Gigwalk

Gigwalk

Gigwalk develops mobile software to help businesses execute their consumer brands in the field. In other words, they enable businesses to enhance channel execution. Imagine your business develops retail products and has them placed throughout the United States in various types of outlets (c-stores, retail outlets etc) with various displays, promotional material support and even seasonal or product launch-specific marketing campaigns. Gigwalk provides an on-demand national network of Gigwalkers, more than 1.1 million registered to date. Gigwalkers accept location specific projects that range from taking pictures of a display and uploading them to the Gigwalk platform to audit in-store promotional execution, to Point of Service material deployment, and data collection such as stocking levels and many more. In addition, Gigwalk has developed a mobile enterprise app to allow businesses not only to manage Gigwalker projects, but equally as important, to manage internal staff schedules, work assignments, view real-time data, work completion and track compliance.

Gigwalk has a close partnership with Randstad, the staffing and workforce solutions giant, who in the last year has announced a number of interesting acquisitions including Monster Worldwide and twago, a Freelancer Management System (FSM). FSMs are platforms that help businesses source and pay freelance workers. Randstad, amongst other solutions, also has a Vendor Management Solution (VMS) platform and with the acquisition of twago, and partnership with Gigwalk, it will soon allow organizations to manage freelance/non-employee workers, such as Gigwalkers, through the Randstad VMS system ensuring a seamless and compliant source-to-pay process. This is a similar approach Adecco/Beeline/OnForce is taking. The new partnership with Randstad/twago/Gigwalk is allowing enterprise organizations to access enormous databases of freelancers (OnForce/Gigwalk), leverage digital and mobile software (Beeline/twago) to source and pay them while also being able to integrate these platforms with existing large scale systems and processes already in use (Adecco/Randstad VMS). 

RATINGS:  4.75 OUT OF 5 STARS.

Strength:  Gigwalk's network of Gigwalkers (1.1 million) is a huge strength in their value proposition to businesses requiring a field channel execution team or a supplement to their own internal team. The mobile enterprise app that Gigwalk has developed receives strong ratings from users to track both Gigwalkers and internal staff on work assignments and to receive real-time data. Soon, Gigwalk's ability to integrate with other FSMs/VMSs will enable large enterprise organizations to utilize their services. Finally, the cost of a gig is between $7-10 depending on gig and geography, this is a far cheaper alternative to sending internal permanent staff out for consumer brand channel execution issues and the like. 

Weakness: Gigwalk is growing and developing it's geographical dominance by regions and city slowly- once it senses it has enough Gigwalkers in an area, it will pursue business development. Currently, they seem to have a gap in gigs in cities under 400K inhabitants. 

Best Use: Gigwalk is a flexible solution for start-up to large companies. Whether your business is looking to pilot a Consumer Brand Channel Execution team to determine ROI, or needing execution support during a product launch, or auditing seasonal promotional displays Gigwalk is an affordable on-demand solution. The cost of adding headcount to test out a new role in the business, or hiring a marketing agency or using internal staff and paying travel & expenses to ensure proper channel execution is exorbitantly expensive. Oftentimes, it's just not done. The data doesn't flow back to the business and the team can't make better decisions for the next launch, for stock levels, for display issues or seasonal promotions. Gigwalk can make your team more effective at a low cost.