Dotcom Systems, Sri Lanka’s only certified Google Trusted photographers

Dotcom Systems Head of Business Development Athif Nazeer – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

By Shiran Illanperuma

Q: In laymen’s terms could you explain how Google See works and your role in it?

A: Google See Inside is an extension of Google Street View. Street View launched just a couple of months ago – it gives you an overall 360 degree view of a street or road you want to go to. But what we at Dotcom Systems are certified to do is to connect Street View into your business. Let’s say for example a hotel owner wants to showcase his rooms and his surroundings. 

Why should a guest visit a place like Cinnamon Grand and pay 200 dollars a night when they can go for a cheaper option like Airbnb? This is where we come into play and this is where Street View and See Inside come together. As certified photographers in Sri Lanka we have exclusive rights to photograph the interiors of businesses and create a virtual tour on Google.

Our work is not simply photography; it’s about how you highlight a specific business. Let’s say the business is a factory. It’s no point taking a photo of every nook and cranny of the factory like a normal photographer would do. We’re different because we know how to really highlight a business; we know what the most important requirements are and what sort of photographic skills are required. That level of knowledge and skill is what we’ve been striving for and it’s how we reached the milestone of over a100 clients in the last 36 months or so.

Q: Tell us about Dotcom Systems history and relationship with Google?

A: The Google See program opened up last year and we were the first to get notified about it because we had been requesting the feature for a long time. We started with a thing called photospheres which is like a very basic model of Street View where. You can take it with your phone or camera and upload it to your computer. It’s like the entry level into Street View for most other countries. We got invited into the whole Google See Inside program – called the Street View Trusted program. We applied and there was a certain criteria we had to fit into. Once that was completed, we got our certification and went on to get invited to Singapore where we attended the Google See Inside Summit representing Sri Lanka

Q: How do you approach business for this service? Do they ever come to you?

A: To be honest, when we started of it was so difficult to convince people that this is not a photo and not a video. A lot of people offered us photos, asking us to convert that into a 360 degree view. We had to explain that we’d have to take the photos ourselves and compile a 360 degree view – that the final product is sort of a hybrid between a photo and a video. A video is a complete walkthrough of an entire place, a photo is just snapshot. What we do is combine both of them and call it a hybrid – that’s how we get most Sri Lankan business to understand.

It’s been quite funny because many people say that it isn’t something that is really required. But we usually tell them that we’ll do this for as a demo and if the business is happy we move forward with it. Generally they are quite thrilled to be able to look around their own store and find that it looks different and nicer compared to looking at photos and videos.

Quite a few companies have come to us now. But this is still new technology and in Sri Lanka you have to do a little convincing so sales takes up about 60% of our entire time. People used to say they don’t need this solution but when they realise there’s not enough marketing for their resort or that people don’t really know what’s on offer, that’s where our solution comes in.

If businesses take the initiative to be a part of Google See, then there are two ways to move forward. Businesses can go on Google, search for Street View trusted photographers and then narrow the search for Sri Lanka on that list. Currently we’re the only certified Google photographers in Sri Lanka, with a team of five. We can also be contacted directly via e-mail ([email protected]) or telephone.

Q: Going through your portfolio it seems that you have decided to focus on the tourism industry with a lot of client based out of Colombo. Was this a deliberate business move?

A: We’ve focused a lot into tourism mainly because it’s a very interesting field to be in. You get to experience different areas. It’s been interesting to see so many undiscovered hotels in Sri Lanka, I was in a hotel in Anuradhapura where you had to travel about 10km through the jungle area to find. These hotels have a marketing team but don’t know how to capitalise on it, and how to materialise what they have. It’s one of the reasons they want solutions like this. We’ve had hoteliers come to us saying that they want something different and something they can truly highlight their properties. That’s how we as a team thought that tourism is the way to go, it’s a booming industry too.

One of our first clients was the Amara Forest hotel in Sigiriya, then we moved on to Maalu Maalu in Passikudah and later to Kandy. Our approach has been geographically focused. We actually started by focusing on different parts of the country and we were quite late to come into Colombo. Over time we mainly focused on resorts and hotels of the kind that you don’t commonly find in Colombo. So far our focus out of Colombo has been very profitable and successful.

Q: Can this technology be applied to industries outside tourism? Or even the public sector?

