Kaizala in Argentina, the WhatsApp for Microsoft companies

At present there are dozens - not to mention hundreds or thousands - of tools that allow people to communicate with each other. The messaging applications are an essential service in every user's phone, but there is one that is above all: WhatsApp.

With a constant expansion, new tools and a more than consolidated market, the company owned by Facebook has global dominance. Although it has great rivals of weight, like the Asian WeChat or the Russian Telegram, its hegemony is almost unquestionable. In this framework, a new solution arrived that promises to compete head to head.

With three years of development and a first set-up in India, Microsoft raised its flag in the world of mobile messaging. Kaizala is the big bet of the giant of Redmond to dominate a business that at present is elusive to him.

As a comparison, the computer market has 1,000 million active users, with a projected growth of 200 million in the coming years.

However, the company detected the opportunity in a segment for which a much larger growth is foreseen: the mobile. Today, in the world there are 3,000 million people who have cell phones and in the next five years it is expected to reach 6,000 million.

"Microsoft sells almost nothing to this audience and there we see a very big opportunity", explains exclusively to iProUP Juan Carlos Puente, sales director for Canada and Latin America at Microsoft.

But what is the strategy of Kaizala to conquer a market that seems already accustomed to the comforts of WhatsApp?

An application to master them all
With the opportunity already identified in 2016, Microsoft began to explore communication alternatives in India, the country of origin of the current CEO of the company, Satya Nadella.

In an Interent ecosystem of low speed and little infrastructure, but with the need to connect millions of inhabitants, the challenge was present.

In short, Kaizala is "a platform to digitize processes and handle tasks". The tool is based on a chat with a design very similar to other proposals. But that works as a communications "enabler".

"The world is handled with WhatsApp because it is used everywhere." At first glance, Kaizala seems the same, but it goes further and allows you, among other things, to connect very large groups of up to millions of people in one place. ", adds Puente.

The differential of this platform is in its "mini-apps" or "action cards", which integrate applications within the same ecosystem.

What does this mean? That the users of a group can use basic tools -such as surveys, appointments, announcements or request collections-, but also the platform is open so that third parties can develop their own apps.

"This has great potential for companies to develop their applications and obtain analytics of that information, for example, a company can have data on the routes shared by its truckers and optimize their work," adds Emerson Pinha, director of Kaizala. Argentina.

In large groups, which can house from a handful of office workers of a firm to thousands of customers of a bank, you can have a unidirectional conversation (from the administrator to the rest) to disseminate information or obtain data from a service.

For example, in less than 30 seconds it is feasible to do a "sophisticated" survey, where the group administrator receives a card that provides real-time data on the responses of the rest. Likewise, it is possible to export the data to an Excel spreadsheet already tabulated with the information of the participants.

With his proposal, Microsoft wants to go out and fight the kings of the market. "With Kaizala we want to position ourselves to compete with Apple's App Store and Android's Google Play, where the mobile development platform is going to be this ecosystem," says Puente. And he adds that "it is a different way to the traditional one and to transform the mobile world".

Unlike traditional operating systems, apps are developed only once, but requires an adaptation to work on iOS and Android. Thus, users do not have to be updating their applications all the time.

Drive digitization from the phone
This ecosystem, which is initially aimed at businesses, has special attention to the safety of its customers. The application guarantees teamwork, both internal and external employees (suppliers, partners and customers), using high security standards to protect the data that is distributed.

Through end-to-end cryptography and other techniques, Kaizala also allows the administrator of a group to keep the data it disseminates protected so that it can only be seen by the people he wants.

Also, once a user exits or is removed from the group, they no longer have access to the files that were sent out there. Pinha explains: "This makes a corporate identity, where you can secure the data so there are no leaks."

In this way, the app wants to simplify the bureaucratic processes that go through government organizations. Puente explains that, for example, they already have a whole city using Kaizala in India. There are about 60 thousand inhabitants who can carry out procedures from the app, such as requesting birth certificates, for example.

"Instead of spending four or six hours in an office, people can do the process, follow some questionnaires and in a few minutes a PDF file with the item comes in. This also applies to other cases in which there is pay, because the platform allows you to make collections and integrate payment applications. " There the authorities can obtain information in real time about all their procedures.

The "basic" Kaizala app is free for all Android and iOS users. In contrast, the Pro version (which offers advanced tools, such as statistics) is available for $ 1.4 per month and is subsidized for Office 365 subscribers.

Cultural and business change
From the company point to glimpse the future potential of the tool. In the search for data - the "oil" of today - companies can access places they have not previously.

"It is possible to achieve engagement with employees, traditionally done by mail, but there are people who could not be reached, get information from the so-called frontline workers, those who do not have a computer like the police or ATMs of a supermarket, it was the idealistic dream of the companies in the last 50 years ", explains Puente to iProUP. At this point, there is great potential to find value in data lost by all those who have a phone in their pocket.

To all this we can add the integration with Microsoft artificial intelligence tools such as Cognitive Services, which is integrated with Azure. Thanks to this, data is obtained in real time when someone interacts with any of the apps.

Also, this information can be used as raw material to feed the Artificial Intelligence and the bots, digital assistants increasingly present.

"For example, the technicians of an airplane can solve doubts in the middle of work, by consulting by text or voice a bot that searches for the answer in its base.There is a huge benefit for the new generations of employees.Part of this work is in train the system, an increasingly streamlined process. "

With a long-term vision, Microsoft began the expansion of its innovative communication and digitalization tool for companies in Argentina and the rest of Latin America. The goal is clear: to be the next WhatsApp.

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