Technology

Meta, Watsons Hong Kong, Hong Kong Life and OPTICAL 88 unlocked WhatsApp potential with Omnichat

Published

1 year ago

November 26, 2024

Create end-to-end customer journeys using WhatsApp Flows and ads that click to WhatsApp with Meta to accelerate business growthRedefine customer engagement with Omnichat’s WhatsApp membership system and enhance campaign tracking and optimisation through the Conversions APIWatsons Hong Kong integrated WhatsApp into the customer journey, from initial product discovery through to final purchase and payment, thereby offering customers a more convenient O+O experienceHong Kong Life revolutionised its interactions with customers by WhatsApp marketing, streamlining the acquisition of potential customers and elevating the overall customer experienceOPTICAL 88 leveraged WhatsApp’s direct messaging capabilities to create tailored, one-on-one conversations with customers, strengthening relationships and boosting satisfaction, resulting in an impressive 26% click-through rate on messages

HONG KONG, Nov. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Omnichat, an all-in-one omnichannel customer experience platform offering conversational commerce solutions, recently hosted a highly scalable conference titled “Unlocking Revenue Potential with Omnichannel Customer Experience”, which featured insights on delivering exceptional customer experiences via WhatsApp, with contributions from industry experts at the global social media giant Meta, international health and beauty retailer Watsons Hong Kong, the one-stop insurance and financial service provider Hong Kong Life, and the professional optical brand OPTICAL 88.

Omnichat, as the WhatsApp Business Solution Provider of Meta, introduced how its advanced omnichannel customer experience solutions empowered businesses to effortlessly drive customer loyalty and achieve personalisation through seamless journeys during the event. “Numerous businesses are seeking ways to streamline customer journeys, and WhatsApp Flows offers the perfect solution. Integrating WhatsApp Flows with marketing campaigns empowers businesses to design, build, and customise experiences. This provides customers a fast, simple way to complete tasks within a conversation, ultimately driving conversions and delivering better results,” said Alan Chan, Founder and CEO of Omnichat. The newly launched WhatsApp membership system offers brands and their customers a user-friendly loyalty solution by leveraging WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app in Hong Kong. “When constructing end-to-end customer journeys, loyalty is a crucial element that must not be overlooked. The WhatsApp membership system is designed to strengthen customer relationships through loyalty points, coupons, and membership cards, facilitating future re-engagement and encouraging potential repurchases.” Leveraging the power of Omni AI, auto-generated message content can be customised for various customer segments, enhancing efficiency in marketing and customer service while achieving personalisation.

WhatsApp has the highest social media platform penetration rate of 79% in Hong Kong, according to the survey conducted by GWI. Driving engagement and growth across the customer lifecycle, the WhatsApp Business Platform plays a pivotal role in connecting with customers from discovery, consideration, purchase to re-engagement. “Meta has continually expanded the capabilities of business messaging to empower companies across various sectors to drive awareness, boost conversions, and create meaningful customer relationships for remarketing,” said Vicky Yiu, APAC Strategic Partnership Manager of Meta. “By creating a customised WhatsApp experience, WhatsApp Flows has achieved measurable results in generating more leads, appointments, and revenue directly within the platform, providing increased convenience for both businesses and their customers.” Meta also offers comprehensive tracking of the entire customer journey with the Conversions API. From the initial ads that lead to WhatsApp engagement, through subsequent WhatsApp interactions, to the final conversion, businesses can now generate actionable insights and fine-tune their advertising strategies with precision.

Prolog Leung, Online Business Director of Watsons Hong Kong also shared in the seminar, “Watsons Hong Kong has successfully integrated WhatsApp commerce into its innovative O+O (Offline plus Online) retail strategy by seamlessly implementing Omnichat’s conversational commerce solution, streamlining the checkout process and delivering an unparalleled shopping experience. It bridges the gap between digital convenience and personalised service. We are now handling tremendous customer enquiries monthly via WhatsApp, minimizing the waiting time of customers to answer their enquiries. Our ‘Watsons Here For You’ service offers one-on-one consultations with pharmacists, Chinese medicine practitioners, and dietitians via WhatsApp. This seamless integration of digital and physical retail spaces allows our customers to engage with our brand at their convenience, not only boosting online engagement and sales but also driving foot traffic to our physical stores.”

