Smart Factories & Intelligent Automation

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Kopius

Manufacturing has long been an industry of innovation. Smart factories are the industry’s next leap, with the market expected to reach $321.98 billion by 2032. By applying artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent automation, and machine learning, smart factories can take your business to new heights, increase productivity, reduce costs, and improve overall efficiency. Learn more about smart factories and the technologies they use to optimize manufacturing processes.

What Is a Smart Factory?

Smart factories are the modern interpretation of the factory environment. They improve manufacturing processes through the use of interconnected networks of machines, communication mechanisms, and computing power. Key features include:

Interconnectivity: Machines, devices, and systems share data and communicate with each other.
Automation: Robotics, AI, and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies work together to automate processes and reduce manual intervention.
Data analytics: Real-time monitoring and data analytics predict equipment failures and allow better decision-making.
Flexibility: Technologies offer quick adaptability to changes in demand or production requirements.
Quality control: Advanced sensors and monitoring systems ensure consistent product quality.

Smart factories analyze data, drive intelligent automation, and learn as they go, allowing for greater efficiency and quality control in manufacturing plants.

How Do Smart Factories Work?

While automation and robotics have been used in manufacturing for decades, the smart factory was introduced to integrate these machines, people, and data into one interconnected system. Ultimately, a smart factory teaches itself and humans to be more adaptable, efficient, and safe through the use of technologies like:

Artificial intelligence: Smart factories integrated with AI have more power, speed, and flexibility to gather and analyze disparate sets, and offer real-time insights and recommendations. AI essentially powers automation and intelligence within smart factories, helping them continually optimize manufacturing processes.
Machine learning: Machine learning offers predictive maintenance capabilities in smart factories. The system monitors and analyzes processes, sending alerts before system failures occur. This way, you can make necessary repairs to prevent costly downtime, or the system will automate maintenance, depending on the situation.
Internet of Things: IoT connects the various devices and machines in a manufacturing plant, where they exchange data to automate actions and workflows. The interconnectedness can promote better resiliency and safety in your processes.

Benefits of Smart Factories

Smart factories can transform your manufacturing processes, unlocking numerous opportunities for automation, efficiency, cost savings, and safety:

Improve Efficiency

Smart factories use robotics and automated systems to boost productivity. By monitoring processes and identifying bottlenecks in real-time, these technologies can point out ways to reduce inefficiencies and streamline workflows. The system’s use of sensors and AI can also predict maintenance needs, reduce human error, and monitor product quality to ensure consistent output.

Reduce Operational Costs

Smart factories help reduce operational costs in many ways. Predictive maintenance allows you to make timely repairs, which can prevent costly downtime and extend the life span of machinery. Additionally, real-time data analytics can track your inventory levels to minimize excess stock and storage costs.

Greater efficiency, consistent quality, and responsiveness can ultimately lead to customer loyalty and increased market share.

Enhance Workplace Safety

Smart factories identify ways to keep your workplace safe. IoT sensors continuously monitor equipment, worker activities, and external conditions, detecting potential safety hazards promptly. They may also trigger automatic alerts in case of emergencies like gas leaks or fires, giving you time to act and prevent accidents or injuries.

Manufacturing With Smart Factory Solutions

By applying various forms of digital technology like AI and intelligent automation, smart factories can highlight inefficiencies and make manufacturing processes much smoother. You might apply the following smart manufacturing solutions across the different stages of your operations:

1. Intelligent Automation

Intelligent automation refers to the use of AI and machine learning solutions to automate tasks. When AI becomes part of smart factories, machines can learn, adapt, and make decisions without human intervention. For example, you can use intelligent automation on assembly lines to schedule maintenance and prevent downtime. Software bots can pinpoint the source of issues and notify engineers to fix them quickly to get operations up and running.

Intelligent automation solutions can also optimize demand forecasting, inventory management, and logistics to reduce costs and streamline operations.

2. IoT

IoT devices, like sensors, actuators, and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, can be used in manufacturing plants to collect real-time data on equipment performance, environmental conditions, supply chain logistics, and product quality. These devices then transmit data to a central system, where AI and machine learning analyze it.

For example, you might integrate IoT automation through a smart inventory management system. In this scenario, you place IoT sensors on inventory shelves and storage areas to monitor stock levels in real-time. The sensors collect data on quantities, movement patterns, and expiration dates. When inventory reaches a certain threshold, they automatically reorder supplies to improve efficiency.

