Sproxil Launches Mobile Product Authentication™ mobile app for Blackberry 10
Award-winning product verification technology now available to 97% of smartphone users

To download the app, Click here

Cambridge, Mass. (February 10, 2015) – Sproxil^®, Inc., a leading provider of world-class brand protection, is proud to announce the launch of its’ Mobile Product Authentication™ (MPA™) mobile app for Blackberry 10, joining the company’s portfolio of iOS, Android, and Blackberry 7 mobile apps. The award-winning product verification service covers 100% of all phones via SMS and voice and is now available to 97% of the smartphone market globally. ¹

The recently launched app is an alternative way for Blackberry 10 users to access Sproxil’s MPA technology, which originally launched as an SMS and voice based service. The technology allows consumers to avoid potentially dangerous counterfeits by verifying that the products come from a genuine, legitimate source.

MPA’s security labels have scratch card technology – similar to that used for replenishing mobile airtime – to hide the unique, product-specific code. Every MPA protected product bears this label. At point of purchase, consumers remove the label’s scratch panel to reveal the code, which they text for free to Sproxil.

Alternatively, consumers can use the company’s mobile apps, which allow for verification by typing in the number or scanning the 2D barcode. Almost instantly, the cloud-based technology processes the code and replies to the consumer indicating if the product is genuine or suspicious.

“Our mobile apps are developed with the same high standards of security, speed, and reliability that MPA product verification technology is globally recognized for,” states Lu Zou, Systems Architect at Sproxil. “With millions of consumers already using the verification service, we see a significant opportunity for brands to better connect with and understand consumers in emerging markets – an opportunity that will set them apart from their competitors.”

The MPA solution can be used to verify any tangible item, and Sproxil’s solution is currently being implemented and used for products across multiple industries including pharmaceutical, skin care, supplements and vitamins, electrical cabling, automotive and motorcycle parts and agro-business, to name a few.

To download the app, Click here

Contact:

Jeff Loucks, PR Manager, Sproxil

jeff.loucks@sproxil.com

+1 (781) 571-9330

 

1. Global market share held by the leading smartphone operating systems from 1st quarter 2011 to 2nd quarter 2014 (Q2 2014 data) http://www.statista.com/statistics/236035/market-share-of-global-smartphone-os-shipments-by-mobile-operating-system-per-quarter/

 

 

Congratulations to Chinedum Chijioke on becoming the Managing director for Sproxil Nigeria. See below the press release.

Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. & Lagos, Nigeria (February 5, 2015) –Sproxil®, a leading provider of world-class brand protection, is proud to announce that Chinedum Chijioke has been appointed Managing Director for their Nigerian operations. Chijioke will be responsible for managing the staff and leading the development and execution of the Company’s expansion plans in Nigeria.

He is also responsible for directing management of the Company’s corporate relationships with customers, vendors, regulators, and shareholders. Sproxil Nigeria pioneered Mobile Authentication Service (MAS) in the country and has grown significantly to protect products across multiple industries, including pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, personal care, and automotive parts. Its award-winning Mobile Product Authentication™ (MPA™) technology is the most widely used MAS in the country.

Chijioke has fourteen years of strategic management and consulting experience. Prior to joining Sproxil, he was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of CFS West Africa Limited, a customer service consultancy based in Lagos, Nigeria. Before CFS, Chijioke was Deputy Head of Business Advisory at Nextzon Business Services Limited, a management consultancy also based in Lagos.

Sproxil is an ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified social enterprise that uses mobile technology to combat counterfeiting and increase brand equity with innovative, consumer-focused product protection and targeted marketing solutions. Its award-winning Mobile Product Authentication™ (MPA™) solution helps ensure goods are not counterfeit or compromised, empowering consumers to verify product genuineness by SMS, mobile app, web, or voice.

Compatible with any tangible item, MPA is widely used by leading pharmaceutical companies to curb the multi-billion dollar counterfeit drug industry. MPA protects products across multiple industries, including personal care, automotive aftermarket parts and electrical cables. Sproxil’s mobile marketing and consumer loyalty services help brand owners increase consumer loyalty and differentiate themselves from competitors.

The company has been recognized globally for its efforts against counterfeiting and is endorsed by regulatory bodies in Nigeria and Kenya. Sproxil received the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office 2013 Patents for Humanity Award in Information Technology, the 2010 IBM SmartCamp Boston Award and the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative Outstanding Commitment Award. In 2013, Sproxil was named the most innovative company in health care and #7 overall by Fast Company Magazine.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, Sproxil has operations in India, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan, with the ability to execute projects on six major continents. For more information and a full list of Sproxil’s solution suite, please visit www.sproxil.com.

