Iridium Interactive Blog » Case Studies

Iridium Interactive Wins Google Innovation Award for Health Care Delivery

iridiumInteractive — Wed, 29 May 2013 20:43:51 +0000

The 2013 Google Innovation Award recognizes and honors innovation and excellence delivered by Iridium Interactive in the area of Health Care Delivery in Kenya through a comprehensive, patient-centered, tuberculosis management platform called TIBU. TIBU in Kiswahili means“to cure” or “treat medically.” According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Kenya ranks 15th on the list of 22 high-burden tuberculosis (TB) affected countries in the world. With over 150,000 people suffering from the disease, TB remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Kenya.

Speaking on this occasion, Sriram(Sri) Bharatam, Iridium Interactive CEO and Founder said, “The best part about the TIBU solution is that it simplifies the delivery of health care services for patients and health workers alike and provides a cost-effective platform to reach every person requiring treatment across the country.”

TIBU is the only comprehensive disease tracking and health information system available globally. TIBU seamlessly integrates treatment and monitoring from patient to health facility to county and provincial health offices, and finally to Ministry of Health in Nairobi. This hybrid solution connects patients and providers through Android devices and Internet Cloud infrastructure and can successfully operate even in remote locations where there is no electricity and mobile signals. TIBU’s real-time mapping, data analysis and reporting capabilities empower Ministry of Health staff at all levels to monitorand take immediate corrective actions, such as re-supplying warehouses when drug shortages arise or reallocating staff when patient demand increases.

In less than four months of national roll out across Kenya, TIBU captured electronic medical records for 75% of all Kenya’s TB patients and has reimbursed over US$300,000 (approx. Ksh. 28 million) to patients through more than 146,000 mobile payments via M-PESA. Android tablets are used to access electronic health records and to deliver short training videos developed by Iridium interactive to Ministry staff on how to operate TIBU, how to use the tab device itself, and how to gain or update medical knowledge and skills.

With the financial support of USAID, theKenya Ministry of Health provided the policy and technical direction to Iridium Interactive to develop TIBU, a Comprehensive Solution for Healthcare Delivery in collaboration with its innovation partners, Safaricom and Tangazoletu.

TIBU provides real-time TB and Leprosy data into DHIS 2 or the District Health Information System, Kenya’s National Health Data System and has done so by connecting information systems used by other MOH units or projects. Thus, the TIBU platform has the potential to expand into other disease verticals in Kenya, such as HIV/AIDS and Malaria, or be scaled geographically across Africa.

The 2013 Google Innovation Awards Winners were announced at the “Connected Kenya 2013” ICT event held at the SarovaWhite Sands, Mombasa on May 27-30, 2013. The Connected Kenya Summit is the brainchild of the Kenya ICT Board in consultation with industry players and key government decision-makers. The Summit provides a platform for collaboration, capacity-building and priority sharing between government and the IT sector to link and accelerate implementation of government IT projects to world class standards. The Connected Kenya Summit has been successfully held since 2009. The theme for the 2013 Connected Kenya Summit was “The County Citizen. Served“

Network with a cause – Public Health Global Network Goes Live !

iridiumInteractive — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 18:16:58 +0000

At II every day there is a new story, a new learning, new paths explored. This time around its a website with a dfference. A networking tool which creates not a social networking site for fun but a tool that actually creates social awareness in the public health sector. The website: http://www.publichealthglobal.org was designed and developed from its infancy to its current status at iridium Interactive’s Noida den.
This platform has been created to generate new learning and initiate a multilevel and plural dialogue between academics, researchers and public health practitioners across the globe so as to gradually build up strong partnerships towards south-south cooperation; through this network, schools of public health, stakeholders and the community of practice can share experiences and curricula, transfer best practices, caution against replication of failed models, exchange learning resources and, wherever feasible, strengthen public health capacity through inter-institutional faculty exchange and joint research.

The website intends to be a common platform to debate and analyze the challenges faced by public health, development of common as well as complementary sensibilities, exchange of ideas and researchers, and mapping the needs of these countries for developing a common plan of action to address public health challenges.

When i say website with a difference it is not just the website and its concept, its also about the team behind it. A team of extremely dedicated iridiumoholics put together this website in just a matter of few months. The team – Nitu, Shabbu, Samar, Rajeev, me with special mention to Shiv and Kamil, would daily have internal meetings, con-calls with clients with endless inputs from the client by the minute. This often called for stretching beyond normal official hours which the team never hesitated to abide by sometimes even working on weekends. Endless dedication of the team has indeed made this project quiet a success in a very short span of time. Within its first week of going live internally there were almost 100 member registrations from within the organization. We are sure once its open to the target audience it is sure to create a wave globally amongst the public health practitioners and bring them together to educate the world about the importance of public health.

