Weight loss company Weight Watchers will implement a mobile point-of-sale platform  in July for its meeting rooms and stores to provide new value-added services for members.

Weight Watchers’ members will be able to access information from meetings across multiple mobile devices while grocery shopping through the cloud-based platform, which is being developed in partnership with Kony. Synchronizing all of the information into one concise location will simplify the user experience and encourage loyalty.

“Mobility will play a critical role for market leaders like Weight Watchers as the rate of change in business environments is accelerating due to digital advancements,” said Amit Aghara, vice president for product marketing at Kony.

Weight Watchers was unable to comment before press deadline.

Moving on up
The use of Kony’s cloud-based platform will enable Weight Watchers to reveal member information, scan credit cards or operate Bluetooth weigh scales for product purchases on tablets and smartphones.

This platform solution is designed to improve efficiencies and provide new capabilities in Weight Watchers meeting locations. The application can be used in Weight Watchers retail stores or in meetings conducted on-site through employers.

Group meetings can be organized through the application to streamline internal processes. The simplified data entry process and greater consumer insight will give service providers more time to spend with members, and further enhance the Weight Watchers consumer experience.

Lastly, the solution will operate in either connected or disconnected scenarios to improve the efficiencies of the POS operators, according to Mr. Aghara.

Implementations will begin in select Weight Watchers locations in July.

Reliability and ease
Weight Watchers has made growing its mobile presence a priority.

Weight Watchers is hoping to boost recruitment with its new Feel Good Cafe in London where customers can sample free meals by posting pictures of the food to social media.

The cafe is one way the weight loss brand is addressing new research revealing that 52 percent of women are uncertain where to begin when contemplating weight loss and only 8 percent feel confident when choosing healthier meal options. While a growing number of brands are leveraging social brand advocacy as a currency in exchange for goods, it is not clear if such a strategy helps build brand loyalty or possibly undermines it by encouraging sharing from consumers who may simply be interested in a free meal (see story).

The constant breaching threat seems to be driving consumers to mPOS.

In recent years, mPOS has garnered attention for its ability to help businesses of all sizes, from small merchants to major retailers, drive more sales and bring greater efficiencies to many of their most important customer service processes.

In this early adoption curve, the focus has tended to be on what is cool and different – who can offer the sleekest-looking reader, or who can offer a visually appealing payment app. But now any headline regarding breaches is changing the conversation, putting more attention on security (see story).

“Enterprise mobility is about more than delivering old legacy apps to new devices. It is now about enabling a whole new set of capabilities and business process innovation so companies and their people can do things nobody’s ever done before, anywhere,” Mr. Aghara said.

“This is particularly important as so many industries are in need of transformation,” he said.

“And for specific sectors that continue to undergo massive disruption and transformation, such as health care, the core of that transformation is around business process innovation made possible through enterprise mobility.”

Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon, editorial assistant for Mobile Marketer, New York