Toyota Tsusho : Cross-industry Collaboration for One-stop Connections Between People and Cities SMART COM. Laboratories Established to Develop Complex ICT Platforms

SMARTCOMCITY is a city life application venture promoting ICT and IoT technologies for the shared benefit of consumers and businesses, led by a cross-industry consortium of Oricom Co., Ltd., Ricoh Co., Ltd., Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Tomen Electronics Corp., Nippon Broadcasting System, Inc., and MCS Co., Ltd. The six partners will jointly establish SMART COM. Laboratories Co., Ltd. on November 1, 2016 with the aim of responding to emerging trends and meeting customer needs.

The new joint venture develops smartphone-based information infrastructure for urban living. This infrastructure connects people with various types of urban assets, including shopping facilities, restaurants, culture, lodging, and transportation, by merging the latest ICT and IoT technologies with map data, next-generation media, and contents development knowhow. People-centric marketing is the driving strategy behind the venture. In addition to system development, the venture aims to create new communication stories between people and cities. Specifically, ICT and IoT are utilized to generate communication and promotion fields where consumers can feel they are the center of an urban story, leading to new discoveries and excitement. Creating these types of 'cities of stories' energizes communities, leads to higher sales, and nurtures loyal shoppers. In this way, the SMARTCOMCITY infrastructure value enhancement business aims to raise the value of urban assets. In and outside Japan, local government organizations and property developers have begun to implement the concept. The new joint venture will promote the business globally.

SMARTCOMCITYdelivers personalized information to smartphone users based on their behavior and preferences. The system combines a smartphone app featuring only-one functions with cutting-edge digital signage in areas where consumers visit, geofencing using sensing technologies to accurate grasp positional data, along with townfunding with exclusive incentives for consumer. All of these technologies combine to create a one-stop experience for smartphone users.

SMARTCOMCITY establishes schemes for efficient customer-drawing and purchasing to stimulate consumers' latent desires, create meaningful experiences and meetings, introduce consumers to bargains, generate excitement, and facilitate serendipity. For city businesses, the system optimizes and maximizes markets by attracting customers to their locations.

Attention-Interest-Navigation-Action-Loyalty-Share (AINALS) is a new smartphone-based method of relationship-forming consumption which facilitates the creation of bonds between consumers and city assets, the provision of optimal information, purchases and repeated visits to places of interest.

SMART COM. Laboratories designs and develops system applications for the SMARTCOMCITYplatform and operates the applications as outsourcing partner. The company can monitor and analyze user information and advertisement viewer data, as well as purchasing behavior at stores data in real time to offer consulting on city revitalization and asset value enhancement and other optimized services for city asset owners.

In addition to promoting the SMARTCOMCITYplatform, SMART COM. Laboratories will develop media and communication business by facilitating, maintaining, and building relationships between people and cities using ICT and IoT, for the development of various types of products and services.