PETALING JAYA, 05 January 2021 – Running a beauty or medical business is no easy feat due to the COVID-19 pandemic but Aoikumo (pronounced as Ah-wee-ku-mo) is poised to make it its mission to make the process a tad-bit easier using its revolutionary cloud-based system.
"We have recently launched the Telehealth feature, allowing doctors to set virtual appointments in Aoikumo’s Scheduling menu. All the patient has to do is to click the link sent through e-mail and SMS and the video will start." said Kevin Nair who is the Founder, and Technical Lead of Aoikumo.
Developed by GoCloud Technologies, the first full cloud-based system made its maiden sell in early 2018 and is largely used in the beauty and aesthetics industry. Aoikumo’s clients include most prominent brands within the Asia Pacific region spreading across Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.
"Since our debut, Aoikumo has gained partners across our own borders and now we are looking to extend our expertise to beyond the beauty and aesthetics industry namely into the medical frontier," Nair added. Nair is currently within the medical space himself, as a Director of Mediconnexions Consulting; a medical communications company servicing the pharma industry throughout Asia & Oceania with medical writing, electronic detailers and medical marketing services.
Behind its description as a point-of-sale system, Nair explains: "Aoikumo is actually an all-in-one platform that caters to the unique requirements of the industry. When we first started, we found a void for flexibility – a system that can cater to the industry’s unique requirements including helping to keep track of appointments scheduling, CRM, inventory, billing and commissions. There was no single system that could do all that, so we started with this journey and have not looked back since."
“We have evolved along with the industry thus having existing modules to be more advanced while simultaneously adding on new modules for e-marketing and e-commerce. Aoikumo now comes with dedicated technical support, giving peace of mind to business owners so that they can focus on what they do best.”
Aoikumo is still largely involved and active in the beauty industry because of its successful wholistic approach and has grown to over 2,000 users to date. “Our vision is clear, and we are here for the marathon not the sprint. It is therefore our mission to constantly innovate to stay up to date and relevant to the industry we serve at any point of time. Our clients see this value and as such we managed to keep our churn rate low at about 1% since the start. The secret to this success is constant client engagement and listening to their feedback and suggestions. As such our clients work with us as partners rather than vendors. It’s a win-win relationship.”
Additionally, Aoikumo runs both on web and app where it allows its users to also take post-treatment pictures, make case notes, annotate images and store them into collages to better serve customers.
It will soon extend its offerings into a new field; the healthcare industry namely dental clinics and general practitioners (GPs).
"In this new field, Aoikumo’s core system remains the same but there are extended modules unique to the dental industry including dental charting and periodontal charting, medication, prescription and everything the industry might need," Kevin said.
In sharing about Aoikumo's abilities to allow businesses to capture new customers, he explains that the system is integrated to social media channels enabling businesses to sell and increase bookings using available Call To Action (CTA) buttons – a step in the right direction for businesses at these hard times.
"When customers click on the link, they arrive at your website, select their preferred service, pay online, receive an invoice and turn up on their chosen day for treatment. This can happen at any point of time – day, or night. On the backend, the system captures the entire transaction, live, when it happens and keeps a record. All within one system.”
These developments, he said, is in line with the company's vision for Aoikumo to be a provider within the industry encompassing the business to business operational aspect (B2B), as well as to the business to customers side (B2C), wherein the system helps businesses gain traffic.
Gocloud Technologies were recipients of the CIP300 grant by Cradle Fund in 2017. The firm's growth surpassed 100% and recently earned it the CIP IGNITE (ii) – a funding programme that provides a grant and value-added assistance of some RM500,000.
Aoikumo was recently certified as a Technology Solution Provider (TSP) under the Malaysian government’s SME Business Digitalisation Grant initiative. This would mean new customers will be able to enjoy a 50% matching grant of up to RM5,000. More details about Aoikumo can be found on www.aoikumo.com.
