Easily editable, they also allow you to optimize future communication with real-time data gathered inside the Infobip Portal.Once created, templates can also be organized and grouped into collections for easy management.

Minimize mistakes in large-scale messaging scenarios

The flexibility to efficiently operate and manage your messaging is crucial when your communications need to reach thousands of people, carrying sensitive information. In case of emergency messaging, such as natural disasters, using templates helps minimize human error and get time critical information into the hands of people who need it most. Instead of creating your communications plan on the spot, pre-set templates and collections help cut down the time needed for a swift reaction.Collections present a turnkey solution for template management that not only reduces manual tasks, but also effectively data-governs your messaging. With several users accessing the Portal, each handling communication campaigns of a different type or scenario, they allow you to differentiate between their roles and template access, while storing multiple templates for each targeted scenario inside one or more collections.

Being able to provide or limit access and editing options to a preset number of templates or collections for individual Portal users means fully-controlling the sending process. Template/Collection editing restrictions result in increased security for your entire messaging flow, giving you peace of mind for any type of time-critical messaging situation.

Having achieved full SMS connectivity to telecoms in Peru earlier this year, Infobip is providing top quality connections to enterprises, developers and internet companies that seek to reach, engage and authenticate their users over the SMS messaging channel.

Infobip’s proprietary platform allows businesses to launch SMS notifications, alerts, one time PIN authentication messages and omni-channel communications for their customers and end users. Connecting to the platform is easy – over APIs, an on premise solution, or a web portal with powerful campaign management and reporting features.

Full connectivity was achieved through the extensive work of technical and telecoms teams in Peru.

The suite consists of direct A2P SMS connections to all the mobile network operators in the country, and is complemented with a powerful messaging platform, integration assistance for enterprise clients, and 24/7 engineer-grade technical support. It brings a new level of quality and reliability to the enterprise messaging space.

For mobile network operators, this is an opportunity to monetize the A2P messaging traffic, which is on the rise globally, and is calling to be addressed through partnerships, professional tools, and expert consultancy.

As Infobip’s Luis Del Castillo explains:

When asked about the tangible outcomes of partnership with Infobip, Mr Omar Fortun of Entel Peru said:

Infobip’s Peruvian office is located in the vibrant Miraflores district south of downtown Lima.

Our new office in Stockholm, Sweden had a week of open doors earlier this month, welcoming clients and partners from Sweden in an informal setting and in the presence of Regional Manager Dragan Maga and VP Massimo Cristini.

Infobip has been doing business in the Nordics region for over 5 years, and has developed a broad network of clients and partners who rely on Infobip’s proprietary messaging platform to achieve their business goals.

The open doors week enabled our Stockholm-based team to present Infobip’s developments in the areas of omni-channel communications, as well as share future plans in regard to global and regional expansion and partnerships with mobile operators.

– We’ll keep working with mobile network operators in Nordic and Baltic countries on shaping A2P messaging as a fully-featured enterprise service, and developing A2P SMS use cases across enterprise verticals, said Dragan Maga.

Sweden and the entire Northern Europe region is seeing fast technology growth, with many enterprises and startups launching services that aim to reach, authenticate and engage users worldwide. This is where Infobip can help them launch and scale mobile services and connect with users across the globe.

Located in the bustling center of Stockholm, the office serves as a hub for Nordics and Baltics. For this occasion the Stockholm office team was reinforced by operator partnerships and human resources teams.

Building on an already successful collaboration in Latin America, the Infobip team attended the UNICEF Argentina fundraising gala in Buenos Aires in November.

Held at the Frers Pavilion La Rural, Buenos Aires Fairgrounds under the slogan “Promoting Youth Development” our team was joined by companies and corporate foundations, celebrities, athletes, journalists who support UNICEF’s future projects in Argentina, such as empowering education with new technologies, premature born children care, fight against violence among children, as well as the inclusion of indigenous Indian communities into the educational system.

“In Argentina there are 13 million children and adolescents. These boys and girls grow up in very different environments and situations that affect their development, from birth to adulthood. Therefore it is critical to accompany them during the various stages of their life, said UNICEF Representative for Argentina”, Florence Bauer, and thanked all those who with their participation, support the actions the agency is carrying out to improve the lives of children.