Hong Kong Life has revolutionised its marketing and customer service strategies by leveraging WhatsApp and Omnichat’s advanced messaging solutions. Initially implemented to manage multi-channel enquiries on social media platforms, Hong Kong Life had quickly realised the transformative potential of WhatsApp for business growth and customer experience enhancement. “We have uncovered the limitless potential of WhatsApp in our marketing and customer service. The automated chatbot can now efficiently handle over 90% of simple enquiries, allowing our team to focus on marketing and nurturing deeper customer relationships,” said Jonathan Ko, Chief Marketing Officer of Hong Kong Life. “We have strategically implemented interactive Q&A games via WhatsApp chatbots, incentivising participation with exclusive coupons. This not only enhances customer engagement but also significantly expands our WhatsApp database. Leveraging this growing database to deliver targeted marketing broadcasts, our campaigns have recorded a remarkable 70% read rate, substantially boosting business conversions.”

OPTICAL 88 has further solidified its reputation for exceptional customer service by leveraging the WhatsApp Business Platform. This strategic move has not only enhanced communication efficiency but also instilled a greater sense of trust and convenience among customers, thanks to the platform’s authorised blue tick verification. Andrea Chan, Digital Marketing Manager of OPTICAL 88 emphasised the significance of this digital transformation, “Maintaining a close, personal connection between our sales team and customers is a cornerstone of our brand values. We have observed that regardless of demographic, our customers overwhelmingly prefer the immediacy and interactivity of WhatsApp over traditional email communications, resulting in up to 26% click-through rate on our messages.” OPTICAL 88 has also broadened its tactical approach beyond one-to-one communications. Andrea further explained, “By integrating omnichannel chatbots with our social media strategy, particularly for Facebook comment auto-replies, we have facilitated engaging social media campaigns while effectively driving online traffic to our physical stores.”

By seamlessly integrating automated systems with personalised human interactions, the comprehensive chat commerce solutions are revolutionising the way businesses interact with their customers across WhatsApp Business Platform, Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct, and setting new industry standards for customer experience excellence.

About Omnichat:
Founded in 2017 with its headquarter in Hong Kong, Omnichat is an omnichannel chat commerce solution provider that centralises customers’ conversations from WhatsApp Business Platform, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, LINE, WeChat and website live chat into a single platform to enhance efficiency and productivity.

With a strong presence in the Asia Pacific region, the company has established a solid reputation for serving local and international retail and e-commerce brands. By offering an omnichannel social customer data platform, online-merge-offline(OMO) sales integration, marketing automation, chatbots as well as customer service platform, Omnichat strives to empower brands to deliver personalised customer journeys and drive digital transformation, ultimately converting visitors into customers through chats.

Website: https://www.omnichat.ai/
WhatsApp: https://wa.me/85291925071/?text=EnquiryForWhatsApp
LinkedIn: https://hk.linkedin.com/company/omnichat-easychat
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OmnichatAI

For media enquiries, please contact:
Omnichat Limited
Lily Yeung
Associate Director of Communications
Tel: (852) 9803 5977
Email: lily.yeung@omnichat.ai

Macy Chun
Communications Manager
Tel: (852) 6234 9555
Email: macy.chun@omnichat.ai

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/meta-watsons-hong-kong-hong-kong-life-and-optical-88-unlocked-whatsapp-potential-with-omnichat-302315204.html

SOURCE Omnichat Limited

Technology

Foresite Named 2026 Google Cloud Security Partner of the Year for North America

Published

50 minutes ago

April 21, 2026

Recognition highlights leadership in practitioner-governed, AI-enhanced security operations

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Apr. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Foresite Cybersecurity today announced it has been named the 2026 Google Cloud Security Partner of the Year in the North America category, presented at Google Cloud Next ’26 in Las Vegas.

Foresite named 2026 Google Cloud Security Partner of the Year

Organizations looking to operationalize AI-driven security on Google Cloud can learn more at next.foresite.com.

Foresite delivers fully managed security operations on Google Security Operations (SecOps), enabling customers to detect and respond to threats in seconds, reduce investigation fatigue, and maintain continuous audit readiness without expanding internal teams.

Operating as the human control layer for AI-driven security, Foresite combines Google’s agentic investigation capabilities with practitioner-validated accountability. Every autonomous investigation is reviewed and authorized by a named analyst before response actions are executed, giving customers clear visibility into how decisions are made and risk is managed.

“The Google Cloud Partner Awards honor the strategic innovation and measurable value our partners bring to customers,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, President, Global Partner Ecosystem and Channels, Google Cloud. “We are proud to name Foresite a 2026 Google Cloud Partner Award winner, celebrating their role in driving customer success over the last year.”

As a Google Cloud Premier Partner with Security and MSSP specializations, Foresite delivers managed services through its Catalyst platform — extending Google SecOps with operational governance, automation, and continuous compliance capabilities. Over the past year, the company expanded its SecOps delivery practice while sustaining 96% customer retention, reflecting growing demand for managed, AI-enhanced security operations.