With this we march ahead with yet another signature success story to talk about.

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WagonR Think Big Challenge 2 case study iridium Interactive

iridiumInteractive — Sat, 28 May 2011 18:05:50 +0000

“The Challenge was Bigger and so was our intent”; these lines would be apt for the entire team here which literally gave wings to this activity.

Just a few days old at iridium (Delhi office), I was put in the team to work on this project. We were given a flat 15 days to get the new design and the entire back-end implemented, but kudos to our technical team (also consisting of new joinees) for getting the portal up and running. This year we also ensured active customer support (making sure that we answer each and every query) and extended it to social media (via Facebook); additionally we also used the fan page to generate buzz.

The project received a tremendous response of 40,000 business plans got submitted on the website.

The project exposed me to the absolute vastness in terms of budget, impact, brand awareness and connect and the impact such an activity could have. There was a lot of cross functional synergy required, a lot of fire-fighting (at times), a lot of unlearning and learning and hard work and all of this was worth when our team got the chance to attend the Grand Finale and to watch the participants we have interacted with/supported/helped deliver those business plan presentations. It was like reliving the entire 4-5 months of working on the project.

And then came the big one, the announcement of the Grand Finale winner! It was a great feeling for us to have helped someone to win a brand new WagonR and Rs 10 Lakhs.

In the photograph, this is our team with Ms. Aparna Bhatnagar (winner of the WagonR Think Big Challenge).

Not to forget we (our team) got a chance to meet Madhavan (aka Manu of Tanu weds Manu) and we even got a photograph clicked with him ☺

Overall it’s been a kick ass experience and we are already looking forward to its next edition.

Online reputation management – a iridium Interactive case study

iridiumInteractive — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 13:04:16 +0000

Intellectual property aside, a company’s reputation is pretty much in the public domain. While everyone hopes that their company is well liked, it is a bad idea to take this assumption for granted. The internet’s increasing reach make it a medium hard to ignore. When your online reputation is taking a beating staying silent is not a good idea, as a client of ours discovered.

The Case
The client’s problem stemmed from a reputation issue that they had noticed but did not resolve hoping it would die down with time. An ex-employee had been spreading false rumors about the organization on various portals related to the industry and this was slowly eroding the goodwill the company enjoyed. Potential employees walked away and, they later guessed, a few potential clients too. Our client had no idea until someone pointed it out to them. The posts were read in horror, duly noted and the company decided to wait it out. This was November 2009. A few token efforts were made to douse the flames but discontinued when they realized they were egging on the bloggers. An email began circulating saying blatant lies about the company.

In March 2010, an old customer pointed this out to them and they knew something had to be done. Legal notes were sent but the forum owner was neither legally liable nor could he violate the integrity of his website by deleting posts. The only option left to them was to take the bull by the horns and they were little equipped to do so.

This is when iridium Interactive was called in. Here is a snapshot of the things we did to build a stronger reputation

Listening:
iridium set up its monitoring tools starting with simple free ones like Google Alerts and free online monitoring tools along with our own social media monitoring system. We listed out in detail all the forums and websites where the company was being spoken about favorably as well as negatively and set about identifying influencers who really affected the online reputation of the company.

Responding:
As soon as we got a picture of the kind of things that were being spoken about, iridium swung into action and listed out appropriate responses for the same. We engaged clients and employees to promote a positive view of the company. where there were negative reviews, we stepped in and resolved people’s queries. Our SEO machinery swung into action working to position relevant information on the first few pages of major search engines instead of the false rumors. We went a step further and created positive conversations on more credible communities.

Engaging:
iridium set up social media accounts to represent the company online. We dug into twitter and started slowly to interact with the influencers in their field. A facebook page served as a touchpoint for the employees of the company, slowly evolving as an extended platform to promote activities, updates and discussions. The blog which we set up and maintained was a mix of industry news and company updates positioning the company as a thought leader and industry peer.

Within six months we noticed a remarkable change. The damaging reviews and emails subsided. The company’s sentiment index swung from red to green. A greater chunk of information about the company was positive and positioned in the initial pages of web results. At an industry conference they were recognized for what really mattered, their performance, and pulled in greater business. iridium’s efforts on the online reputation management program had worked. This is now an an integral part of the company’s work ethic. Never again will they ignore the multitude of voices that speak about them.

iridium Interactive is a pioneering company with over 10 years of experience in the field of internet marketing. we have been in the ‘social media’ field from before the term existed.