By helping to sponsor the initiative, Infobip provided a boost to the initiative alongside respected peers such as Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, ADT, BIND Banco Industrial, Banco de la Nacion Argentina, Chevrolet Emergencies, Noble Foundation, Iberia, La Rural – Fairgrounds Buenos Aires, Insurance Group Second, Grupo Clarin, Madero Este, Mapfre, Marpatag, Meliá, Mimo & CO, Pampers, Pepsico, Prosegur, Samsung, Sancor Health, Supervielle, VISA, and many more.

Auctions of special items belonging to the global football superstar Leo Messi, famous artist Milo Lockett and the movie dress from actress Natalia Oreiro (Unicef Ambassador) were a part of the efforts to aid this noteworthy cause. With the event proving to be a major success, our company is already looking forward to aiding future UNICEF endeavors on the continent.

LONDON, UK, JAKARTA, INDONESIA, 29 November 2016 – Cloud communications platform Infobip announced today the opening of its office in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Already an established player in the APAC region, Infobip’s Jakarta office will serve the rapidly growing tech and mobile scene in one of the most populous countries in the world.

– Indonesia is seeing significant growth in mobile services, OTT and e-commerce space, with investment in startups in 2015 double than the previous year. All those companies are looking for ways to expand internationally and Infobip as a technology partner can assist with that. Mobile phones are critical in user authentication, conversion and retention, especially for e-commerce providers who constitute one of the fastest-growing startup segments and whose success depends on onboarding and retaining millions or even billions of users from anywhere in the world, explains Alen Smoljan, Managing Director APAC at Infobip.

All the services boast international reach, superb uptimes and engineering-grade tech support.

– Infobip has recently invested over EUR 10 million into global expansion and technical upgrades to its platform, and in Indonesia we’re building a team of local employees in sales and business development roles, with future plans to add more employees to the roster. Some of Infobip’s clients in Indonesia include the ridehailing app Gojek and online booking site Traveloka, said Nofita Sari, Sales Team Leader at Infobip Indonesia. 

– We’re looking forward to bringing reliable, globally available services like SMS and voice 2-factor authentication, mobile number validation, notifications and omnichannel campaigns to Indonesia’s bustling tech scene. The Jakarta office will allow us to better serve our clients and partners in one of the most significant markets in the APAC region and contribute to Indonesia’s economic and technological development, says Silvio Kutic, Infobip founder and CEO.

The company’s local operations in APAC, started in 2010, today span Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, China, Taiwan, Japan, and India, with clients in the enterprise, banking, OTT, mobile and tech segments.

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Infobip’s in-house developed cloud communications platform allows companies and developers to reach 6 billion mobile devices connected to over 800 telecoms networks. Operating 48 offices in 40+ countries, Infobip innovates at the intersection of internet and telecoms technologies, creating new ways and opportunities for businesses and their end users to interact over mobile devices. www.infobip.test.

Contact:

[email protected]

Infobip Jakarta office:

[email protected]

+62 2129607256

In a recent commentary, Tele2 Estonia CEO Argo Virkebau explains the changing SMS landscape, and the Tele2 Estonia plan to handle the growing A2P SMS traffic through the Infobip platform.

There is an increasing variety of application-to-person SMS use cases seen across industries, with the trend largely associated with the rise of new messaging apps, social networks, and internet companies, says Mr. Virkebau. There is also the need of businesses to establish reliable, immediate communication channels with their end users over mobile phones.

SMS messaging is migrating from the person-to-person channel to the enterprise segment. Common usage is in authentication, i.e. delivery of one-time PINs to social media and OTT app users, as well as in critical and mobile-first communications in healthcare, smart home systems, banking and travel, to name just a few industries in which both enterprises and their end users benefit from the ubiquity and reliability of the professional SMS channel, in the words of Mr. Virkebau.

Tele2 Estonia has seen an increase in the percentage of A2P SMS messages received by their subscribers. A year ago, only 4 percent of the messages they received originated from applications and businesses. Today, this number has grown to 11 to 15 percent.

You can access the article here (in Estonian).

