Competitor+Intelligence


 * Competitor Intelligence**

In approaching our project, we were tasked with deciding on a method to improve on the existing structure of TCards. Based on research, the two best options were RFID cards and QR codes, where the latter was our choice of focus.

After realization that another group was adopting an idea similar to our choosing where they used RFID technology in a card to hasten small purchases, more research was done to understand the perceived benefits of their product. The reason we did this was because the best way to succeed in business is to understand your competitors. If you can understand where your competitors fall short, or even where they succeed, we can use this intelligence to help better our product.

The group’s RFID idea focused on the selling point of “speeding up “purchases, and emphasized on the notion of not having to wait in line. Another key selling point of their idea was not having any interest payments on their card, so essentially a user won’t have to pay interest accumulated on their own money. The drawbacks to this idea is firstly that research shows that the majority of waiting that is actually done in line is not because the payment process is long, but it results more from the reason that a person has to wait until their order is fully processed (i.e. if you order a burger, you have to wait until its cooked). The other drawback we identified was based on their other selling point of not paying interest. Though this sounds catchy to potential investors, the reality is that interest is usually paid on money you money you borrow or money you owe, for example, credit cards. Banks rarely charge interest on debit cards, and in actuality, the “Swift” card is just that, a debit card.

Using this information, we were able to strengthen the focus of our project. Our improved TCard is not focused on the idea of speed, we are more concerned with offering students a better University experience by facilitating for a trouble-free environment where accessing UTM services is easy. Also, security has to be a key focus of our project since we are dealing with student’s sensitive financial information and student information. RFID technology still has the drawback of being susceptible to being interfered from a third party attempting to capture user information. Such security concerns is the reason we adopted QR codes mainly because we believe that it is safe method for students to use their cards, and it provides some truly convenience benefits.