Meet Lilian

Lillian is a single mother who has been struggling financially to take care of her child. In fact, she and her son have not been able to visit her mother in three years simply because she could not afford it.

One day, Lillian came up with a great idea to design grocery bags that women can take to the market or grocery store. She designed the first few bags and sold them to women in her neighborhood to pilot the idea. The women loved it and began ordering more. She realized that she could turn this into a lucrative business that could help her get out of her financial struggles. She wrote up a business plan, found a manufacturer, secured her distribution channels, got a loan from the bank and started manufacturing. Her bags were selling out quickly and she could finally afford to buy good quality clothes for her child and take that trip to visit her mother.

A few months went by and sales started to decline rapidly. Lillian was very concerned and unsure why this was happening. She decided to do a little market research. She visited stores that she knew might sell her grocery bags and realized that they were actually selling fake versions of her bag. Lillian was heartbroken; all of her hard work was going down the drain because counterfeiters were manufacturing substandard versions of her bags.

Lillian’s story is one of many small businesses. Many people take the risk to start their own companies and work very hard to run their business successfully. But counterfeiters make it difficult by making a profit off of business owners’ hard work.

4 reasons why you should not support counterfeiting;

• Counterfeits are a waste of your time and money: counterfeit products are generally not made with the same quality and care as their genuine counterparts, which means that it may not last as long as the original versions, not have the same features, or meet the expectations you have for that brand. In some cases, like with car parts, the counterfeit versions can be very dangerous and cause unwanted accidents.

• You support only honest, legitimate businesses: if consumers decide not to buy these goods, these criminals will have no incentive to keep making counterfeit products. You also ensure that you’re not supporting organized crime, which has been strongly linked to the counterfeiting industry.

• Counterfeiting hurts the economy: Counterfeiting leads to lost jobs in the company with the original product. A decline in sales means the company needs to cut down on costs and let go of hardworking, honest people because they simply can no longer afford to keep them.

• Counterfeiting can be very dangerous: Depending on what the counterfeit product is, it may physically harm the consumer. For example; counterfeit drugs, counterfeit auto parts, counterfeit cosmetics, and counterfeit foods have all been found to contain ingredients or parts that can put people’s safety and wellbeing ins serious harm.

Is your company facing counterfeiting issues? How are you handling it? 

At  Sproxil, we are dedicated to developing amazing, innovative services that enable companies to protect their products along the supply chain and even in stores. We have an extensive post on how our services work here.

Have you been a victim of counterfeiting? Share with us some other examples of how counterfeiting affects small businesses.

 

The story of Lillian is a fictional one drafted for the purpose of this blog

Today, we celebrate five years since we launched Nigeria’s first Mobile Authentication Service (MAS) with Biofem Pharmaceuticals.
It was almost like a leap of faith: Biofem believed strongly in our technology and recognized our service’s strong potential. Fortunately, the MAS pilot became a success, spurring dozens of other companies to follow suit and even inspiring regulatory change.

Our service is now the most widely used MAS in Nigeria and protects products across multiple industries, such as pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, personal care, and automotive parts.

And it all started with a Diabetes treatment drug, Glucophage.

We reflect on our anniversary with a quick trip down memory lane:

 

Read more about the anniversary event after the jump.
Continue reading “Mobile Authentication Service (MAS) Celebrates Five Years of Success” →

Reblog from the Center for Health Market Innovations. Original blog post here.
 

Download Highlights: Findings From 2014 here

2014 was a year of surprising new challenges, but also one in which we gained ground in surmounting long-lasting health issues in primary care and treating people in remote populations.

We looked on heartbroken as Ebola ravaged West Africa’s health systems, seemingly destroying the hope and recent progress on health outcomes. Health innovators searched for effective ways to respond, finding hope in programs and products working to stop new infections and combat the effects of the disease on poor communities. In Nigeria, we witnessed a success story; the mobile application used by eHealth Africa, originally designed to track and prevent polio, was instrumental in contact tracing Ebola, decreasing reporting times for new cases by 75%. Many analysts have pinpointed contact tracing as a major asset in Nigeria’s ability to eradicate Ebola.