Follow us on twitter and facebook to stay current with what is happening in the industry and how simple interventions can benefit you.

Small Businesses get savvy with Social Media

iridiumInteractive — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:44:54 +0000

Not long before when large brands started reaping profits, small companies raised their heads to this phenomenon called Social Media. Social Media Marketing that was once seen as off-bounds for small businesses has finally caught the fancy of small business owners. Its about time that they have realized social media is “one size fits all”. So, simply put it, any SME can experiment and create their formula to leverage their business potentials. In the competitive economy that is India, social media could be the biggest differentiator between competitors. Its becoming more evident by the day that every company is finding its unique recipe. ..and breaking the social beat!

Marketing has completed a full circle with social media. It started with making products customized to the needs of the consumers, then with the modernization of industries consumers were happy with what they were being provided for by the companies. With the advent of Social media, customers want a say in the products being offered to them, whether they are small businesses or large. Thus bringing in the importance of small businesses to reach out to their customers to understand their needs and build a rapport with them.

I have provided examples of some small businesses who have had a complete turn around with the use of social media. Lets take a look and re-use the success formula:

@coffeegrounds a simple coffee shop in Houston has doubled its visitors by simply engaging with their consumers online on twitter. Cordial interactions with consumers has led this coffee shop dealer to increase their customers twofold. Twitter provides a whole new platform to any business that are willing to take out time to get in touch with their consumers that will eventually lead them into a lifelong relationship of loyalty and trust with them.

Key Take Away: Small things make big impact …..start your twitterate..tiny but big steps!

Another example that best describes what I am explaining here is that of @zappos is an online retailer who led corporates to use twitter. This explains their stupendous success with social media. Their gregarious interactions with customers online and readiness to help is the reason why they have been a phenomenal success in social media.

As rightly quoted by Tony Hseih- “Zappos.com is a service company that just happens to sell shoes”.

These are just two examples in small business social networking success as more and more small companies enter this arena there will be more social media success waiting to be accoladed on blogs and other social media forums.

I am curious to know your social media success formulas are..Do write in and I would love to add yours to this Small Business list with full credits to your success story…!

Social Media takes Charge when Volcanic Ashes disrupts Air Travel

iridiumInteractive — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:55:32 +0000

In times of emergencies social media has evidently become the mainstream media. When Eyjafjallajökull, a big volcano in Iceland causes mayhem in Europe last week, stranded people look to social media for solutions, suggestions or simply just news. Tweets appear as fast as a second if you search for “Volcano” on twitter. Seemingly the airline industry is the worst affected by nature’s fury, as flights are delayed with no assurance of when their services can be restored. As this volcano sends out ashes in the sky, flights get indefinitely delayed sending travelers to looks for other alternatives, rescheduling flights, hotel rooms, and book train tickets or even rent cars. Few airlines have been clever enough to stay in touch with the estranged passengers through their social networks while some do not bother adding to their customer’s anger.

This is a snap shot of Virgin Atlantic’s facebook page that updates their customers on the current status of their flights. With no clue themselves this is the best they can do to inform their customers. This is a live example of terrific use of the power of social media through customer engagement. Virgin Atlantic may not have the solutions to #volcano, but they are staying connected to the people who matter the most to them through facebook. A recent global social media study proves that over 70% of companies are using Facebook to engage with their customers, capture their perceptions and behaviors.It is now one of the key business destinations in the virtual space.

KLM also took a proactive approach to caution their passengers not to go to the airport instead check flight status on their website using their facebook fanpage.

Coming from the same company on the other hand Air France chose to remain reluctant to keep their customers informed about this unforeseen phenomenon and basic formalities on refunds and rebooks.

As #volcano continues to erupt and blinden the air space, companies (airlines specially) should make use of this and appease these aggrieved customers thus demonstrating real-time crisis management and creating a long term goodwill. KLM and Virgin Atlantic have been swift in being approachable to their customers.

The big lesson here – Companies, enterprises that hold themselves back from responding, engaging with their clients through social media are loosing a vital thread of communication and goodwill. “No social media” can be compared with “no website”, if we turn back our clocks”

Classic Case of what not to do on Social Media!!

iridiumInteractive — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:19:15 +0000

Social Media Etiquette and handling PR is very critical to a company in social media. Consumer interactions have compelled companies to plunge into social media to be a part of these conversations. Today I was reading what could be the biggest social media/PR debacle ever. I am talking about the food giant Nestle who, till a few days back was a renowned chocolatier with fans all over the world. Today it faces criticisms from various green peace activists, followed by bloggers for using palm oil from deforested forests in Indonesia and thereby endangering orangutans. Nestle had taken a very rude front to combat these criticisms, which was not well received by people and led to a flooding of their fan pages with more criticisms.