The end of each year is reserved for recapping the events that marked the market, and giving out awards for the best achievements in telecoms, mobile and technology. This year we’ve been shortlisted in the Best SMS Innovation category at the Global Carrier Awards 2016 – a great honor for us at Infobip, and an important recognition of the work and expertise we’ve invested in building A2P SMS solutions and models for mobile network operators around the world.

In the tough and stellar competition of Airtel, Telarix, Telin and Turk Telekom, we’ve been nominated for our successful Business-as-a-Service partnership with Aircel India, which further confirms the importance and value of the innovative BaaS model in today’s dynamic mobile telecommunications ecosystem. We’d like to congratulate the winners Turk Telecom for their achievement.

Mobile operators worldwide are feeling the pressure of ensuring profitability and rolling out new mobile data services combined with falling revenues from long-standing profit drivers of voice and SMS. In such an environment, monetizing existing resources presents itself as excellent opportunity, especially in messaging with the global growth of A2P SMS messaging as a customer engagement and 2-factor authentication tool. However, many operators are not properly equipped to roll out an entirely new business, with all of its specifics and requirements without major investment and expenditure.

The A2P SMS business has significantly evolved over the years, with new business models and dedicated customer-facing tools developed by specialized messaging providers. Infobip’s Business-as-a-Service model aims to bring mobile operators not just an A2P SMS monetization solution, but an entire business through access to Infobip’s messaging platform, complete with specialized customer support, front end tools, integration and deployment, as well as a global sales force dedicated to onboarding new enterprise clients, who tend to generate the most traffic. Much more than a managed services deal, the BaaS models is a no capex, no opex partnership between Infobip and the mobile operator, powered by a decade of experience in A2P SMS messaging.

The Aircel partnership was rolled out initially in July 2015, as the first complete BaaS deployment and partnership. With Infobip setting up, integrating and managing the messaging platform, after an initial warmup period, daily traffic has already reached 200 million SMS messages. The partnership continues to a mutual benefit, as evidenced by the words of Reena Rathi, Business Head of VAS at Aircel.

Attending the Global Carrier Awards 2016 Ceremony in Paris were Matija Razem, VP Business Development, Massimo Cristini, VP Business Operations, and Nikhil Shoorji, VP Sales India. The ceremony with dinner, charity auction, special guest speech and an after-party gathered 400 telecoms professionals from more than 50 companies from around the world.

Trends and developments in communication platforms for financial institutions were discussed at the 2-day Mobile and Banking Workshop hosted by Infobip in Marrakech, Morocco earlier this month, with over 60 participants from Francophone African countries gathered for a series of round tables, presentations and discussions.

Experts from Mali, Congo, Morocco, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Benin, Gabon, and Madagascar created a dynamic knowledge exchange platform, offering unique perspective on mobile communications and solutions in banking environments.

The challenges facing banks and financial institutions in Africa are unique as they are significant, from the availability of banking and mobile services, to the levels of technical literacy and access to mobile devices. While the core banking systems and consumer-facing services are comparable to emerging markets worldwide, each country, or even each bank has its own set of specific requirements.

The gap between the more affluent, mostly urban customers, with access to mobile data networks and smartphones, and the rural areas lacking those capabilities presents the banks with the need for diverse communication channels, and implementing such a variety is a technology challenge in itself.

Banks in Africa have often been the pioneers and agents of mobile innovation, but even then they were motivated by consumers as mobile users who are the ones that ultimately drive change, making enterprises, telecoms and specialist companies realign and adapt.

In such an ecosystem, multi-channel communication solutions are a matter of growing interest. Products and communications specialists in banks increasingly look at how to best combine channels to reach and engage customers across devices, while at the same time addressing their preferences and habits. Both telecoms and internet technologies are required to properly execute a multi-channel communications strategy and the convergence of both can reduce the rollout times and increase the efficiency of banking services.

Smooth transitions between messaging, voice, app notifications and email, possible levels of automation, smooth integration of online and offline channels, are emerging as major concerns. In some instances, implementation of multi-channel capability is seen as a matter of upgrading the existing messaging systems.

It was the ninth Mobile and Banking Workshop hosted by Infobip this year, after the ones in Latin America, Asia, Middle East and earlier ones in Africa.