"BeCard is a digital business card - a contact management tool which enables individuals to build relationships faster by using smartphone technology"
BeCard – a digital and ecological alternative to paper business cards - has been launched.
Using Smartphone technology, the BeCard app makes it much easier and less time consuming for eco-savvy, networkers to capture and prioritise the business details of their newly won contacts.
BeCard not only replaces paper business cards but it also sweeps away the job of inputting information into electronic contact databases (or worse still into paper diaries). When using BeCard the user simply 'swipes and swaps' a unique identifier code to convey their business details to their newly made contact.
The information captured by BeCard' Users' can then be prioritised using the 'percentage of probability of business' feature. The data can also be readily imported and exported into all the commonly used PC and smartphone-based office platforms (especially Customer Relationship Management [CRM] systems such as Salesforce).
BeCard is targeting those businesses who are enthusiastically embracing green alternatives, particularly to the traditional C02 polluting paper business cards, as the new app uses 100% renewable energy. It also actively contributes to reforestation thanks to a partnership with Reforest'Action – a social enterprise that has already planted more than 5 million trees worldwide since its launch in 2010.
BeCard Founder Bogdan Popescu – a veteran business development manager and networker, with a personal drive towards a more sustainable world – has launched BeCard to overcome years of frustration in dealing with paper business cards and then capturing their data on his PC and smartphone based office systems.
Bogdan Popescu said,
"Manually processing environmentally unsound paper business cards before prioritising them is still a frustration for businesspeople. Sure, scanning and OCR are innovations which have helped - but they have not gone far enough. Therefore, I sought a solution which would be more efficient, 'carbon-neutral', and made a positive contribution to the environment. I therefore, came up with BeCard - a green solution which, through Reforest'Action, also makes a positive contribution to the environment."
BeCard's aim is to stimulate new business relationships using data which is generated in an ecologically friendly way by using 'green coding' techniques and 'green data'. (Green coding attempts to reduce the energy demands on physical servers and systems by reducing consumption demanded by algorithms). BeCard's 'Green data' centre uses 'green' electrical power consisting of 60% hydro power and 40% renewable energy.
Popescu added,
"Whether you provide your business contact details on paper or digitally you are putting carbon in the atmosphere. We have long known that paper production is energy intensive and we now understand the environmental impact costs of using the web. Therefore, we have developed a highly efficient business app which largely avoids the shortcomings of these two damaging processes. "
The top features of the app include:
1. Exchanging your BeCard with other users
You can instantly swap your personalised BeCard with another BeCard user by sharing your BeCode - a number which is unique to you and allows the exchange to take place. You can change your BeCode at any time while continuing to pass on your contact details to others.
2. Sharing your contact information with anyone
BeCard's sharing facility works across all platforms, which means that you can share your contact information with non-BeCard uses via SMS, WhatsApp, Outlook, Airdrop, Android Beam, and many other popular services.
3. Managing your contacts
With BeCard, you can group your contacts, add personal notes, geolocate them (so you can easily see where they are on a global map), qualify and then prioritise them
You can also export all your contacts as an Excel file which can be used in conjunction with popular CRM software packages such as Salesforce.
4. Prospect management
The BeCard app offers the function of qualifying your prospects and predicting a "Business Probability" allowing users to prioritise future contacts, so increasing the likelihood of doing business by not wasting time on less commercially interesting contacts.
Notes to Editors:
Is BeCard a "greenwashing exercise"?
No, far from it. BeCard is targeting sustainable, eco focused, businesses by providing them with a green alternative to the traditional C02 polluting paper business cards as the new app uses 100% renewable energy using 'green coding' techniques and 'green data'.
Green coding attempts to reduce the energy demands on physical servers and systems by reducing consumption demanded by algorithms. BeCard's 'Green data' centre uses 'green' electrical power consisting of 60% hydro power and 40% renewable energy.
The app also contributes to reforestation thanks to a partnership with Reforest'Action – a social enterprise that has already planted more than 5 million trees worldwide since its launch in 2010.
The Paper Industry
The latest available figures – for 2017 – show that the paper industry produced 420,000 tons of paper worldwide.
Paper is an energy and carbon intensive process with water needed at every stage of production. It uses energy for production including for heat when cooking, drying, extracting cellulose fibres, forming sheet of paper, drying. Indeed, the raw material is transformed into paste through chemical or mechanical processes and then bleached. This step requires the use of chemicals (oxygenated water, bleach, chlorine gas, etc.). Once the sheet is formed using huge steam-heated presses, it is dried in heated cylinders or microwaves. Energy costs account for between 15 and 30% of the paper industry's production costs. Paper making is also associated with atmospheric releases related to combustion facilities at sites. Then there is the waste - scraps of paper or cardboard, recycling waste and sewage treatment plant sludge (from water treatment).
According to the Energy Star label for energy-efficient products, the simple manufacture of a sheet of paper consumes 0.017 kWh. For a ream of 500 sheets, it takes 8.5 kWh, the equivalent of 629 grams of CO2.
https://www.energystar.gov/about/newsroom/the-energy-source/green_your_cube_office_equipment_edition
Helpful links
Website: www.becard.app
Facebook: www.facebook.com/becardbegreen
Apple app store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/becard/id1485869285
Google play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=espm.becard&hl=en_US
Issued By:
Sam Shelton,
Senior PR Manager
Fortuna Asset Management Communications Ltd.
Tel: +44 (0)7540 336 998
Em: sam@fortunaamc.co.uk