Retail systems developer redPanda Software has partnered with Barcelona-based customer experience specialist Loyal Guru to bring international best practices to South African loyalty rewards programmes.
redPanda Software, headquartered in Cape Town, develops and supports solutions for some of South Africa's largest retailers and will use Loyal Guru's loyalty and personalisation platform to enhance its offers, blending global vendor value with local relevance.
Peter Ludi, business development executive at redPanda Software, says retail customer attraction and retention strategies are influenced by the wide variety of goods available on the market and the ongoing financial distress faced by many South African consumers.
“The fact that about 80% of South Africans have at least one loyalty card in their wallets tells us that consumers are looking for value. Knowing where the leading markets in the world are headed, and how quickly South Africans – both businesses and consumers – adopt new technologies, we made a calculated decision to partner with Loyal Guru to bring a global best-in-class solution, delivered in South Africa by a rand-based organisation with local support.”
Loyal Guru, founded in 2016, has been recognised as one of the top 100 promising global retail tech companies. Its clients include Mango, Decathlon, Dia Group, and Spar. In 2022, its founder and CEO, Borja Sanfeliu, made it to Spain’s IESE 40under40 list of visionary founders.
Sanfeliu says Loyal Guru's SaaS platform addresses three major challenges that retail businesses face worldwide. “First, there’s the front-end: the different tools to interact with customers, such as e-commerce, POS, and marketing cloud. Then, the programme needs to run on clean and actionable data, so this must be in place. And finally, personalised content. This is how you automate personalisation for millions of customers.”
He stresses that retailers need solution and implementation partners who are agile and quick to respond. “Yes, technology is essential for business, but you don’t need every piece of tech to make it work. It’s all about committing to finding the best solutions that cut out the fluff and deliver real value."
Ludi says having a multi-vendor strategy enables an implementation partner to work with a variety of APIs and vendors to build tailored, best-fit solutions for retailers of all sizes and complexities.
Ludi says having a multi-vendor strategy enables an implementation partner to work with a variety of APIs and vendors to build tailored and best-fit solutions for retailers of all sizes and complexities.
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