By identifying programs such as eHealth Africa, analyzing their impact, and connecting them to potential partners, funders, and interested researchers, the Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI) supports the diffusion of promising practices working to ensure better health care for the poor. CHMI provides information about over 1,400 such programs around the world.

Highlights: Findings From 2014 identifies healthcare programs, policies, and practices, documents and analyzes promising practices, and spotlights programs with potential for scale up and adaptation within and across borders. Read about more than 70 programs working to make quality healthcare delivered by innovators affordable and accessible to the world’s poor.

Key insights from Highlights: Findings From 2014 include:

• CHMI is now proud to present improved profiles for over 1,400 innovative health programs in more than 130 countries around the world.
• 85 programs have reported 148 new examples of scaling up in 2014, including offering a wider range of services, replicating their programs in new countries, adding more facilities, and increasing the number of people served.
• Health programs in rapidly changing health markets are improving and expanding access to quality care. Read about the innovation landscape  in the Philippines, Nigeria, and Pakistan
• More programs are reporting promising results with the integration of technology and mHealth platforms into Maternal and Child Health. In Mali, Djantoli community health workers have used mHealth to help track and prevent disease among over 3,500 children since 2010.
• New research on the Indian pharmacy Medplus shows the market-wide impacts of entry by the retail pharmacy chain on drug quality and prices of entry in Hydrabad. Other private pharmacy chains show evidence of increasing quality and reducing prices of medicines through partnerships with drug companies, ensuring protection for the poor.
• The CHMI Reported Results initiative is ensuring that innovators gain access to information on “what works.” The 1,170 results reported by CHMI-profiled programs include improvements in health outcomes, affordability, and population coverage.
• Furthering our network’s knowledge of what works, new research previews include lessons learned by members of the CHMI Primary Care Learning Collaborative, results from the Rapid Routes to Scale  review of over 450 primary care programs, and indications for innovative ways to empower women by investing in certain health business models.
• A new system to increase visibility for programs with completed, up-to-date profiles and monitoring & evaluation systems in place will help CHMI present promising innovations. Read more about CHMI Plus, and learn how this new system spotlights health organizations that are focused on measuring and reporting their impact.

 

This blog post was first published on Sproxil’s Eye on the Market newsletter. For exclusive content and updates, sign up for our newsletter.###

December is a good time to reflect on all of the positive achievements accomplished during the year. From winning the Schwab Foundation’s Entrepreneur of the Year award to becoming ISO-27001 and ISO-9001 certified, 2014 was quite busy.

We’ve also welcomed a new group of passionate, hard-working people to our global family this year. With our team quickly growing, we learned a lot about having good teamwork, maintaining positive dynamics, and fostering productive relationships.

Our Cambridge (U.S.) team took what we’ve learned and went candlepin bowling.

Why bowling? It really wasn’t about what kind of activity we did, but that we played as a team (and had some healthy competition!). We recognize that teams are much more productive when they share a bond beyond the conference room walls. And quite frankly, with all of the exciting developments we’re working on, the short break was well-deserved.

As 2014 comes to a close, we emphasize the collaboration and hard work that brought us to where we are now. We look forward to 2015 with a lot of promise and more exciting news to come!

See you next year!

– The Sproxil team

— More pictures of Sproxil’s team going pro —

This blog post was first published on Sproxil’s Eye on the Market newsletter. For exclusive content and updates, sign up for our newsletter.###

December is a good time to reflect on all of the positive achievements accomplished during the year. From winning the Schwab Foundation’s Entrepreneur of the Year award to becoming ISO-27001 and ISO-9001 certified, 2014 was quite busy.

We’ve also welcomed a new group of passionate, hard-working people to our global family this year. With our team quickly growing, we learned a lot about having good teamwork, maintaining positive dynamics, and fostering productive relationships.

Our Cambridge (U.S.) team took what we’ve learned and went candlepin bowling.

Why bowling? It really wasn’t about what kind of activity we did, but that we played as a team (and had some healthy competition!). We recognize that teams are much more productive when they share a bond beyond the conference room walls. And quite frankly, with all of the exciting developments we’re working on, the short break was well-deserved.

As 2014 comes to a close, we emphasize the collaboration and hard work that brought us to where we are now. We look forward to 2015 with a lot of promise and more exciting news to come!

See you next year!