Without joining the bandwagon of people who are attempting to defame Nestle’s online reputation, here is a fair view of how a global company like Nestle can learn to handle this attack through online media.

This type of incident can surely destroy a company, who should instead directly, honestly and personally address this issue rather than escalate it with a hostile approach to criticisms.

Nestle’s online reputation downfall started when Nestle’s Facebook page was flooded with protests and complaints from people over Nestle’s Palm Oil actions in Indonesia and deforestation that endangered orangutans. Already a heated issue, Nestle added to the fire by posting on their fan page:

“Nestle To repeat: we welcome your comments, but please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic – they will be deleted.”

This sparked a wild fire that will only be put to rest when the moderator cordially and patiently talks to sort Nestle’s tainted image and not further taint it with such comments.

Customers have increasingly started using social media as a medium to vent their anger as this provides them a platform to be vocal about their thoughts and views. Companies should take these criticisms with a pinch of salt and try to rectify these issues without any ego.

As I have mentioned in my previous blog on Social Media Etiquettes, Nestle should have simply read the rude remarks and politely responded back. They should appoint a customer care representative to answer their questions politely. In a state when people are angered, humility and modesty should take the front seat instead of hautiness.

PANDAL HOPPING ON ONE SITE – ii BRINGS ONLINE THE GLAMOUR OF DURGA PUJA

iridiumInteractive — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 02:12:52 +0000

The ABP group is one of the largest media publishing groups in India and a quintessentially Bengali institution. The Anandabazar Patrika Puja website was launched in 2003 to cover the festive fervor in Bengal during Durga Puja.

Objective
Visit Bengal during the 10-day Puja period and the sheer vibrancy, fervour and joie de vivre in the environment will stun you. And such an experience begs to be broadcast to a larger number of people who can enjoy it from their armchairs. The motive behind launching such a website was to portray online the daily rituals, color, excitement and vibrancy of the Durga Puja festival; to provide a platform which would enable visitors from all around the world to relate to the events happening somewhere in West Bengal; and to allow for contributions from and interactions between visitors worldwide. ABP also wanted to keep the site ‘alive’ and updated on a minute-by-minute basis. It sought to eventually convert a time-bound micro-site into a revenue generator.

Solution
Extensive use of Flash allowed iridium Interactive (ii) to generate clips of actual activities and daily rituals during the Puja period. Visitors from anywhere in the world could post pictures of Puja pandals on the site. Various images of the rituals were updated on a daily basis for the entire period of the puja.
The site did not stop at just visuals. In a bid to be interactive and creative, it also innovatively incorporated Puja-inspired games, greeting cards, Puja songs, and recipes by the chefs of some of Kolkata’s famous hotels and restaurants. To reinforce the Bengali feel and aura, even the screen savers and wallpapers have been designed and created by Bengal’s finest artists, all downloadable onto a mobile phone.
A complete section has been devoted to the legend of Durga. It talks about the Goddess’s triumph in a unique and non-conventional way that would appeal to the young.

Results
iridium has created a forceful platform for the worldwide online broadcast of the Durga Puja celebrations. The site initially started out as a short-term one that would run for 3 months. However, because of strong demand and interest in the site, it is now live around the year. The sheer liveliness, color and up-to-date persona of the site attracted over 10 million hits in a 15-day period! These high volumes have transformed the site into a value-added and cost-effective advertising channel. Consequently, there is now a high demand and competition for advertising space and marketing messages on the site.
ii designed and created this site that transcends geographical boundaries, to bring the cultural phenomenon of Kolkata to the world, and to unite the worldwide Bengali Diaspora. Ananda Utsav is now a global brand allowing ABP to reach a wider audience.
“Perhaps anandautsav.com helped the global Bengali community to get the truest feel of the Pujas. The fact that this true-blue essence of the Puja could be accessible from the comfort of their homes must have added to the site’s popularity,” an ABP source remarked.

About ii
iridium Interactive Limited (ii) specializes in providing online business solutions. With a presence across three continents, it has been at the forefront in integrating strategy, design and technology to build unique and robust user-centric e-business solutions. At ii, a holistic approach is adopted towards complex business problems to arrive at a complete solution. ii’s talented team has worked on a variety of disciplines for a multitude of clients drawn from various industries, and has a number of award-winning works to its credit. ii offers it services in the areas of interactive marketing, web marketing, e-learning, enterprise consulting and web accessibility initiatives.

