Spotgue Presents 4.0 Mall Experience in Indonesia with Microsoft

 |   Indonesia News Center

Malls have long been a go-to recreational spot in Indonesia that continues to grow rapidly through time. Although it was once affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the growth potential for malls still shows positive signs. In 2021 alone, there were at least 6 new malls in the Jabodetabek area, either which have opened or still under construction, that further indicates the huge economic contribution, which can be provided by malls.

Along with the current hybrid situation and the need to implement various health protocols, it is highly important for malls to find new ways to increase business growth. Addressing that need, PT Spotgue Application Pratama has been utilizing its expertise in technology to support the development of the retail industry, by developing the Spotgue application in February 2020. This application, running on Microsoft Azure, is designed to enrich the experiences of mall visitors by making it easier for management to manage buildings, help tenants to attract visitors as well as conduct promotions.

In the midst of this global pandemic, Spotgue has also helped ease users to determine where and what they want to get at the mall — making visits to shopping centers shorter and more strategic. This also accommodates customers’ concerns to shorten their time in malls during these times.

Gerry Hasang, Founder & CEO PT Spotgue Aplikasi Pratama stated, “We are now witnessing how the online and offline landscapes are increasingly intersecting. The internet has allowed retailers to connect with customers in new ways, and physical stores are no longer their only way of reaching consumers. By combining online and offline experiences, customers are served with more options that were previously unimaginable.”

Rooted by the user journey of mall visitors, Spotgue offers a series of end-to-end features, which are:

  • Find and save parking locations. This helps visitors to track parking availability at the mall before arriving and remember their parking location easily.
  • Ask Alice, a personal assistant feature that provides personalized shop recommendations, food, gifts, and other products through a chat box.
  • Table reservation facilities in restaurants to the latest promos from shopping tenants. Through reservation, visitors only need to come to the restaurant at the desired time, or when they receive a call if they are on a waiting list status. Meanwhile, for promos, visitors can get various kinds of discount vouchers and/or other offers from various stores in the mall.

“Not only does it create an easy shopping experience for visitors, Spotgue is also a tool to help managers and shop owners to carry out marketing activities, increase visitor volume, and create long-term visitor engagement and loyalty. The implementation is also fairly easy because it is done through the Spotgue application version for building managers and tenants,” said Gerry.

The set-up time is also very fast. If all content and images are available, the mall’s main page can be set up on Spotgue within 1-2 working days. “What usually takes longer is preparing parking plans and mapping the parking points of vehicles on each floor, as well as preparing the tenants because each of them needs to update their respective digital storefronts. For tenants with limited resources, Spotgue provides additional services such as product photo assistance and copywriting. Training is also provided to ensure that tenants can maximize the Spotgue features,” added Gerry.

There are currently two malls that already offer this 4.0 shopping experience, namely Mall Artha Gading and Living World Alam Sutera. Jannywati Hartini, Director of the Alam Sutera Living World Mall said, “As the first in its field, Spotgue offers a solution that allows integration between us as shopping center managers, tenants, and visitors. This makes it easier for mall management to provide access to services and information to visitors, both in terms of operations and promotions. Spotgue also provides reliable IT training and assistance, enabling us to work efficiently. In our experience, the digitization process from the beginning of agreeing on doing a collaboration with them to finally going live in Spotgue only took about 4 months. We are very pleased to be able to provide added value for visitors and adapt to the current hybrid era.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyPKLxW_KcI]

Collaboration with Microsoft

As for building this application, Spotgue utilizes Microsoft Azure cloud computing technology.

“After various trials using different cloud platforms, we decided to choose Azure for three main reasons. First, Azure is easier to use because of the feature names and the availability of more familiar templates to users who are just migrating to cloud computing technology. Second, Azure’s pricing is very friendly for startups like Spotgue. There are even free-to-use programs to some extent. If we want to upscale later, the process is easy, and we only need to pay according to our usage. Third, Microsoft has fast after-sales support – both in Indonesia and in the Asia Pacific – so that our operations become more reliable. This also enables us to deploy products and set up two malls in just one year. Now, we are preparing a third mall, Pacific Place, which is planned to launch in early 2022,” explained Gerry.

Spotgue itself is one of the alumni of the Microsoft for Startups where Spotgue received various mentoring and coaching from global technology industry experts, assistance to enter the market, as well as grants to Microsoft Cloud facilities. These include Microsoft Azure, GitHub, and Visual Studio, as well as Microsoft 365.

Gerry added, “Together with Microsoft, we hope to expand our services in the future and reach more public spaces outside of shopping centers, such as museums, airports, office buildings, and recreational areas where a Spotgue solution is needed there. The features that are currently available in Spotgue can be modified to suit individual needs, and we can’t wait to see how Spotgue is implemented in more places in the future.”

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