John Adams, Program Manager of Channel Enablement at Keysight 
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SATO Vicinity
How an interactive product demo app helps SATO bring its complex products to life for prospective customers
SATO Vicinity develops and sells products that use its global-standard PJM RFID (Phase Jitter Modulation Radio Frequency Identification) technology to track and identify tagged items. Uniquely, PJM RFID can quickly identify large amounts of tagged items with 100% accuracy, even when randomly or tightly packed. A subsidiary of electronics manufacturer SATO Global, SATO Vicinity builds high-end, customized applications for customers worldwide from industries including healthcare, blood and pathology, and wholesale diamonds.
The challenge
Helping prospective customers understand the benefits of blood tracking products.Ensuring the right blood sample is used for the right person is critical for patient safety and wellbeing. SATO Vicinity's PJM RFID products are widely used in the blood transfusion medicine sector, because they guarantee 100% accuracy in identifying and tracking blood samples. They can detect when a blood sample is added to or removed from a smart fridge, and immediately log blood type, expiry date, and other vital information.
However, SATO Vicinity found prospective customers sometimes struggle to fully grasp the benefits and uses of their products from a description alone.
"We find even medical professionals who are very experienced in blood transfusion often have difficulty in making the leap between an audio description of what RFID can do for them, versus seeing a live demonstration with working software that looks like their applications might look in a lab or hospital."
Any capital expenditure in the medical field typically takes a long time to approve. So SATO Vicinity's products have long sales cycles of months or even years.
To help speed up the sales cycle, the company decided to build a demonstration application to use at conferences and data exhibitions. The aim was to give people a real-life simulation of how they can use SATO Vicinity's products to make their day-to-day work easier.
The outcome
A custom demo app that provides an interactive simulation of how SATO products work.SATO Vicinity developed a Zato-based demonstration application that connects to smart fridges and agitators. It works just like SATO Vicinity's products, detecting blood samples added to the fridge or removed. It displays information on the blood units in the fridge, such as blood type, date taken, and date added to the fridge. It also shows each sample's current status — for example, flagging up if it has expired or has been out of the fridge for too long.
"SATO Vicinity used the demo app for the first time at the latest International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) conference and we are delighted with its potential to shorten the sales cycle."
Business Challenge
Shortening the sales cycle by overcoming prospective clients' struggle to fully grasp the benefits and uses of SATO Vicinity's products from a description alone
Solution
An interactive demo application providing a real-life simulation of using blood management products, built in Zato
Benefits
Shortening the sales cycles in complex, mission-critical environments
"Zato is our go-to solution now for developing products requiring integrations with other systems."