Country: Switzerland, Singapore, South Korea
Industry: IT Services
Founded date: 2012
Contrary to common misconception on crowd analytics, DRFC Group works differently than the rest. A reason for the field’s bad reputation is the recent rise in concern for data privacy. As some of the big players in the industry get caught red-handed for sharing user data without their express consent or even selling them; it’s a task to convince people otherwise that DFRC Group is unlike the others. In fact, DFRC Group guarantees the anonymity of the data they collect. ‘Our crowd analytics technology relies on sensors that track mobile phones’ probing signals emitted when phones’ WIFI signal is active. This way we do not collect personal data. Moreover, we do not resell location data to anyone. Instead, data ownership belongs to the entity that has purchased a sensor.’ Just ask their ardent clients who keep coming back to their exceptional quality of service and work.
The charm of Korea
DFRC Group has been catering to several cities in Korea for the past several years now. Seoul, Busan, Daegu - to name a few. One of their recent accomplishments is the work they have done together with Korea’s main local airport - Gimpo airport. They deployed 1,200 sensors all throughout the airport researching how to predict traveler congestions and finding ways to better the traveling experience of passengers. Being a traveler herself, as Clea Rozenblum has visited over 20 countries thus far, this project was more meaningful to her besides it being one of their largest projects in the record. And to top it off, the main focus of the project was to better people’s lives. Now that’s what we can call a win-win.
Korea was not new territory for Clea because even before DFRC Group; she had already spent several years studying there and traveling throughout the country, thanks to the working holiday visa program. So, as Clea would say ‘I knew what I was getting into!’ The Korean culture that helped propel DFRC Group into greater heights was networking and recommendations. Positive reviews and great recommendations traveled easily by word of mouth among the professionals in the industry.
Taking ownership
‘Some of the values that I hold dear is reliability, which is
walking the walk after you have talked the talk and someone
who takes ownership of their actions and decisions; no matter what.’
One of the contributing factors to DFRC’s success is the quality of reliability, found in each and every member of their team. A factor very crucial to make or break a startup. At DFRC, their strong sense of responsibility is their pride and joy. Each member takes full ownership of their work, which in result steers their team in the right direction.
With a solid internal foundation, stability within the company comes. Proven to be a quality needed especially when changes come out of the blue just like the pandemic did. Plans, large-scale projects and even international expansion were put on hold. As quickly as the pandemic began, they had to move just as fast into pivoting their business around the new changes brought on by covid. The first shift happened in their transition of focus from service-based to product-based customers. Making their purchases more long-lasting, unlike service-based contracts which are usually for a limited period of time only. ‘Now, we are making another exciting shift, which is towards a Data as a Service model thanks to a newly developed technology that we call Data Spoon, which enables DFRC to decrease data acquisition cost and work on large-scale projects (think city-wide coverage).’
In the face of crisis, teamwork is an edge that DFRC Group come equipped with. From management to developers being able to quickly launch new functionalities, to sales staff adapting to new customers. Sure enough, they were able to overcome adversity and come out on the other end of the pandemic successfully. Today they continue to enable smart cities and companies of all sizes to make data-based, yet human-centric decisions through their crowd analytics solutions.