Microsof Philippines introduced its mobile app Kaizala to address the communication needs of the frontline workers in the country working in banks, services, manufacturing plants, department stores and other industries.
“Most businesses work with several partners, distributors and stakeholders who are not on the company’s e-mail address list, so communication can be slow and unsecured. With Microsoft Kaizala, they can better connect and coordinate with the entire team. As Internet usage increases, we believe it will be easier for organizations to communicate with all their stakeholders wherever they are in the Philippines,” Bertrand Launay, Microsoft Philippines managing director said in his presentation to the media held in Pasay City.
Kaizala is positioned to be a communication enabler for large, distributed groups. By downloading Kaizala for free, he added users can communicate with their friends and relatives in a seamless manner. The free app could be deployed by small and medium enterprises and start-ups as part of their cost-effective methods in managing their business.
Meanwhile, the Microsoft Kaizala Pro geared for enterprise-level organizations provides full administrative control of their groups. It has additional features that include user and group management, system integration and automation using Microsoft Kaizala APIs, advanced reporting and analytics, ability to publish custom actions, ability to create public groups and organizational profile and directory.
Microsoft Kaizala enables managers to easily reach very large numbers of users within and outside their organization, using a simple and intuitive chat interface. Furthermore, organizations can broadcast information—such as announcements, photos, videos or documents, collect data from the field through polls or surveys, and see real-time analytics as results come in. Users can be quickly onboarded by using just their phone number as a unique ID.
“For management, the reviewing process becomes a lot easier online. What used to take seven to 10 days to compile is now happening on a real-time basis. They are able to get information in real time, and can also give feedback to the team in the field, consequently increasing productivity or allowing them to give better solutions to their customers,” Launay pointed out.
Rajiv Kumar, corporate vice president for Microsoft, said Kaizala represents an emerging trend how things are being done in the business world. Since the country has a 28 million work force, he said it makes sense for Microsoft to push Kaizala in the country. Furthermore, the large number of millennials in the work force is a good platform to push the product into the local market.
With Kaizala being used in their operations, Kumar said office personnel can now have an easier time to connect with large groups of people inside and outside their organization. Kaizala’s scope can cover employees, customers and suppliers. Moreover, he pointed out that the mobile app enables organizations to manage work with their extended teams through a single, unified platform—all on their mobile phone.
Kumar added the entry of Kaizala will enable several Philippine businesses to tackle several challenges, such as managing staff in the field, capturing operational data from remote staff to ensure that things are running as they should. With Kaizala, Kumar said field workers can send the important data to the office in a seamless manner.
He said Microsoft has also ensured Kaizala will be operating on secured platform. He added Microsoft Kaizala provides the controlled access and data security that customers require.
Through Azure Active Directory services authentication, Kumar said there is secured access to the Kaizala Management Portal where information-technology administrators can control membership of all groups, remove users in one instance, and control user access to sensitive data.