AI unlocks customer loyalty in UAE

The top global and local UAE brands are unlocking potential of customer relationship management (CRM) through Artificial Intelligence (AI), eCommerce and machine learning with a common goal to retain the customers and engage in long-term loyalty.
Capillary, one of the leading SaaS [Software as a Service (SaaS)] product company in Asia with over 700 Capillary associates across 11 global offices are continually innovating to find new ways for brands to make their consumers' lives easier, and experiences memorable.
Capillary has developed products that help brands get a 360° single view of customer and inventory across all channels, so they could stitch together previously siloed customer journeys with data, and build unified, cross channel strategies that deliver a consistent, omnichannel experience.

"In this era of Artificial Intelligence, we continue to innovate and find ways to help brands stay consumer ready and deliver newer, better experiences into the future," said Aneesh Reddy, co-founder and CEO, Capillary Technologies.
Capillary's technology solutions help businesses get ahead of the digital evolution and stay 'Always Consumer Ready'. Over 300 marquee brands across 30+ countries trust Capillary to enable easy and seamless consumer experiences. With over 300 million consumers and 25,000 stores on the platform. Capillary products are broadly classified under the four pillars - Insights, Engage, Anywhere Commerce, and Loyalty. The firm has list of prominent UAE brands and they include MAF, AFG, Americana, RedTag, Pizza Hut, Aster, Lulu, Malabar Gold, to name a few.
Capillary co-founders Aneesh Reddy, Ajay Modani and Krishna Mehra had worked with consumer brands, said the biggest challenges brands were facing was an inability to capture customer data, identify consumers visiting their stores and to communicate effectively with them. Built on a big data platform, the Capillary CRM solution finally enabled brands to use their existing infrastructure to identify and understand each consumer, and directly communicate with them through mobile technology. Along with a revolutionary for the time, card-less, mobile first loyalty programme, the SaaS solution closed the loop on customer acquisition, engagement and retention, finding takers across the world.
With the explosion of ecommerce in the following decade, Capillary addressed another major pain point brands were facing, which was to quickly, easily and reliably establish an online presence. With the acquisition of ecommerce platform provider, MartJack (Anywhere Commerce), Capillary helped brands deliver enriched online experiences with ease. Other products developments powered brands to look beyond just their physical stores or online portals and explore the multiple engagement and commerce channels that were emerging at the time. As these interaction channels continue to evolve, providing a consistent customer experience across all of them is becoming increasingly difficult for brands. As consumers expect a connected and seamless experience.
"Capillary products are domain agnostic. We often times say this, we're in the business of consumers. Wherever there is a touchpoint involved between the consumer and the brand, we're there. To name a few where we've significantly worked, retail, fashion and apparels, pharmaceuticals, jewellery, accessories, F&B, CPG, FMCG, Manufacturing. We process about 5 per cent of the overall established retail in the UAE region alone." added Reddy.
Capillary has always been clear that the future belongs to the cloud and hence intended to remain a cloud-based B2B service provider. Originally the firm started off as a new generation CRM provider which allowed brands empower their customers with a seamless customer experience and provide intelligent loyalty.
"Today, our business has progressed to include ecommerce, artificial intelligence, machine learning, running alongside CRM. More recently, we have made strides into building hardware products for the retail space as well with our artificial intelligence powered in-store solution, VisitorMetrix."
The company has a very impressive funding history, beginning from seed of $100,000 in October 2009 by Qualcomm, followed by Series A with a funding of $15.5 million in September 2012 from Northwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital. The Series B of $14 million in July 2014, was Northwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Series C was $45 million in September 2015, Warburg Pincus.
Sequoia Capital is extremely supportive of Capillary. Shailesh Lakhani, principal, Sequoia Capital, said: "When we invest in a company, the most important factor we look at is whether we see them creating sustainable value with their products in the sector/market they operate within. With Capillary, this value was easy for us to see."
He said there is a lack of enterprise SaaS product companies coming out of Asia that was focused towards solving problems that are unique to these markets. Capillary has done a great job in bringing product-market fit to the diverse markets that they've operated from in the last decade.
"We could also see a clear vision for the future in Capillary management team, which remains focused on their domain and are working very hard towards democratising technology, and Artificial Intelligence, producing innovative products and solutions for some of the best brands in these market. We're excited about our upcoming journey with this company."
The company has raised a fresh round of funding recently and intend investing the amount into new product development completely powered by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and specifically designed towards Asia and other upcoming markets. While more than 70 per cent of its funds are devoted to research and development the firm is also looking into further strengthening their presence in the Middle East and China, and penetrate further into Southeast Asia.
"For the GCC, we're officially headquartered in Dubai while our clients are spread across all the 6 countries of the GCC. The overall revenues from GCC contribute to about 30 per cent of the overall revenues of Capillary. We have our dedicated sales, account management, and delivery teams based out of UAE to service the GCC region," Reddy said.
"We have clients across domains and business functions. Businesses from F&B to hypermarkets, groceries to perfumes, apparels to pharmaceuticals. A few of our clients are Ajmal Perfumes, Rubaiyat, Liali, Majid Al Futtaim, Al Futtaim Group, Lulu Hypermarket, Paris Gallery, Sarawat, STC, Aster Pharmacy, Malabar GnD, La Marquise, Liali, Pizza Hut and Americana to name a few," he added.
"Capillary sees a huge potential in fashion and apparels, hypermarkets, food and beverages because of the growing consumer demands in these sectors. As technology evolves rapidly, consumers are getting used to having things easy. As consumers, we all live in what we like to call an 'Easyverse' where we want, what we want, when and where we want it.
"Empowered consumers are starting to take for granted that businesses will know and understand their individual needs, and they reward companies that make it easy for them. Brands who promise to keep innovating, and evolving to make it easier for consumers are the only ones who manage to keep Capillary's attention. Capillary makes it their promise to help these consumer facing brands always stay consumer ready for the ever evolving consumer."
Azmeen Ansar, marketing lead, Capillary Technologies, said Capillary with their forward-looking products and vision, is the best place for anyone who wants to work with an organisation that is treading the path less travelled.
"A team of incredibly experienced and inspiring leaders and their inclusive nature ensures each and every one of us feels like we actually contribute towards taking Capillary to the next level," she added.
- sandhya@khaleejtimes.com