The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas is “in danger of being left behind” unless it exploits the same digital tools that foreign competitors are using to sell goods and services here, a senior Aliv executive warned yesterday.

Gravette Brown, the mobile phone provider’s chief commercial officer, told the Grand Bahama Business Outlook conference that those companies able to “future proof” their operations the best will be those with the strongest connections with their customers.

Referring to “the struggle of being left behind and the possibility of being left behind”, she added: “Future-proofing your business, and designing what it looks like for the next two, three or even five years from now is critical.”

Ms Brown urged Bahamians to shed the mindset of thinking, whenever they see foreign companies employing new and innovative business practices, that things will never be done like that in this nation.

“The world is moving that way, the world is increasingly global, and coming in the backdoor with products, services and competition,” she warned. “And unless we in this tiny country take these tools and use them, we are in danger of being left behind.”

Ms Brown said Aliv has launched two apps, the Discover app and The List app, which will shortly be made available to Grand Bahama businesses.

Explaining the rationale for the “Discover app”, which will launch this summer, she added: “What we wanted to design was a way that can empower tourists to go out and explore and discover The Bahamas for themselves, and also it’s a great way for locals to discover The Bahamas themselves.

“This concept is not unique to anything we’ve done; this is the wave of the future. So this is something we started working on about three years ago. All of the museums, all of the cultural sites all around the world, the Louvre, etc… everyone has been doing the same thing.

“Everybody clearly had been working on similar sorts of projects over the past few years, finding new ways to connect visitors to their countries or domestic tourists themselves with authentic ways to experience a country and the culture using both digital and real life experiences,” Ms Brown continued.

“The most important thing about apps like Discover app is that all of this is downloadable and you can go to the Aliv Discovery maps on either the Google Play store or in the Apple store and download this app today.”

When users download the Discover app they can expect to be taken to different locations across The Bahamas. It is designed as a homing beacon that will drive customers to businesses, offering 3D virtual experiences where persons can have an “augmented reality experience”.

The Discover app will allow businesses to “design” their customer’s journey particularly for demanding customers, while “The List app” will be introduced to Grand Bahama in the upcoming months.

The List app, which has been trialled in New Providence, allows qualified Aliv subscribers to receive rewards from participating partners in their MyALIV app. Once customers have achieved a qualifying level of spend, they are automatically enrolled and become eligible for discounts on goods and services from companies.

Ms Brown said: “The List is really just a way for Bahamians to transform how they engage with loyalty rewards. So we all have things like the Starbucks card or this card or that card, and just a dozen cards in your wallet, if you get right up to it, or you have to keep track of this number or that number. What The List does, it simply aggregates all of that into one tool or one app that gives you access.

“Up until now we’ve piloted it in Nassau, so dozens of retailers across four to six product areas, with everything from food to travel experiences and discretionary items.” Aliv has more than 180,000 customers that use its platform, with The List providing a way for customers to reach out to local businesses and give them an opportunity to showcase their products and services.