The Leapfactor team includes talented software developers like any of our competitors; we have a great team of sales people, project managers, support engineers, etc. Individually we are no different than any other any other software company. As a team, we are unbeatable, and our platform makes a huge difference in what we do and what our customers get.
Leapfactor was conceive by Marcela Henao and Lionel Carrasco back in 2009 when they saw the first iPhone and thought that one day people will use these type of devices to run business class Apps. The first use case that came to their minds was the Avon Sales ladies using mobile devices to engage sell and run their businesses.
Marcela is an Electronic Engineer who grew up in the radio communication’s lab of her father back in Colombia. Together with other 11 people, she designed the Nap of the Americas which later became Terremark and in 2013 was bought by Verizon for 1.4 Billion Dollars. Marcela knew that Leapfactor needed to create a cloud independent software platform to become extremely cost effective and support the future demands of the Direct Sales Industry who empowered 60 million consultants and distributors and billions of consumers.
On the other hand, Lionel, acquired his expertise building software for Silicon Valley companies and providing consultation to Fortune 500 clients. He worked creating tiny databases embedded inside the Cisco routers and the Fedex Hand-Helds and also implemented multimillion-dollar projects with SAP and Oracle using mobile technologies to automate beverage distribution and logistics for high volume operations.
Due to his experience in the enterprise software space and mobile solutions, Lionel recruited Alfredo Aviles to become the new Leapfactor CTO and together they envisioned and created the Mobile Cloud-Based Platform that supports all Leapfactor’s Apps. The goal was to create a super scalable platform capable to support millions of users in the lightning fast response, full support for off-line mode and a secure and flexible way to integrate backend systems. During the process of creating apps for Fortune 500 companies like L’Oreal, Avon, Audi, JP Morgan Chase and AstraZeneca Leapfactor acquired talent and expertise on mobile development and User Experience Design while fostering the company’s growth.
Leapfactor is a 20 million dollar investment with five years of expertise building Apps supported by a world-class cloud-based infrastructure. We support operations for Airlines companies with millions of users as well as small companies with a few users and bot both sizes we guarantee operational continuity of 99.9% with users around the globe, 24x7, and 365 days per year.
Our commitment to the Direct Sales industry is strong. We are determined to our mission of transforming the industry through our Apps, while providing to millions of consultants and distributors a better way of making a living.
Security
Leapfactor operates on SCIFF cloud facilities that are SSAE 16 compliant that guarantees the effectiveness on how our data centers are operated consistently and securely. Leapfactor encrypts its communication from the cloud to the backend systems as well as the communication with mobile devices using 256 bits AES at the message level. The data is secured by hardware encryption on mobile devices, and information is distributed to users based on ACLs using two-factor authentication methods for end users. Leapfactor can decommission malicious devices and remotely send poison pills to destroy content on devices. Leapfactor Cloud based infrastructure has been examined by customers like JP Morgan Chase and Aeromexico, who trusted Leapfactor with core business processes. More detail information about the security model and features of Leapfactor can be provided in one day upon request.
Reliability & Operational Continuity Leapfactor operates on redundant cloud-based infrastructure and uses 4x4 clusters of servers that allow us to offer a standard and effective 99% Service Level Agreement. In particular cases, Leapfactor can provide 99% and up to 99.9% custom SLAs. Ask your vendor to present their SLA agreement.
Global Reach Leapfactor operates with Softlayer (IBM) and Terremark (Verizon), both with multiple data centers and reliable communication across the US and the rest of the world. The Company’s Client content is disseminated globally to provide minimum latency with any carriers in any geography. Leapfactor supports clients globally with the same reliable performance. Ask your vendor to show you a multiple country usage report with guaranteed consistent low latency.
Scalability
Performance The performance of native mobile Apps depends in part on the quality of the code, but we assume that it is a given for any professional vendor to possess. Our focus is to host in strategic cloud providers that can guarantee low latency in any geography. We have also carefully designed the exchange of data through cellular networks and slow WiFi converting all messages to light protocols, using the compression techniques that make our Apps respond in sub-second response time. We also use proprietary technology to store cached encrypted metadata to avoid excessive traffic with servers. This last capability, in particular, allows incredible performance responsiveness. And yes, we keep the local data in sync. Ask our competition how they will operate an enrollment when the network is performing poorly.
Off-line operations
Service bus to backbends
Content Management All the content presented in the Apps is centrally managed and globally disseminated. We assume that the competition also uses a central manage content approach and that nothing is hard-wired to the App. But we go way beyond content management; we can pre-load and pre-publish content into the future. We can also group content into campaigns and handle the content as an individual unit. We can retire content using “time bombs” that would not require connectivity, slice and dice content for groups; we do content optimization and create PDFs on the fly. We can also support multiple users on the same devices and segment content according to user profiles or simply avoiding the content to be downloaded twice. Our content management goes beyond the server and is locally executed on mobile devices for higher efficiency. These technical capabilities, translate into flexibility for home office and a better user experience for end users who would never know how complex it could be to give them a simplified user experience. Ask your vendor if they can deliver content separated in groups by geography and hierarchy and in two languages.