IRIDIUM BUILDS YET ANOTHER GATEWAY TO BETTER EDUCATION

iridiumInteractive — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:17:21 +0000

The Management Development Institute (MDI) is the country’s premier business school. It is located in Gurgaon and offers a range of academic programs.

Objective
MDI was looking at creating and developing appropriate tools and outlets to disseminate knowledge. MDI’s existing website had to be reoriented to make it a learning and interactive tool which reaches out to all its stakeholders. A second criterion was to highlight the research orientation of the institution. And finally, MDI wanted to create a large online community, with the website acting as the driver for this. in short, what MDI was actually looking for was a virtual campus.

Solution
To revamp MDI’s website, iridium Interactive (ii) adopted a step-by-step approach. It designed and implemented an exhaustive Academic Programs section, which furnished course details and fee information. Also incorporated on the site was a Research and Publication section, with synopsis of writings by faculty, and information on their availability. ii used cutting-edge technology to create an e-library, and tools to provide access to all electronic resources across the campus network. Users would also be able to access the latest in business and management information.
A separate placements section was developed for corporate recruiters and placement agencies to view student profiles. Other sections included a Faculty recruitment section, and a distinct Alumni section, linking to its own separate portal. To give the visitors a flavor of life at MDI, flash movies were incorporated into the site.

Results
iridium conceived, designed and implemented a website for MDI that includes and caters to all the stakeholders. The strategic goal of making the MDI website an all-inclusive, fully interactive virtual campus is exemplified by the various informative and useful highly useful sections. The result is a virtual MDI community.
The whole process of selecting and hiring students and faculty has been simplified. The creation of this portal enables MDI to carry out its core competence of ‘building leaders for tomorrow’ in a much better way. Finally, ii web-enabled much of the routine query and administrative work, resulting in cost savings for MDI.

ii MAKES A HEART-TO-INTERNET CONNECTION FOR MARUTI

iridiumInteractive — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:16:26 +0000

India’s largest car manufacturer, Maruti, was launching a new scheme allows NRIs to gift a Maruti car to a person in India. The scheme would offer NRIs special prices, payment options and home delivery services.

Objective
iridium Interactive (ii) has a long standing e-business and Internet solutions relationship with Maruti Udyog, and this new project only strengthened it further.
ii was required to create an online, web-based, transparent mechanism enabling NRIs to gift a car to a loved one in India. This scheme would not only create a new revenue stream for the client, but also enhance customer loyalty, and give a fillip Maruti’s branding efforts.

Solution
Working with the briefest of instructions provided, iridium created a micro-site for this project, within the Maruti mother site. The look and feel of the micro-site was kept consistent with the main site in order to maintain brand integrity. ii designed the site in a simple manner, providing straightforward navigation around the site. The whole process of buying and ordering was kept open and transparent to the visitor: from getting a quote, making a choice (on model, color, etc), and ordering a car, to paying for the purchase and keeping a track of the order. The forms were designed to capture important information in a non-intrusive manner.
The site provides the buyer with three different options for online payment: Credit Card, Swift Money Transfer or installments through Citibank. As a part of the assignment, ii also integrated the website with that of credit card companies and the bank’s payment systems.

Results
The sheer simplicity of choosing, ordering and purchasing a Maruti car online and paying through the Internet has captured the NRI imagination. The possession of a car in India is still a status- defining possession. So the simple and real possibility of gifting loved ones something as special as a car without the usual hassles has brought in some very tangible returns for the client.
Maruti is now selling cars through their innovative and evocative website. The very concept and its appeal won the company terrific goodwill, extended its customer base and branding mileage, while increasing customer loyalty.
The website is truly interactive, simple and easy to navigate. It is transparent and straightforward. This site responds to many NRIs wishes to be emotionally connected to their loved ones in India.
About ii
iridium Interactive Limited (ii) specializes in providing online business solutions. With a presence across three continents, it has been at the forefront in integrating strategy, design and technology to build unique and robust user-centric e-business solutions. At ii, a holistic approach is adopted towards complex business problems to arrive at a complete solution. ii’s talented team has worked on a variety of disciplines for a multitude of clients drawn from various industries, and has a number of award-winning works to its credit. ii offers it services in the areas of interactive marketing, web marketing, e-learning, enterprise consulting and web accessibility initiatives.