Photo above of the Solink Team outside their office in Kanata North on March Road.
Renewed vision for a connected business takes full advantage of a store’s raw data
We’re all familiar with ‘smart homes’ and how connecting our everyday house systems together makes for a better user experience. But how does ‘smart’ hit the conventional world of brick-and-mortar business? This is the question that Kanata’s own Solink is successfully answering, with their new vision for the future of ‘smart business’.
“If you want ‘smart’ to mean something in the business world, it’s got to relate to the pain points that are unique to the brick-and-mortar experience,” explained Chelsea Stirling, Director of Customer Success at Solink. “Our customers are looking for a way to get real use out of their existing business systems that’ll give them a competitive edge in the marketplace.”
And that’s exactly what Solink is doing. Originally branded as a security solution, the Solink platform syncs a business’ video to its sales transactions, creating real-time context for questionable cash register incidents; but over time, Solink adapted to the needs of its clients, expanding it to identify discrepancies in speed of service, exceptions in transactions, tracking of revenue, even auditing remotely for cleanliness and compliance. In recent months, Solink has added additional connectivity including drive-thru sensors, employee key cards, and much more. “If it involves a keystroke, we can probably connect it,” said Stirling. “This is how we become the hub of the ‘smart’ business.”
As this Ottawa-born startup recently began the arduous process of refreshing their brand, clients’ stories about the myriad ways they’ve used Solink to improve their business began to pile up. “Our customers have shown us a huge range of ways that synchronized data-plus-video have allowed them to manage their businesses more effectively,” shared Pierre Hage, VP of Marketing. “Not only were loss prevention specialists capturing theft rings and scams…managers were using our tech to audit uniform compliance, catch dumpster issues in the back alley, and even analyze revenue day by day or shift by shift, finding trends in the data that could be turned into action.”
Like all the best startups, Solink is disrupting the marketplace with its lean costs. A manageable monthly subscription fee makes the (fully mobile) app/platform accessible to businesses of all sizes. And because Solink integrates with a business’ existing cameras and Point of Sale (POS) systems, the platform requires minimal up-front costs for many businesses—one of the many ways that Solink is all about working ‘smart’.
“We’ve evolved so much, thanks in no small part to the ingenuity of our clients,” said Hage. “Our Customer Success team is in-house with us, which means we hear about our customers’ struggles on a daily basis. This helps us to tailor the app to fit the real world needs of brick-and-mortar business.
“It’s amazing to watch: one small box in the corner of your back room, and suddenly all that raw data that’s usually ignored is curated, analyzed, and producing reports that give real insight. It’s the evolution of a very old business model into something truly ‘smart’.”
See what Solink is up to on their newly minted site, solink.com.