UPM RFID and Narian Technologies, a leading provider of NFC applications and services, have announced a strategic partnership to drive new NFC marketing, customer service and employee management for retailers and product providers utilizing UPM RFID NFC tags at the WIMA NFC USA event in the Mission Bay Conference Centre in San Francisco. The companies are introducing a joint deployment of custom WIMA NFC applications and services with the aim to demonstrate the robustness and added value of UPM RFID and Narian NFC’s offerings: “the only limitation is the imagination”.
The WIMA conference-specific applications and services on show include live NFC audience-speaker interaction, booth meet-up requests and a voting system for the WIMA application competition, among others. UPM RFID and Narian are also showcasing their core retail application and services offering for numerous scenarios such as restaurants, big box retailers and supermarkets. These products and services for retailers will be available in Q1 of 2012.
US-based Narian Technologies launched their first set of NFC applications earlier this autumn, enabling retailers to take over NFC services with low start-up costs and with only a low percentage of their customers carrying NFC phones. The Narian Platform allows users to place orders, summon store employees for assistance, check product availability and use other interactive services inside the store. Apps customization to precisely match the retailer’s visual guidelines is easy: all options, sub tools, graphics and buttons can be customized, as well as process, flow, and content, with a user-friendly interactive management system.
Narian has over 300 defined NFC applications and services for 16 unique retail market segments including restaurants, supermarkets, department stores, hotels and stadia. The Narian Application is currently available on Android NFC phones, and will soon be available on all other major phone platforms. Narian Technologies has patented all of its innovations.
“NFC’s value isn’t simply about mobile payment. Particular value lies in all the secure services and applications that can be made available to enhance consumers’ lives. We believe the UPM RFID and Narian offering is of value today, with low numbers of NFC phones. Through this value, we will dramatically accelerate NFC phone usage into consumers’ hands,” says Einar Rosenberg, CEO, Narian Technologies.
“Narian Technologies has been instrumental in bringing NFC technology into retail and hospitality, providing clear benefits to both the merchants as well as the consumer, and being able to do all this in a simple and affordable way,” explains Jan Svoboda, Sales and Marketing Director, UPM RFID. “As NFC mobile devices flood the smartphone market, Narian solutions are enabling businesses and consumers to immediately take advantage of the new trend, where customers and employees have a powerful RFID/NFC reader in their hand at all times.”
For further information, please contact:
Mr Jan Svoboda, Sales and Marketing Director, Americas, UPM RFID, tel. +1 805 312 4679
Mr Einar Rosenberg, CEO, Narian Technologies, info@nariantechnologies.com
About UPM RFID
UPM RFID, part of UPM’s Engineered Materials business group, is the world’s number one producer of HF, NFC and UHF radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and inlays. UPM RFID has a global service network consisting of factories in China and the United States and a broad network of sales offices worldwide. The UPM Group employs around 24,500 people and has production plants in 16 countries. UPM’s annual sales exceed EUR 10 billion. UPM’s shares are listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Further information is available at www.upmrfid.com.
About Narian Technologies
Narian Technologies was founded a decade ago to focus on consulting and core product development within mobile commerce and service applications around Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. Narian has multiple patents and patents pending for hardware, software and network technologies based on NFC and Mobile. For more information please visit www.nariantechnologies.com.