Photo | Courtesy of Kaon Interactive
Gavin Finn, CEO of Kaon Interactive
August 14, 2020
COVID Stories
COVID Stories: Maynard software company sees 85% demand increase
Image | Courtesy of Kaon Interactive
This screenshot is an example of Kaon Interactive's space-planning software tool.
By Devina Bhalla
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Kaon Interactive Inc., headquartered Maynard, found its sales software increasingly helpful to businesses in the wake of COVID-19.
Kaon is a business-to-business software company producing interactive marketing and sales applications.
As companies went online and had to shift from in-person sales pitches to virtual ones, the need for Kaon’s interactive sales software increased. It saw an 85% increase in utilization of its software in the second quarter compared to the first quarter.
Kaon’s software is now being used in more than 200 countries.
“Our types of engagement tools have become very valuable for big companies, particularly in this state where people can’t travel to visit customers,” said Gavin Finn, CEO of Kaon, “and it’s created the opportunity for them to continue to do business with their customers. So we have been seeing an increase in demand for our services and our software.”
Additionally, Kaon did a lot of planning as soon as the pandemic began to emerge and utilized its disaster recovery plan in order to quickly adapt and become productive right away.
Its plan includes three steps: safety of employees, financial plan and discipline, and internal investments in order to emerge from the situation stronger.
“We did a lot of planning in February to make sure our company was going to be operational, efficient, and productive,” said Finn.
The increase in demand Kaon experienced gave it the space and resources to develop two initiatives in regards to the pandemic: free training programs for how to conduct sales meetings virtually and space-planning software.
“So the first thing we did was about helping our customers be successful. The second thing we did is we looked at … all of this advanced technology that we develop for these big companies and how we could leverage that to do some good in general for people and companies that we don’t usually work with,” said Finn.
Kaon already had a software for 3D space-planning it used for companies selling large equipment to other businesses, so it repurposed this tool to help any business virtually plan out its space in order to comply to COVID safety standards.
After making changes to the interface and design and doing some pilot programs, Kaon released this free tool to the public in July.
“We decided we would use all of the capabilities we have built up to give back to the community, and it's not just our local community,” said Finn. “It’s global.”
Since then more than 1,000 schools, small businesses, restaurants, retailers, gyms, and other organizations in 23 countries have used it to redesign facilities to be COVID-19 compliant.
“What we have really done is thought about how we can help our traditional clients be successful, but also what are the other ways we can benefit other businesses and nonprofits that are suffering from the pandemic as well,” said Finn.
The tool is accessible through Kaon’s website and is easy to use with 2D and 3D views, drop-down menus for different business categories like gyms or restaurants, and clear measuring tools to help with proper distancing.
Kaon, on average, is seeing a 30% increase in use of this tool week to week.
Rapid development is the key to being successful during a pandemic in the software and communications industries, Finn said.
“This industry is going to be driven much more towards bringing people into the conversation and engaging everybody instead of having a broadcast, presentation style when it comes to communicating,” said Finn.
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