Front Line Innovations, Inc - Essay Example

Front Line Innovations, Inc. (FLII) provides professional management and alternative and cost effective marketing concepts, programs, and systems requirements that address concerns on customer retention, operational solutions, increased sales productivity, and increase quality of services. Incorporated in 1999, FLII combines the managerial expertise and resources of its proprietors to produce a marketing and management company and an IT company as well that would set the trend in management consultancy and alternative marketing in the industry.

Investments in additional capital expenditures and manpower are put up by the shareholders as required on a per project basis. Resource tie-ups such as that with Goldplus, Converge Systems Inc., and Smart Card Solutions Inc. provide the base requirements for one of FLII's major applications involving card-based programs such as co-branded credit cards and loyalty programs. Likewise, this allows FLII to structure marketing incentive programs 'tailor-fit' for its clients. The office software set-up as well the customized software systems required for clients have been developed by FLII's technical group.

FLII's current manpower complement is composed of 30 sales and marketing, processing, encoding and admininstration personnel.Industry BackgroundSmart CardsThough a relatively new technology, smart cards have become an increasingly popular solution around the globe. A smart card is a tiny integrated-circuit chip embedded in a credit card-sized piece of plastic. The chip is what makes the card "smart" as it allows a lot more information to be stored and carried in the card compared to the standard magnetic-stripe card (Verifone, 1996).

Smart cards have been used to solve a variety of problems ranging from serving as a platform for frequent-shopper electronic loyalty programs, to providing a highly secure and convenient automated currency option, to enabling cost-effective healthcare and entitlement programs.Electronic Loyalty ProgramsWith the intense competition that characterizes retailing worldwide, forward-looking retailers have been turning to card-based electronic loyalty programs to attract new customers and retain their current customer base.

Smart cards have the opportunity to play a major role in electronic loyalty programs. Electronic loyalty programs use a retailer's POS system to track purchases made with credit, debit, smart cards or a retailer's proprietary card. Consumers can be rewarded for their continued patronage with discounts, free items, bonus points or other incentives. Experience has shown that such programs encourage repeat business and boost sales for the merchant (Verifone, 1996). The primary business of FLII is developing a loyalty program system integrator to enable the smart card to work with a retailer's POS or any other tracking system.

With the system, they are able to capture customer information from pre to post sales operations. Thus, FLII's core value lies on its ability to develop this type of proprietary software which is tailored to the