Outsourcing Age

How Sending Work to India and China Helped a Company Meet Customer Requests Quickly

Author: OutsourcingAge Editor

The bane of using a laundromat is that you have to hang around until your clothes are dry. No more if you use a dryer equipped with a wireless device from USA Technologies. The company’s eSuds program allows the machine to send the user a text message when the clothes are done.

The owner of the dryer is happy too because, if you paid by credit card, the money is already in his account.

USA Technologies develops technologies for unattended vending cashless payments, typically for use in vending machines, kiosks, laundry machines, even hotel lobbies. The device, which sends data over ATT’s GSM network, allows users to swipe a credit card. USA Technologies authorizes the card and then sends a message to the machine to approve the sale, letting buyers get their soft drinks or turn on the dryer. Then USA Technologies settles the transaction, so it appears on the buyer’s credit card and in the seller’s bank account.

USA Technologies designs and manufactures these ePort devices and runs the ePort electronic payments network, according to Bruce Shirey, vice president of ePort Services.
The business challenge

In 2007 it was time for v2. The company needed to rewrite a series of applications for the network as well as make some hardware changes. In addition, it wanted to expand its software to take debit and credit cards in other countries. It needed to get the proper certification to do that in Canada, for example. Finally, it wanted to integrate its ePort network into its ERP system. There was some integration, but the company wanted to include more applications.

To achieve all this, the company needed a new data warehouse to provide more robust reporting. The ePort network monitors each machine, like noting how many cashless transactions occur, how many coins and dollar bills are in the machine, or whether it is on or off. “We pass that M2M (merchant to merchant) information on to our customers. Vending machines and kiosks are data intensive; they chew up bandwidth, especially if you have thousands of units. Our customers were demanding we include this kind of information in our reporting,” he explains. So USA Technologies was in a hurry to get the work done.

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Tags: Bane, Business Challenge, Card Usa, Cashless Transactions, Customer Requests, Data Warehouse, Debit And Credit, Dollar Bills, Electronic Payments Network, Erp System, Esuds, Gsm Network, Hardware Changes, Hotel Lobbies, Laundromat, Laundry Machines, Shirey, Soft Drinks, Usa Technologies, Vending Machines

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 8:59 am and is filed under Outsourcing News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.