Across its managed services portfolio, Foresite delivers a 90% reduction in mean investigation time and sub-15-second automated threat response for its customers — enabling security teams to focus on strategic risk decisions rather than alert triage.

Foresite’s approach to managed security operations on Google Cloud was the subject of an independent Technical Validation by Enterprise Strategy Group (now part of Omdia), commissioned by Google in August 2025. The report examined how Foresite’s Catalyst platform extends Google Security Operations to deliver threat detection, investigation, and response for organizations at varying levels of security maturity.

“Our Technical Validation of Foresite’s Catalyst platform examined how practitioner-led governance can extend Google Security Operations to deliver measurable detection and response outcomes. Google Cloud’s Partner of the Year recognition independently confirms what our analysis identified — that platform-native expertise, rather than tool access, is what differentiates managed security outcomes for mid-market and enterprise organizations.”— Tony Palmer, Practice Director, Omdia (formerly Enterprise Strategy Group).

“We’re entering an era where AI can investigate threats at machine speed,” said Jeremy Hehl, Chief Evangelist at Foresite. “Enterprise organizations need confidence that those decisions are governed and aligned to real business risk. This recognition from Google Cloud reinforces our focus in helping customers operationalize AI security at scale.”

Foresite is showcasing its Agentic SOC capabilities at Google Cloud Next ’26, demonstrating how security teams can move beyond alert monitoring to govern autonomous response using Google SecOps, Google Threat Intelligence, and AI security controls.

Foresite is purpose-built for organizations that need enterprise-grade security operations without enterprise-scale friction. The company delivers the operational rigor and platform expertise these organizations require to run Google SecOps effectively — without the overhead of building and staffing a full internal SOC.

About Foresite Cybersecurity
Foresite Cybersecurity is a Google Cloud Premier Partner providing managed security operations, compliance automation, and threat intelligence services. Through its Catalyst platform, Foresite helps organizations operationalize AI-driven security with practitioner-led governance and measurable risk reduction. Learn more at foresite.com.

Media Contacts
Claire Simpson Director of Global Brand & Strategic Marketing
Tim Suwandhaputra VP, Go-to-Market
press@foresite.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/foresite-named-2026-google-cloud-security-partner-of-the-year-for-north-america-302749190.html

SOURCE Foresite

Technology

Tredence Awarded 2026 Google Cloud Global Industry Solutions Partner of the Year Award for Retail

Published

50 minutes ago

April 21, 2026

Trusted for driving the data & AI strategy for 8 of the top 10 retailers, powering $2 trillion in retail revenue

LAS VEGAS and BENGALURU, India, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Tredence, a global AI and data science solutions company, today announced it has been named the 2026 Google Cloud Services & Industry Solutions Partner of the Year for Retail. This award reflects Tredence’s demonstrated ability to deliver measurable customer impact at scale. Notably, this is Tredence’s third such distinction, having previously been recognized in CPG and Gaming, a testament to Tredence’s unmatched depth, breadth, and impact across the industries it serves.

For the world’s leading retailers, Tredence has consistently delivered the full AI transformation journey — migrating, modernizing, and deploying scalable AI applications and agents on Google Cloud, powered by Vertex AI and Gemini Enterprise. In FY25, Tredence drove transformative impact across 25+ strategic retail accounts spanning four continents, delivering measurable business outcomes and accelerating Google Cloud adoption at unprecedented scale. Tredence’s impact has been defined by three core motions:

Modernization at scale, building agentic foundations – Tredence executed some of the world’s most complex retail cloud migrations, including the largest-ever cloud migration in retail history, migrating 12 petabytes of data for 40,000+ analytics users with 100% operational continuity, and a landmark platform overhaul delivered ahead of schedule, reducing total cost of ownership by 20–40% and building the unified data foundations that power agentic AI at scale.Accelerating agentic AI adoption – Tredence deployed 100+ AI/ML accelerators, including 10+ retail-specific multi-agent systems built on Vertex AI and Gemini Enterprise, eliminating up to 70% of manual effort, automating up to 98% of manual ticketing processes, and cutting temporary labor costs by 20%, compressing months of deployment into weeks across some of the most complex retail environments in the world.Delivering global impact at measurable scale – Tredence drove transformative outcomes across every retail format and across geographies unifying supply chain data across 20,000+ stores to automate retail media insights, deploying a full agentic platform in just 6 months for a major wholesale retailer, and delivering greenfield Google Cloud wins, proving that the Tredence and Google Cloud partnership delivers measurable impact across every retail segment and scale of ambition.

“The Google Cloud Partner Awards honor the strategic innovation and measurable value our partners bring to customers,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, President, Global Partner Ecosystem and Channels, Google Cloud. “We are proud to name Tredence a 2026 Google Cloud Partner Award winner, celebrating their role in driving customer success over the last year.”

“Winning Google Cloud’s Retail Partner of the Year reflects one thing: the outcomes we deliver for the world’s most admired retailers, consistently and at scale,” said Amanpal Dhupar, Vice President, Head of Retail at Tredence. “We are the trusted Data and AI partner for 8 of the top 10 global retailers and have built a team of world-class retail practitioners, a proprietary accelerator ecosystem powering over $2 trillion in global retail sales, and a last-mile operationalization capability.”

Tredence recently launched its Transformative Agentic Commerce Solution Accelerators at NRF 2026. Built on Google Cloud services, these accelerators can be customized for each retailer to address unique needs and deliver faster time-to-value.

Tredence will showcase these capabilities at Google Next, Booth #2911, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas.

About Tredence:

Tredence is a global AI and data science solutions provider focused on solving the last-mile problem in AI, the gap between insight creation and value realization. Tredence leverages deep domain expertise, data platforms and accelerators, and strategic partnerships to provide tailored, cutting-edge solutions to its clients. The company has 4,200+ employees across the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Riyadh, London, Toronto, and Bengaluru, serving top brands in Retail, CPG, Hi-tech, Telecom, Healthcare, Travel, and Industrials.

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1773052/Tredence_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/tredence-awarded-2026-google-cloud-global-industry-solutions-partner-of-the-year-award-for-retail-302748293.html

Technology

dbt Labs Wins a 2026 Google Cloud Partner of the Year Award

Published

50 minutes ago

April 21, 2026

PHILADELPHIA, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — dbt Labs, the leader in standards for AI-ready structured data, announced today that it has received the 2026 Google Cloud Partner of the Year award for Data and Analytics: Data Pipelines and Governance. dbt Labs works together with Google Cloud to provide the foundation for an organization’s transition to AI leadership and innovation. The combination of rich data warehousing capabilities and the democratization of complex data transformation removes technical barriers, enabling analysts and business leaders to accelerate their time-to-value.

dbt Labs is being recognized for its achievements in the Google Cloud ecosystem, helping joint customers manage data at scale on Google Cloud and turn it into trusted, actionable insights with speed and efficiency. Thousands of organizations run dbt on Google BigQuery globally, an integration designed to accelerate the delivery of trusted analytics and AI. By consolidating data transformation into a single, unified tool, joint customers quickly gain increased operational efficiency through advanced orchestration features. dbt Labs empowers customers to manage and trust results, ensuring high-quality data is ready to power analytics and AI initiatives both today and in the future.

“Every AI strategy needs to be underpinned by a standardized foundation and process to control, govern and document progress for high-quality, trusted results,” said Shawn Toldo, Vice President, Worldwide Partner Ecosystem at dbt Labs. “Together, dbt Labs and Google Cloud enable organizations to build that foundation for an AI-ready future. We are excited for the recognition and growing partnership with Google.”

“The Google Cloud Partner Awards honor the strategic innovation and measurable value our partners bring to customers,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, President, Global Partner Ecosystem and Channels, Google Cloud. “We are proud to name dbt Labs a 2026 Google Cloud Partner Award winner, celebrating their role in driving customer success over the last year.”

This recognition is the latest example of dbt Labs’ momentum since launching on Google Cloud Marketplace one year ago. The partnership’s trajectory is driven by extensive global adoption and usage across diverse industries and a rapidly expanding community of active practitioners. Additionally, dbt Labs’ partner team earned two Google Partner All Star awards, reinforcing the deep collaboration and commitment to driving mutual success.

By bringing Google AI capabilities into dbt workflows, joint customers gain the trustworthy, well-documented, governed foundation that reliable analytics and AI demand. To learn more about how dbt Labs and Google Cloud are enabling AI-ready data pipelines, watch the on-demand webinar “Building dbt Models Faster with Google AI” at https://www.getdbt.com/confirmation/building-dbt-models-faster-with-google-ai-recording.

About dbt Labs
Since 2016, dbt Labs has been on a mission to help data practitioners create and disseminate organizational knowledge. dbt is the standard for AI-ready structured data. Powered by the dbt Fusion engine, it unlocks the performance, context, and trust that organizations need to scale analytics in the era of AI. Globally, more than 80,000 data teams use dbt, including those at Siemens, Roche and Condé Nast.

Learn more at getdbt.com, and follow dbt Labs on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dbt-labs-wins-a-2026-google-cloud-partner-of-the-year-award-302748385.html

SOURCE dbt Labs