As Xpoint made its SBC Summit North America debut at Meadowlands, we caught up with Xpoint CEO and co-founder Marvin Sanderson about what it meant to him and his team to be in New Jersey for the 2021 event.
SBC: Marvin, this was Xpoint’s first time at the SBC Summit North America, but it was not your first time at the event. Can you explain why this event has been so important for Xpoint?
Marvin Sanderson: Firstly, I want to say how happy I’m sure we all are that important events such as the SBC North America Summit are taking place again, and that our colleagues from Europe and around the world can travel to the USA to meet up in-person.
At Xpoint we are nearing the full launch of our transformational geolocation technology platform, so to be able to showcase what we offer to our partners, and discuss the benefits our technology brings, in-person, is invaluable.
To date, geolocation technology has been viewed as a regulatory tax, a utility that has to be box-checked to meet compliance obligations. Xpoint changes that old-school thinking. We work with our partners to ensure they are meeting their regulatory needs, but then turns the passive approach of the past into an active use of the technology we provide to drive business and brand benefits for our partners.
Since early 2020, we have, in general, been discussing how Xpoint can transform our partners’ businesses via video calls, much like the rest of the world. We adapted, and we thrived in that environment, but nothing beats being able to shake hands with our friends and colleagues, to bounce ideas off each other in work and social settings, and the SBC Summit North America provided the perfect platform to do just that – to get back to normal, at last!
SBC: You’ve used the word “transform” when describing what Xpoint’s technology will bring to the geolocation market. Can you explain how Xpoint can achieve that sort of strong goal?
MS: Geolocation technology is a fundamental part of any business that operates within an environment where you have different regulations from one location to another. In sports betting in the USA that is obviously best expressed when you look at how some states have legalized sports betting, and others have not. To meet compliance and regulatory obligations, geolocation technology would be deployed to ensure betting only takes place in legalized states, checking one of the boxes marked “compliance”. And that’s where that service ended.
Xpoint brings innovation to that thinking. Our technology ensures our partners can check that “compliance” box, but we then move into the active partnership I mentioned before. We work with our partners to understand how they can use the information their geolocation investment creates to better serve their customers. Working with us, our partners can use the data they are generating to improve their relationships with potential new customers and with the consumers they have engaged with people who are loyal to their brands but who are being bombarded all day by a massive amount of information that is not truly relevant to them. This is at the heart of what Xpoint brings – our partners work with us to improve their customers’ lives. That is truly transformational.
SBC: The SBC Summit North America is focused on sports betting, igaming and gambling, but presumably Xpoint’s technology can be applied to multiple industries?
MS: It can. My experience is in sports betting, gaming and gambling, in the USA and worldwide, and there is strong demand from the marketplace in those industries in North America for fresh thinking. But, yes, there is no limit to how far Xpoint’s technology can benefit partners across multiple industry sectors.
For now, however, we are focused on an industry sector we know very well, where we know the value we can bring, and where we are seeing such a positive response to what we are bringing to the market.
I’m already looking forward to being back at the SBC Summit North America in 2022 and catching up with you again on how far we’ve come since this year, and looking back at how Xpoint is transforming our market.