A: Of course it can but progress there has been a little slower. We recently got a call from an industrial company that wanted us to showcase their machinery and equipment. They wanted us to basically highlight what sort of product offerings that they had. A website with a two dimensional image and description of what the product does can’t give you an effective understanding of the product but with See Inside, you can roam around  the entire product and take a 360 degree view to know what it really looks like. It’s like a virtual showroom available at the tip of your fingers.

As for the public sector, I don’t really think the Government would like to show most of their public offices. However we are working with Laksala to showcase the factories and what it is all about is about. We are also in discussions with SriLankan Airlines to do a 360 degree tour inside their planes. These are interesting avenues that have surfaced since we began. We’ve been innovating a lot of industries and trying to get a lot through this service itself. 

Q: How do you update your clients on the success or failure of your work? Can it be measured?

A: We have tried our very best to give clients metrics on how their tours are performing on Google through an additional service called Google Analytics – a feature that we receive from Google because we are a partner company. As a partner company we have unbiased access into any Google product that we want. There is a feature coming up very soon that will allow businesses to track how many people have accessed each tour. So if a lot of people are clicking on a specific room in a specific hotel, the business owner will come to know it and later their marketing plan strategically based on interest.

We don’t have much metrics to give a guaranteed estimation of how many new guests have come in but the clients themselves tell us of success stories. Sometimes guests come into a hotel saying that they saw it on Google See inside. Those have been the tipping points for us to really say that the project is successful.

Q: Do you have data on where people are accessing your tours from?

A: Yes we do. Surprisingly for Maalu Maalu in Passikudah, a lot of data has been coming in from eastern European countries and quite a few from the Middle East. It’s quite impressive because you normally don’t expect those regions to be very tech-savvy but during our last visit to Dubai we realised that there is a world of difference between the Middle East and Sri Lanka. Everyone there uses smartphones and everyone has heard of Google Street View and See Inside. They use these things every day to navigate and get around. A fair bit of traffic has also been coming from the US, maybe because it’s quite a famous feature in the US.

Q: What are your plans for Sri Lanka going forward?

A: So many resorts and hotels are opening up these days. Every month at least two to three restaurants open up. It’s not like we’re going to take everyone into our portfolio but whoever understands our solution has the potential to come on board with us. 

Our plan is to continue our focus more into tourism and resorts. However, as I mentioned earlier we considering something to do with government tourism because we’ve already done projects in places like Sigiriya where you can have a complete walkthrough and take a 360 degree tour inside with Google. In Kandy there’s the Mackwoods tea estate which we’re working on, the next few months will focus on that. We’re also going to do some free projects for schools for free. One of the oldest schools in Batticaloa has requested us to do a 360 view of the compound. We feel it’s a chance for us to contribute to society a bit.

Q: Tell us a bit about your operations overseas?

A: We’ve actually expanded our profile in Dubai where we do interactive digital touch screen touch screen displays. It’s not common in Sri Lanka but it’s booming in Dubai where a board room meeting might have an HD touch screen display instead of a projector. We also do interactive screens like the ones you get in some restaurants. Very soon we hope to bring them to Sri Lanka.

We’ve had so many of clients from the Middle East including well-known brands like Park Hyatt in Dubai. We also recently did a launch at the famous Burj Al Arab in Dubai. We have many more projects in the works as there is so much potential there as well. We had actually started off in the region but had difficulty due to conflicts in the region as well as the after effects of the recession. Now that the market has settled we’ve got really good growth in Dubai.

Dubai is also where we have a lot of our upcoming virtual reality projects in development. We are working with Sony and Samsung and of course Google Cardboard which is the cheapest and most accessible virtual reality platform.

Q: Now that you’ve completed over a year in the field and racked up over a 100 clients, what are some of the lessons you have learned?

A: We have invested so much in our clientele that we’ve given out many free programs to show people the value of this solution. In turn, we’ve really helped them grow their businesses - from small cafes to big hotel chains. We’ve really grown because of those investments. We’ve gained the trust from clients due to our willingness to develop their business. That’s where we differ from any other player that’s coming to or is already in the market. If you just take photos and put it on Google, no one will know and there won’t be a point. We provide additional customisation services thanks to our partner relationship with Google and our experience in this field. 

For us, to start from nothing and come up all the way here is a big deal. We don’t like to call ourselves a Google Street View or See Inside company; we are a digital visibility company, we specialise in giving people an online platform.