6 June 2012
Italian people love mobile phones and use them for a wide variety of activities: surfing the web, keeping in touch via social networks, booking tickets, checking the weather, accessing maps and geolocation services and shopping online. Such are the conclusions of a survey conducted by the NFC & Mobile Payment Observatory of the ‘Politecnico di Milano School of Management’. Paying for lunch will be possible too very soon thanks to an innovative project kicked off by Edenred Italia (the inventor of Ticket Restaurant® luncheon vouchers), in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano, RIM (the company behind the BlackBerrry® smartphone line), Ingenico Italia (specialists in the design and development of electronic payment terminals) and Reply (specialists in the design and implementation of solutions based on new communication channels and digital media). This will be the first “Mobile Luncheon Voucher” experiment. Some one hundred students and staff members at the Politecnico di Milano will be given a BlackBerry® Curve™ 9380 smartphone running the Ticket Restaurant Mobile app, and will be able to spend their ‘virtual vouchers’ within a network of more than 60 cafeterias, restaurants and shopping markets in the university area, each set up with Ingenico POS running Nfc technology. This cutting edge project promises advantages for all: companies can cut the administration and logistical costs associated with paper voucher management; consumers can take advantage of the easy to use mobile phones to share their lunch breaks with co-workers and friends, using the social networking tools designed specifically for the project; and retailers will have the opportunity of using this channel to create an ongoing relationship with their customers by means of additional functions such as customer geolocation, table booking services and messages promoting the day’s ‘specials’. "This new product has evolved out of the growth and development process in which Edenred has been experimenting for years", said Andrea Keller, Manager of Smart Solutions Edenred Italia. "We introduced the concept of luncheon vouchers in Italy and launched electronic vouchers in the early days of the computer era. Now of course, we have to turn our attention to smartphones, the tools of the future. Based on mobile phone technology, Ticket Restaurant will provide a wide range of additional services, becoming a tool in the implementation of new marketing strategies, aimed at improving connections between users and venues. Edenred is constantly seeking new, cutting-edge solutions. This experiment is simply further proof of this mindset". *** Edenred, the inventor of Ticket Restaurant® and world leader in prepaid service vouchers for companies, creates and develops solutions aimed at boosting employee wellbeing and optimising the efficiency of companies and people. The solutions put forward by Edenred ensure that the benefits given out by companies are used for the purposes intended. They help in the management of: