Our Better Business Hub is currently taking a deeper look into how businesses can use NFC. The opportunities offered by the technology for your business are wide-ranging. It can allow you to market your company and reach out to your customers in very innovative ways, some of which are demonstrated in the NFC video below.

Anything with an NFC-embedded chip (or Smart Tag), whether it be posters, advertising boards or business cards, can be used to take consumer engagement further and interact with your customers and new business prospects in a new, innovative, and exciting way. The beauty of NFC is that automating tasks on your smartphone is really simple, as we found out earlier this year when I experimented with NFC Tags.

Consider using NFC to share your company details, direct customers to online information about a new product, promote a video, or to signpost your social media profiles. The opportunities are endless and it is important to remember – NFC is so much more than just mobile payments.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Does your company use NFC? Where do you see potential for NFC in your business? Let us know in the comments.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

What is Near Field Communication?

NFC is a very short range (within a few centimeters) communications technology that allows a data connection to be created between two devices. Basically, it allows you to tap one device against another to create a connection between them to exchange data. NFC can also be used to bootstrap a Bluetooth® or Wi-Fi® connection, allowing you to continue to stay connected even when you pull your device away.

How will NFC affect business?

As Geoff discussed in the video, Near Field Communication has the capacity to change the landscape of business with things like information sharing, mobile payments or gaining access to a building. The use cases extend both internally to organizations as well as externally as part of the customer experience. Let’s look at a few of these ideas in further detail.

Sharing information at an end-user level

BlackBerry® Tag, which is available with the BlackBerry® 7.1 OS in NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphones, offers a new way to share information at an individual level. Almost any type of media can be shared with a single tap to another NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphone. Consider sharing contact information in this manner at a conference, passing around a document for review on the go, or providing a customer with a PDF product brochure just by tapping their smartphone. The ability to share while mobile is being significantly enhanced with NFC and apps like BlackBerry Tag, and businesses can experience a clear benefit as a result.

The mobile payment ecosystem

The concept of a digital wallet garners much press and discussion in the market. I think we can all agree that centralizing activity on your mobile phone so that you can leave your wallet at home is an exciting concept; many of us already own credit cards that we can pay with by tapping on a point of sale terminal. But I’m intentionally referring to this as an “ecosystem”, as it’s just that: building mobile payments requires collaboration between banks, merchants, carriers, point of sale technology producers, and several other service providers.

The good news is that much work has already been done to lay the groundwork for mobile payments with BlackBerry devices. In fact, mobile payments using NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphones is already being done in several parts of the world. BlackBerry smartphones were the first to be certified for mobile payments by Visa and MasterCard. And we’ve been working with Turkcell in Turkey, the ISIS group in the U.S., Rogers in Canada, and many others worldwide to make mobile payments with BlackBerry smartphones a reality.

While security may be a concern held more by organizations than end users at this point in time, once you put your money where your phone is, it becomes a concern for everyone. And given our heritage in security, we continue to work closely with our partners around the world to help alleviate many of those concerns.

Physical and logical access

You may be able to leave your security badge and parking pass at home in the near future. NFC enables physical access, such as tapping your phone to gain entry into your office building, as well as logical access, such as tapping your computer to unlock it. These use cases will bring speed and convenience, not to mention cutting the cost of producing multiple access devices, and allowing you to digitally manage these assets. To that end, RIM has been working with companies like HID Global and Iris ID Systems Inc. to allow the use of NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphones with their access systems.

What does the future hold?

As these ecosystems develop and the use cases continue to expand into the daily activities of organizations and employees in a wide range of industries, it will be very exciting to see what comes next. We’re constantly working to enable application developers and many other stakeholders in NFC technology to integrate and succeed. RIM remains committed to Near Field Communication moving forward, including the upcoming BlackBerry® 10 platform.

What are your questions about NFC? How could you see NFC technology making your life at work easier and more convenient? Share in the comments below.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is on the rise in the mobile space, providing exciting new ways to share information, make mobile payments, and interact with your surroundings. Of the new BlackBerry® 7 OS smartphones, the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900/9930 smartphones and BlackBerry® Curve™ 9350/9360/9370 smartphones contain built-in NFC capabilities. Being the device and technology lover that I am, I had to ask the question: How can this budding mobile technology be used for business? To find answers, I started with our NFC team to get a breakdown of how BlackBerry devices can use this capability.

As pictured above, the NFC antenna is located in the battery door of your BlackBerry smartphone, allowing you to simply tap an NFC smart tag to instantly read or write the data. Smart tags can be located anywhere, such as on an advertisement, movie poster, or in a business card. Blank smart tags can be ordered from third party vendors and written with information using the BlackBerry Smart Tags application that comes preloaded on the NFC-supported BlackBerry 7 smartphones. While I had known that my BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone had NFC technology enabled, it was amazing to realize that my smartphone can both read and write these smart tags with my own customized information.

Smart Tags Application

The Smart Tags application for BlackBerry smartphones contains an intuitive interface for managing all of your tags. To create a tag, simply press the menu button and select “Create Tag”. At this point, you’ll see form fields to fill in the title and URL. NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphones can read information not only from smart tags, but also from other smartphones.

Now that I had the full scoop on what the technology is and what it can do, I switched my focus to how you in the business community could make use of it for enhanced productivity, improved CRM, and more. So, how exactly can NFC be used for business? I can think of at least few ways:

Sharing Information Using NFC

BlackBerry Tag will soon allow the sharing of documents, URLs, photos and more via a simple tap of two NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphones. Additionally, you’ll be able to invite a friend to BBM™ (BBM 6.1+ required) using this technology, and create seamless Bluetooth® pairing for file transfers. The solution is designed to be secure and intuitive – stay tuned for further details on the Inside BlackBerry Blog.

Mobile Payment

A very exciting aspect of NFC technology, when coupled with BlackBerry security standards, is the ability to pay using your smartphone. Recently, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and BlackBerry Curve 9360 became the world’s first SIM-based smartphones to receive MasterCard® PayPass® handset certification! Clearly there are convenient times ahead when you may be able to leave your wallet at home.

Promotional/Advertising

I believe that we’ll start to see NFC-enabled advertisements that allow real interaction with users, and a transfer of the experience to their mobile devices. Imagine, for example, a user tapping on an advertisement poster on the street and being able to purchase tickets to an event or browse reviews of products, all on the go. Capturing the attention of customers – as well as finding opportunities to engage with them – needs to happen very quickly when it comes to advertising and marketing. An instant and seamless technology like NFC allows this to occur at lightning speed in comparison to many other avenues of customer interaction and user experience. Lastly, this technology can augment existing promotions and campaigns to extend their reach and increase conversion.

Product Information

As I mentioned above, NFC allows individuals to access information about products with a single tap of their BlackBerry smartphone. In industries where physical products are present, such as retail, this can provide a brand new flow of specific information for customers, such as ratings and reviews, sharing through social media, and feedback mechanisms. The same concept applies to B2B where your business clients can enjoy the same access. For example, a printed invoice could include NFC technology that would allow customers to tap and pay securely with a BlackBerry smartphone.

NFC technology truly is inspiring and the use cases are limitless. Not only is this a new technology for BlackBerry users and businesses to take advantage of, it also holds the potential to fundamentally impact the interactions that take place through the sales funnel, between products and individuals, in business networking and interaction, and even internal applications.

For those looking for blank/writeable smart tags, a quick search online provides a host of options and pricing. NFC technology may not be enabled for all carriers, so please check with your service provider for availability.

Can you imagine a creative use case for NFC technology? Share your favorite!*

Related Posts and Resources:

• BlackBerry User’s Guide: Creating a Smart Tag
• Developer’s Guide to Working with Smart Tags
• Interview on NFC with RIM’s Andrew Bocking, VP Handheld Software Product Management

* By posting a comment below you acknowledge that you have read and accept these terms and conditions and that any ideas you post will be the property of RIM in accordance with the terms and conditions.