Omni-channel is a retail method used by companies to offer their customers a seamless experience across all sales channels. Be it in-store, on a website, an app, Amazon, social media, or any other online sales channel. Anytime, anywhere, on any smart device. Omni-channel retail is being enhanced by advanced technologies that make offerings more attractive. These technologies are helping companies in compelling customer interest and increasing conversions. Augmented Reality is one of the latest technologies which are attracting and engaging consumers, stimulating their selection process. AUGMENTes, a Houston, TX based company is optimizing the potential of AR by adding it into Omni-channel shopping.
Established in 2012, AUGMENTes provides customized digital shopping solutions that include augmented reality and 3D visualization tools, customized mobile applications, and comprehensive omni-channel shopping platforms to manage and synchronize all sales channels. The solutions offered by AUGMENTes come with a complete managed service and are completely brand focused and salesoriented, striving to provide consumers with a convenient and seamless shopping experience.
Meet, Sundar Moorthi, Founder & CEO of AUGMENTes, a highly skilled and adaptive IT executive with 20+ years of experience which combine a mixture of business acumen and technical expertise to help businesses connect the dots. He is a solution architect who has developed custom software platforms for fortune 100 corporations in financial services, manufacturing, telecom, retail, healthcare, entertainment, etc. His goal is to increase his costumer’s revenue while providing the best possible end user experience.
Below are the highlights of an interview conducted between CIO Look and Sundar Moorthi:
Kindly take us through your journey on becoming a leader.
Working in the technology field throughout my entire career, I have held the position of technical team lead on many projects for a number of companies, including some of the biggest US organizations like Verizon and JP Morgan Chase. After developing cutting edge business applications, I saw an opportunity to help the retail industry to catch up to consumer expectations. That is when I founded AUGMENTes.
How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal the target audience?
We provide shopping solutions that include Augmented Reality and other visualization tools, customized mobile applications, and comprehensive Omni-channel shopping platforms. All our solutions are customized to our customer’s needs and are easily integrated into their existing digital infrastructure. In addition, we provide a complete managed service with all our solutions. Each of our customers has a vision of what they would like to achieve, our flexibility allows us to customize our offerings in a way that would best serve our customers and help them in achieving their goals.
What are the crucial traits which every CEO must possess?
I think that every CEO should have patience, an open mind and be willing to listen. It is very important to surround yourself with people that share your vision and can complement your skills and knowledge. In addition, I think that a successful CEO should be organized and have the ability to make tactical decisions in a way that would push the company ever closer to its strategic goals.
What are your intakes on roles of CEO transformational leadership and organizational factors on product innovation performance?
In my opinion, creating an open collaborative environment where ideas flow freely is very important for continuous progress and innovation. I also think that treating employees right is part of the recipe for success, as employee morale has a high impact on company performance.
In terms of organization, I think that keeping track of everything from customer interaction and their feedback, market conditions and trends to project management is very important for the smooth functioning of the company and a high product innovation performance.
The use of systems like CRMs and project management tools can make life easier, but at the end of the day it’s up to every member of the team to follow procedure so that the company runs smoothly, and product innovation is effective.
How do you strategize your game plans to tackle the competition in the market?
In order to overcome the competition in the market, we focus on what sets us apart and try to craft our message to best highlight that. While we offer feature rich solutions that provide the best possible customer experience, we strive to be a long-term partner with our clients to become an extension of their team, making them feel comfortable and surprising them with unmatched performance. In addition, we try to stay ahead by keeping track of market conditions, trends and future technologies. This allows us to formulate a roadmap for product innovation that utilize the latest technological breakthroughs and aligns well with future customer needs.
As a technology company, what is your most vital contribution in augmented reality/virtual reality sector?
We have developed a solution that allows consumers to shop for and then try on products on themselves or in their own environment. Decorating entire rooms with virtual furniture and home décor items, recording their AR experience on video, sharing it with others and seamlessly placing orders are just a few examples of what our AR solution can do in the retail industry.
Experiential shopping has become one of the new focus points of the retail industry and the capabilities that we provide to our retail customers enable them to attract and engage consumers like never before.
What are your future endeavors/objectives and where do you see yourself in the near future?
Our growth plan includes expanding our customer base from the jewelry and furniture verticals into many other B2B and B2C verticals as the AR technology becomes more in demand and adoption quickly increases. In addition, we hope to expand into new geographic markets as our solutions would be beneficial to companies across the world.
We continue to push the envelope on what is technologically possible to improve consumer digital experiences and help make lives easier.
About the Company
AUGMENTes provides cutting-edge digital consumer experiences helping retailers and brands enhance their online and in-store sales using Augmented Reality (AR), Mobile Applications and Omni-Channel Shopping Platforms. The solutions offered by AUGMENTes attract and engage consumers across digital and physical environments utilizing cutting edge features. These features include AR viewing and try on, 3D viewing, interactive digital catalogs, product customization, geo-fencing, push notifications, and more to entice purchases. These services can be utilized anytime, anywhere, on any smart device.
