Internet of Things (“IoT”) data management, processing and control platform specialist Buddy Platform Limited (ASX: BUD) has signed a breakthrough marketing agreement with leading communications company Digicel.
Under the agreement Buddy’s “Buddy Ohm” product will be marketed, sold, distributed and installed across Digicel’s 26 markets in the Caribbean and Central America. The product will be branded “Ohm – powered by Digicel” in-the regions, replacing the Buddy branding on the Buddy Ohm and Ohm Link products.
The Carribean has been identified as providing a unique target market for the platform and noticeably the agreement was announced today by Buddy Platform CEO David McLauchlan at special event focussing the use of Big Data and other technologies to support Jamaica’s tourism sector.
Mr McLauchlan said tourism is the largest driver of revenues for the Jamaican economy and the wider region. It has also been identified that major hotels, international resorts and other tourism facilities are enormous consumers of water and electricity, adding significant cost to their operations.
“We couldn’t be more pleased to announce Digicel as our first major mobile operator reseller,” said Mr McLauchlan.
“Digicel operates in markets with very expensive energy and many of their larger customers, like governments and the hospitality industry, have facilities with extraordinarily large energy costs. There’s a huge opportunity for Ohm in the Caribbean and Central America, and there’s no better partner to have in this region than Digicel,” Mr McLauchlan added.
Up to 400 industry representatives attended the Jamaican gathering and guests were presented with free 30-day trials of Ohm to every hotel, resort or other tourism property represented at the event.
“Buddy has seen very high conversion rates from trial implementations to commercial deployments, lending confidence that this promotional offer will deliver strong commercial results,” Mr McLauchlan said.
Digicel is the largest mobile operator in the Caribbean, and has deep and broad relationships with the largest consumers of energy in the Caribbean, providing a unique opportunity to sell Ohm to business customers in need of energy monitoring services.
Digicel Caribbean and Central America CEO Vanessa Slowey said the company immediately saw the potential for the integration of Buddy Ohm into the Caribbean and Central America markets.
“After first being introduced to Buddy Ohm, we immediately saw a strong market fit for the product, and were very interested in partnering with Buddy to sell Ohm across our markets,” Ms Slowey said.
“As a real test of the product’s capabilities, we installed Ohm in our own headquarters facility in Jamaica. Now, we’re proud to pair it with our connectivity and take it out to our customers so that they too can start recognising the benefits.”
Through this agreement, Buddy will also be deploying Digicel SIM cards into the Ohm hardware, ensuring that the data collected transits Digicel’s superfast 4G and LTE data networks en-route to the Buddy Cloud.