Analytics When it comes to analytics, everyone says they can give you some reports. For us, analytics has to do with real time sensing and recording of how users use the App and consume content. To do that we record every meaningful tap to access, navigate and access features or content. We measure session lengths and record activity even when users are offline. All reports are reported back the Leapfactor platform in the form of millions of events that are analyzed later to provide comprehensive reports and data visualizations. We even provide an App for managers to understand how people use the App, when and how they consume content. If our clients can and want to get the RAW data to be loaded in their BI platforms, we are happy to share it. Ask your vendor if they can measure engagement or even define session lengths, request a simple chart that will show you user activity by time and type, or if they can keep your history for one year online.
User & Subscription Management Leapfactor provides web-based tools to manage users. Not only to create users and update information or change passwords. We provide tools for self-enrollments, we manage whitelists with pre-approved users, and we can handle user provisioning by crossing authentication with another portal. We can manage the email templates, and configure dynamically user attributes. Leapfactor provides subscription management, including delinquency handling and can activate – deactivate users and if needed decommission devices or any users quickly to protect your organization. At Leapfactor we provide full integration via APIs or via our User Management Console. Would be interesting to learn how other vendors handle user management.
Redemption Codes If the App has restricted access beyond user and PIN, we can handle group or one-time activation codes. If for whatever reason users cannot use IAP to purchase subscriptions, we provide mechanisms to redeem online redemption codes that can be paid using alternative methods, especially in geographies where Credit Cards are not common.
Device - Form Factor Agnostic We assume that every other company doing mobile Apps understand the importance of Android as well as tablets and the huge variety of screen sizes and resolutions. Ask your vendor if they support both iOS and Android on smartphones and tablets and get a demo to ensure they don’t simply resize fonts to fill a larger screen and truly handle real-estate efficiently. Make sure you don’t get an App that simply stretch and scale screens to handle different form factors.
Volume This topic is not relevant for everyone. But it would be good for you to know that we can handle 100 active catalogs with an average of 50 pages each and 100K SKU’s. We can handle thousands of documents in nested categories and still determine who can see what on the same device depending on the user rights. We can also search and play with all of this locally while the app continues to get updates. It is important for you to ask about limits and examples of volume handling.
HTML vs. Native OK. We are not going to discuss this here; you can Google for good debates or read our blogs to forget about mobile friendly websites and avoid wasting your money. But HTML content is a different story. You can create astonishing content with HTML5, and we do support that. Ask your vendors, if they can embed HTML into an App and treat it as content.
Payment Processing The common and necessary question is about PCI compliance, but once again we assume your App will either leverage someone else certification or provide you with one. In any case, the recommendable thing to do is to use a standard HTTPS session to leverage your current payment processing provider. But you still want to make sure that you can leverage card present rates or at least handle credit cards capturing the use of a dongle or the mobile device camera of the. Here it is important to ask about your options.
Flexibility and Agility of the Content Ok, we can publish a catalog of your products and include thumbnails and associated content to SKUs dynamically. We can retire and publish content at any time in real time, etc. But the real challenge starts when we handle multiple price lists per geography, by user type or based on rules. Throw into the mix languages and currency or even scenarios where the same consultants need to sell in two geographies with two price lists and in the same or different language. We will be interested to learn if our competitors can handle that sophistication in their mobile Apps.
Business Scalability of the Vendor At Leapfactor, we worked very hard to make sure we could respond to customers’ demands without having to hire resources and be forced to sequence customers to respond to their needs. This is relevant to you because you need us to update your Apps to new operative systems or simply to fix a bug in no time. When we find a critical issue, we immediately proceed to patch all of our Apps. Imagine if we would require spending one week to fix one App at a time. Whose App would be the last of a list of 10, 50 or 500? If you are still thinking about hiring someone different than Leapfactor, first ask your vendor how they handle their Application lifecycle and particularly the updates, especially if you want to have a branded App with your name and logo in the App Stores.
Support Ok, let's assume you have chosen the dark path and decided to adopt Fragmob or something better. Ask yourself what kind of support your field and/ or your home office is going to get. What happens when a user has a simple question on how to re-install and App or a hard problem that would require troubleshooting? What are the channels to get support, hotlines, Web forms, emails? Can people ask the question via Facebook or Twitter? At what time? What is the response time and resolution time? Does the support team communicate clearly in English or actually can they provide support in French or Spanish?
Copyright 2016 © Leapfactor All Rights Reserved