Article
KioskCom 2006 award winners: WebRaiser, The Axxess Group
WebRaiser's software platform is at the heart of a business striving to help the unbanked get the services they need.
July 11, 2006 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance
This is the third in a series of articles on the winners of the 2006 KioskCom Excellence Awards. The author is also editor of SelfServiceWorld.com.
The annual KioskCom Excellence Awards were handed out April 10 in Las Vegas. For the second year, former CNN anchor Bob Losure announced the winners and presented the trophies. Nanonation sponsored the awards. Awards in 12 categories plus three special awards were presented.
The winner in the financial services category was San Antonio firm The Axxess Group (then known as Storm Solutions). The company, whose goal is "to provide creative, convenient and non-exploitive alternatives to the Latino community" for banking and financial services, worked with WebRaiser Technologies to develop the backbone of its self-service financial-kiosk system.
Tim Langley, chief operations officer for Axxess, said his company's relationship with WebRaiser was a happy accident of sorts, stemming from software frustrations.
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"You might say we stumbled across them," he said. "We ran into problems with our initial software from a well-known industry supplier. So, we went back out and researched the market, talked to some manufacturers, and kept hearing about WebRaiser."
Langley said the previous software platform wasn't fast or simple enough to integrate third-party-partner applications. The company also wanted a more robust set of tools to power its growing digital-signage initiative.
"They have a really robust media piece to their business model that they're going to leverage really heavily over the next few years," said Gary De Blaquiere, vice president of business development for WebRaiser.
Axxess offers a variety of prepaid products like cellular top-ups, and stored-value cards for long distance, Internet, utility, debit and payroll. Products are delivered through two different mechanisms, a stand-alone kiosk and a cashier-assisted over-the-counter model.
WebRaiser provided Axxess with the code to its S3E-Commerce product, which adds e-commerce functionality to existing Web content.
"This was a great opportunity," De Blaquiere said. "This was one of the first groups that we gave our S3E code to, where they could go build their entire self-service business platform on our infrastructure. They have some internal development and integration abilities, so we were able to give them the code and they could take it and integrate it."
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The Axxess Group sells prepaid products and services through standalone and cashier-assisted kiosks. |
"WebRaiser has their act together, and Method 8 is a major factor," Langley said. "Method 8 ties it all together in a formal business process that all but guarantees a successful deployment."
Although the field of companies aiming to serve the unbanked is getting crowded, De Blaquiere said Axxess is in a unique position.
"They've aligned themselves with a very solid and seasoned sales force that has direct access to the Hispanic community," he said. "They're signing relationships and deals at a different level than some of the other ones. They've got other services where the Hispanic community can actually earn credits and dollars, and put money away. And it doesn't necessarily have to be here in the States — all those services could be transferred back to their home, as well."
Langley, too, had kind words to say about the company that shared the KioskCom award.
"We wish we had found WebRaiser first," he said. "We lost some go-to-market momentum, but with the new package we are confident about our ability to deliver what we promise to customers."
About James Bickers
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