Pleasant Ridge-based ePrize, a poster child of what Michigan's leaders hope the state's new economy will look like, is ready to burnish its golden boy image as it launches a new division and prepares to release new products.
The company that specializes in interactive promotions for websites is forming a product-development division for new online and mobile marketing products. Translation: it's setting up a 22-member team to come up with new ideas to make the company more money, which of course is necessary to creating new jobs.
"We think this group will add 50 or more people eventually," says Josh Linkner, founder and CEO of ePrize.
The firm, founded in 1999, employs about 350 people and has plans to hire another 50 to 125 employees in the next year or two. Such an expansion would keep the company in line as the leader in its field and maintain its place Metro Detroit's company to watch.
"We have broad shoulders and we feel we can become the next great Detroit company," Linkner says.
New product, ahem innovation, No. 1 is called ePrize Secured. It is used with the company's interactive promotions to secure data and maintain its integrity. This product is available for free to ePrize clients.
Innovations No. 2, 3, 4 … from the new division are on their way within the next six months, according to company officials. These include new technologies for social media, mobile and global products. The new products will raise promotional campaign awareness, integrate with more social networking sites and offer more services globally.
"This proactive stance
on R&D prepares us to be not only current with technology but also
three steps ahead of future technology," Linkner says. "By optimizing our mix of products and services to
anticipate our clients’ needs, we expect to enhance both their success
and ours as interactive promotions graduate to even higher levels of
sophistication."
More simply put, the ePrize plans to expand its business into new markets (social networking websites) on a global basis while sharpening and expanding its product offerings.
"As we head more toward the software-as-a-service, or on-demand, model, we will continue to make our offerings multilingual so we can virtually service the 36 countries outside the Unites States in which we are already running promotions," Linkner says.
Source: Josh Linkner, founder and CEO of ePrize
Writer: Jon Zemke
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