– The Sproxil team

— More pictures of Sproxil’s team going pro —

Continue reading “A Farewell to 2014” →

As a part of the greater anti-counterfeiting efforts by Kenya’s PCPB and AAK, Sproxil Kenya partner Juanco SPS officially launches a consumer-facing project that safeguards their top-notch pesticide Bestox 100EC with our award-winning Mobile Product Authentication (MPA) technology. By helping farmers get assurance that their pesticides are the original product, they can protect their crops and their livelihood.
The solution soft-launched recently with over 3,000 farmers already using it to verify their Juanco products.

The official launch event, which takes place today, includes esteemed attendees such as the Cabinet Secretary of Agriculture.

Thank you to the organizers and attendees of the event. We look forward to many more successes in the Kenyan market and beyond!

Interested in how Sproxil can help protect your consumers? Email us at team@sproxil.com!

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sproxil Earns International Standards for Quality Management
and ISMS Certifications 

Completes ISO27001 and ISO9001 International Standard Requirements

Cambridge, Mass. (October 22, 2014) – Sproxil^®, a leading provider of world-class brand protection and mobile marketing services, announces its Cambridge headquarters has earned the International Standards for quality management systems and Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) certifications. Sproxil successfully completed comprehensive assessments of the Company’s quality processes and management systems, information security, and continual improvement processes for ISO9001 and ISO27001.

The certifications highlight Sproxil’s ability to meet clients various and specific needs and strengthens the integrity of the company’s solution suite, including the company’s flagship, award-winning Mobile Product Authentication™ technology.

“Becoming ISO certified further solidifies our position as the global leader in mobile-based product protection technology and demonstrates commitment to our clients,” states Vivian Tang, Business Operations Coordinator of Sproxil who led the certification process. “The certifications demonstrate that our continual improvement processes and data security measures meet both strict global standards and our internal standards of success.”

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world’s largest developer of International Standards for businesses. Accepted as the worldwide standard that defines quality, ISO9001 certification is granted to companies who have developed a process approach to implementing and improving the effectiveness of a quality management system in order to enhance customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements.  ISO27001, considered the most stringent certification for information security controls, is focused on adoption of a process approach for information security systems and their management.

 

 

 

 

 

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About Sproxil

Sproxil uses mobile technology to combat counterfeiting and increase brand equity with innovative, consumer-focused product protection and targeted marketing solutions. Its flagship Mobile Product Authentication™(MPA™) solution helps ensure goods are not counterfeit or compromised, empowering consumers to verify product genuineness by SMS, mobile app, web, or voice. Compatible with any tangible item, MPA is widely used by leading pharmaceutical companies to curb the multi-billion dollar counterfeit drug industry. MPA protects products across more than ten industries, including personal care, automotive aftermarket parts and electrical cables. Sproxil’s mobile marketing and consumer loyalty services help brand owners increase consumer loyalty and differentiate themselves from competitors.

 

The company has been recognized globally for its efforts against counterfeiting and is endorsed by regulatory bodies in Nigeria and Kenya. Sproxil received the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office 2013 Patents for Humanity Award in Information Technology, the 2010 IBM SmartCamp Boston Award and the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative Outstanding Commitment Award. In 2013, Sproxil was named the most innovative company in health care and #7 overall by Fast Company Magazine. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, Sproxil has operations in India, Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria, with the ability to execute projects on six major continents.

 

For more information and a full list of Sproxil’s solution suite, please visit www.sproxil.com.

 

 

 

MORE WAYS TO VERIFY
We at Sproxil are just like everyone else: we love the ability to choose from a variety of options. That’s why we’ve created even more ways for consumers to verify their products instantly at point of purchase.

Introducing our Mobile Product Authentication™ (MPA™) app on Android and our web verification app on our website! Now consumers can text, call, go online, or use our app to verify the authenticity of their products and engage in the growing number of MPA-based loyalty programs offered by our clients.

 Our Android app allows consumers to text the PIN to verify their products or – where available – scan the 2D matrix. We also have a ton of exciting app features on our roadmap that we just can’t wait to reveal!

You can download the app for free at sproxil.com/android.

Ourweb verification app allows consumers to verify their product using any web browser: mobile or desktop. We even created a nifty animated GIF to show you where to scratch and input the code.

MORE WAYS TO CONNECT

We just created a Pinterest and Instagram for Sproxil! Through our social media channels, we’re going to start really upping the interactive ante by posting fun mini-games and contests. We also love sharing great content, so you’ll definitely see some of that too.

While we work on that, we’re starting to build followings on our budding Pinterest and Instagram accounts.

Follow us for some upcoming fun and games!