Dynamic Year Marked by Double Digit Growth, Significant Client List Expansion and Key Leadership Additions

New York, NY – January 12, 2015

KWI, the industry-leading cloud solutions provider to the specialty retail sector, announced record-breaking growth in its fiscal year 2014, today at the 2015 National Retail Federation (NRF) Annual Conference (Booth #4203). The company celebrated 30 years in business adding new clients to its roster and additional key executives to its ranks. Expanding expertise, and utilizing progressive cloud innovation and advanced in-store functionality, led to an increased usage of Mobile POS and real-time Omni-Channel capabilities, while positioning KWI for continued growth in 2015.

Significant Customer Growth
KWI continues to experience growth with its Cloud 9 Mobile Platform utilized by its base of 60+ retailers, up over 100% since 2013. New clients Peter Millar, WSS, Ramy Brook, Milly N.Y. and Hello Kitty and others joined the ranks of KWI’s existing clients including David Yurman, Steven Alan, Pandora, Tom Ford, Brighton Collectibles and Intermix in 2014. All currently utilize the KWI Cloud 9 Mobile platform to capitalize on its real-time retailing, customer and product look up and Omni-Channel fulfillment capabilities to deliver significant increase in sales, increased units per transaction and enhanced customer experience.

“It’s an exciting time at KWI as we grow with our clients and engage with enterprise-class retailers looking for cloud solutions to execute their Omni-Channel strategies faster with mobile in the cloud,” states Gary Brill, VP of Business Development. “Our platform is scalable, so KWI clients are able to focus on the growth of their businesses and rely on KWI to do the rest. Retailers are experiencing the value of mobile deployments in record time with limited integration requirements, and realize immediate benefits,”

Key Leadership Additions and Expansion
KWI acquired the source code and associated patent license for the KWI Cloud 9 Mobile Platform in January 2014 from Verifone, and has subsequently invested in expanding its existing software development and support teams. In addition to enhancing the teams, KWI has added key executive positions to lead technology infrastructure and software development. Bill Barasch joined KWI as Chief Technology Officer and Krishna Mukherjee joined KWI as Vice President of Software Development, each bringing more than 20 years’ experience in the fields of operations and technology to further strengthen our seasoned executive team.
Bill Barasch brings a legacy of excellence and innovation in technology solution design, infrastructure architecture, security and service delivery including overseeing infrastructure operations across all enterprise solutions in 30 International offices for Check Point Software. Barasch states, “I am excited to work for a company that is focused on delivering quality services, scalability and a secure advanced technology infrastructure to support our retail clients. This is a great opportunity to join an innovative company where my expertise in security, services and operations for enterprise-class solutions will help drive the growth and expansion of our retail offering.”

Krishna Mukherjee brings to KWI an award-winning software engineering career with innovative product development during 8 years at Microsoft helping to create Microsoft Office. Mukherjee states, “I’m thrilled to work with the newest Omni-Channel retailing technologies and to continue to expand our world-class team to support the next generation of KWI solutions. Having the opportunity to work with a mobile cloud technology with such a high adoption in retail is exciting.”
“Bill’s experience managing and designing large cloud SaaS based environments and Krishna’s extensive experience in mission-critical application development will play pivotal roles in KWI’s success as we continue to grow our customer base in both number and size and develop the next generation of cloud applications and infrastructure,” states Sam Kliger, CEO of KWI.

Product Innovation
The acquisition of the source code for the KWI Cloud 9 Mobile platform in January 2014 from Verifone, enabled KWI to turn out innovation with record speed including the newly announced Apple Pay compatibility. The platform offers an enhanced customer experience with real-time product information and provides a unique platform that can be stand-alone or combined with traditional POS in store.

“It is an exciting time for KWI and our retailers. The KWI Cloud 9 Mobile Platform is enabling retailers to achieve their Omni-Channel strategy faster than they ever thought possible. The Omni-Channel experience a customer receives through mobile engagement is significantly enhanced. It is truly game-changing,” states Sam Kliger, CEO of KWI. Kliger continues, “Most rewarding for KWI and our retail customers alike is the return on their investment. In a recent 2014 Holiday report based on sales transactions, one of our mobile retailers had 74% of their transactions rung up on mobile and experienced an 11% increase in units per transaction and a 10% increase in average dollar per transaction versus their traditional POS in the same stores. Across the board, our 60+ clients, with a mixed POS and mobile environment had higher units per transaction and higher average dollars per sale than those with POS only.”

Pandora, one of KWI’s larger retailers with nearly 300 stores, attributes the mobile platform in their stores to higher customer engagement. Bert Barber, Manager of POS at Pandora states, “Our sales associates are more engaged and educated on product since mobile was implemented with KWI. The continual face-to-face contact with the customer allows for sales to occur with start to finish customer interaction, increasing impulse buys and basket size. KWI has been a great partner, understanding retail and is truly available to support our business.”

The next generation of leading-edge technology includes additional mobile platform upgrades with enhanced sleds that will enable retailers to deliver contactless payments including Apple Pay, and meet Chip & Pin/EMV requirements in 2015. KWI will be demonstrating the newest technology with Apple Pay at the NRF Big Show 2015 (in booth #4203).

Today, KWI offers a global enterprise-class cloud platform with the team, infrastructure and financial stability to provide unique technologies flexible for any size retailer and a mobile platform extending its cloud model to stores with real-time retailing and Omni-Channel capabilities. The KWI Cloud 9 Mobile Platform is now the largest installed base of cloud Mobile POS and enterprise store operations with 60+ retailers including 10 clients that manage their end-to-end store operations and customer engagement with only KWI’s mobile platform. Since its founding 30 years ago as the first to market SaaS provider of specialty retail solutions, KWI has continued to innovate in the cloud, while delivering vision and leadership to help their customers grow.

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