Inside the Boardroom: Visionstate Partnership Drives AI Innovation for WANDA Platform

[Music] hello and welcome back to ceo. inside the boardroom my name is James bam and today I'm joined by John PS CEO of vision State Corp John it's great to see you again thank you James pleased to be here so if we could start things off with a quick recap for viewers who aren't familiar with the vision State story can you give us a quick summary of the company or some of the history and maybe the elevator pitch for the car business yeah 100% so uh Vision State iot Inc is the main operating division Vision State Corp and it's a company that is in the iot or Internet of Things business specifically targeted toward facility management so what we do is we track cleaning and maintenance protocols throughout facilities whether it's airport uh University um you know any of these very large um buildings and institutions um is where our software is applicable and interestingly enough just recently we did get an endorsement from Queens University which is one of the larger universities in Canada um on using our product which is actually called Rwanda so they use that to make sure that their cleaning staff and their maintenance staff are fulfilling protocols um to provide a safe and clean environment for students frankly and their parents coming into the university uh which was one of the first major public um endorsements of our software and I think it's pretty significant in two ways um number one is that it's indicative of uh the fact that it's being de-risked in a sense our software so these uh companies are quite willing to um promote the fact that they're using it um to create a safer and better environment and number two it demonstrates that there is a fundamental shift in facility management toward analytics and digitalization and and we're on the top of it so uh we're we're very happy with where we're at with our product and it's uh you know quickly expanding throughout Canada and and globally in thank you so much for that overview John and interesting to hear about the partnership in place with Queens University certainly a household name across Canada I do want to quickly talk about the W product itself can you give our viewers an overview of the business model and where are the key areas of Revenue growth looking like okay so great question um we operate as uh software as a service so basically it's a subscription based software where you know we charge basically um uh by the user depending on how many users they have uh per location um so it's a pretty standard model if you like in the software industry um and uh you know what we're trying to make it affordable for our customers and then this is a key thing because uh you know te historically margins in facility management operations are very tight and they're looking at you know better efficiency and that sort of thing um which is really what uh we what our software uh you know addresses at the end of the day um but it's really evolved like we started out you know just to give people an idea of what this actually does um you know we started out as a smart restroom device and and basically what we did everybody's seen the piece of paper hanging in the wall in a restroom and we replaced that with a tablet originally the reason why we did that was actually because um the facility we were dealing with had a lot of slip and fall injuries and lawsuits and they needed a way to defend those that was better than the paper based system um when Co happened what happened was we realized that although we had this smart restroom solution we really needed to evolve to be able to track basically anything and everything within a facility um so we embarked on a um uh a bit of a revamp I guess and uh you know focus more on mobile so um what that meant was we could not only track uho activities cleaning maintenance in restrooms but in hallways offices kitchens you know basically everywhere so we went literally from tracking 10 items into a restroom to thousands of um you know areas across a campus like Queens University for example so um we were now scaled to be able to handle these really large um installations and uh so you know a lot of software as a service models will measure success by um subscriber based growth in you know basically the uh customer acquisition rate and ours have been going out 50% quarter and it's starting to reflect in our financials so for example in our first quarter this year you know we showed uh a modest loss but a strong growth in sales and a significant reduction in expenses because now we're moving toward marketing and sales of our product um our financials also show that in fact we have a 90% margin on our software once it's employ which is very typical again of software as a service models um so we're really at the point now where uh we're really focused in on this customer acquisition and trying to get you know large universities and large portfolios of properties um that can Implement our technology great thank you for that that overview of wand I do want to talk uh a littleit about your recent partnership that you've announced with the Alberta machine intelligence Institute can you tell us what that partnership entails and you what's the significance of this uh agreement yeah so great question um you know obviously the topic of artificial intelligence is top of mind right now um not only for uh you know software companies like ourselves but in fact our customers are asking you know it's a bit of Uncharted Territory because it's new um so we didn't want to be the kind of company that says well we're doing AI for the sake of doing AI right and a lot are um but the fact of the matter is that we're now dealing with very large institutions a large amount of data would act which actually lends to um AI uh applications so our goal in working with Amy which is the act ronm for Alberta machine learning Institute um is to come up with an AI model like think of it as an application that can be applied to for example improving schedules so in facility management one of the high cost of uh operations is uh labor so so how do you optimize that labor um you know we can now take these very complex schedules or will be able to when the model is developed and optimize that in a way that can save them significant amounts of money the exciting thing about about it is because it's an AI model that addresses schedule optimization it can actually work in several different sectors so not only is this significant for Wanda in facility management but it could actually be used in logistics other sectors as well um so we're very excited um we were very careful in who we chose to work with on this project uh we ended up working with Amy because they are actually one of the globally renowned institutes for research and machine learning um and it's very clear that at the end of this process we will have a product and only the um uh the IP involved uh so we're extremely excited this will bring wanded to a whole new level there's no question about that um and it'll solidify our position as an innovator and in fact James we are way ahead of the market on this you know the the wand has been around for six seven years you really almost took unfortunately I to say this but it took Co to make it relevant to our customers and now everybody understands the importance of cleaning hygiene and and proper maintenance and the ability to start predicting that in the future which is where your AI comes in and and that introduces a whole new level of efficiency that uh you know frankly wasn't available in the uh you know pre-i days if you like yeah it's certainly an interesting development and yeah interestingly you mentioned uh Co is being a catalyst there I guess a silver lining for vision State out of out of all that I guess beyond your just this partnership looking further ahead you through the rest of 2024 what can investors expect in terms of updates from Vision State uh great question so um we believe the trend financially will continue um that will continue growing will be narrowing our loss so so like last quarter you know the first quarter the year we had a very very slight loss literally one or two contracts away from uh being profitable which is which is huge you know I mean now that's a major milestone for us there's no question about it um so you can look for improved financial performance um improved uh customer acquisition rate we are um negotiating with our Global partner on how we're going to launch effectively in um the European Union and the UK and um Asian markets um that's imminent now because there is a general shift in this whole sector toward datadriven analytics as I mentioned before um you know we're at the Forefront our our partner is a global company in fact they are based in London England uh so it's a logical extension of our company um and uh yeah we're seeing the adoption in Canada go up very high and part of it actually is driven by you know the universities themselves they're they're now saying to facility management operators that you need technology in order to you know win this contract with us and and that's going to require uh anal itics that we can make decisions on moving forward so financially it's getting better technology it's getting better and our reach is growing substantially so uh it's actually very exciting times here at Vision State no question but it soly sounds like it's going to be a big year uh excited to see you you entering some new markets and continuing to grow the company uh financially and on the technology side John great CH with you today thank you so much for joining us thank you appreciate your time and uh have a great day thanks for checking in on Vision estate appreciate it

Channel: CEO.CA

Views: 2,606

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Id: RfmlswGwU3E

Length: 12min 41sec (761 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024