3. Machine Learning

Machine learning technology can optimize manufacturing processes in various ways. For instance, it can forecast the energy usage of equipment, allowing you to meet resource demands or limit energy consumption. Machine learning can also improve health and safety in smart factories. For example, you might use IoT sensors to measure air quality and noise levels.

Machine learning algorithms can use information from IoT sensors to identify when workers are exposed to high levels of pollutants or excessive noise. Once detected, the sensors can send out alerts and recommendations to help workers avoid safety risks.

4. Cobots

In smart factories, AI can be used to power collaborative robots, or cobots, to work alongside humans. This recent innovation can promote safety in smart factories, as they work through features like sensors and computer vision to halt operation at the detection of danger.

Cobots also allow for human-machine interaction without barriers, supplementing physical work with machine efficiencies. While the development of cobots is still ongoing, they are already being used in manufacturing factories, including Amazon, which has used cobots since 2012 to help with stock picking in their warehouses.

JumpStart Your Smart Factory Journey

Smart factories present numerous opportunities for growth. By using smart manufacturing technology, such as IoT and automation, you can promote greater efficiency, productivity, and safety in your operations. However, a lack of expertise and internal resources are among the numerous obstacles that can prevent businesses from successfully implementing these technologies. Kopius’s JumpStart program can help you unlock the full potential of smart factories and drive success.

Our experts offer end-to-end solutions, assisting in every stage of the implementation process, from planning to delivery. We can also help you manage the daily operations and infrastructure of your software, keeping things running smoothly. Digital Possibilities Delivered. Contact us today to leverage manufacturing solutions for your business.

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Benefits of Digital Twins in Manufacturing

What Is a Large Language Model?

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Kopius

A large language model (LLM) is a deep learning algorithm pre-trained on massive amounts of data. LLMs use transformer models — a set of neural networks that includes an encoder and decoder with self-attention capabilities. Essentially, the encoder and decoder identify meanings from text and understand the relationships between the words and phrases in it.

This article provides an overview of LLMs, including how they work, their applications, and future innovations. It also highlights the advantages of implementing LLMs for your business and how to use them for success.

Large Language Models Explained

Large language models are foundational models that use natural language processing and machine learning models to generate text. Natural language processing is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) concerned with giving computers the ability to understand text and spoken words in much the same way human beings can.

By combining computational linguistics with statistical machine learning and deep learning models, LLMs can process human language in the form of voice data or text to understand its whole meaning, including user intent and sentiment.

There are different types of large language models, such as:

Generic or raw language models: Trained to predict the next word based on the language in the training data, typically used to perform information retrieval tasks.
Instruction-tuned language models: Trained to predict responses to the instructions given in the input, allowing them to perform sentiment analysis or generate code or text.
Dialog-tuned language models: Trained to have a dialogue by predicting future responses. Examples include chatbots and virtual assistants.

The goal of LLMs is to predict the text likely to come next. LLMs are pre-trained on vast amounts of data to understand the complexities and linkages of language. The sophistication and performance of an LLM can be judged by the number of parameters it has — or the factors it considers when generating output.

Generative AI vs. Large Language Models

Generative AI is an umbrella term that refers to AI models capable of generating content. LLMs are a specific category of generative AI models with a specialized focus on text-based data. Essentially, all large language models are generative AI. The main differences between generative AI vs. LLMs include:

Training: Generative AI undergoes extensive training on large datasets to connect patterns and relationships present within that data. Once trained, they can generate new content that aligns with the characteristics of the training data. In contrast, LLMs are trained on vast volumes of text data, from books and articles to code. After training, LLMs can complete text-related tasks.
Scope: While generative AI uses many models to create new content beyond textual data, LLMs excel at understanding language patterns to predict and generate text accurately.
Type of content: As mentioned, generative AI creates images, music code, and other content beyond text. They are a good fit for creative fields like music, art, and content creation. LLMs are best suited for text-based tasks and applications like chatbots, language translation, and content summarization.

When used together, generative AI and LLMs can enhance various applications like content personalization, storytelling, and content generation. For example, a generative AI model trained on artwork datasets could be improved by LLMs trained on art history by generating descriptions and analyses of artwork. A business could use that combination to create marketing images and phrasing that improves user intent, ultimately helping boost sales.

How Do Large Language Models Work?

A transformer model is the most common basis for a large language model, consisting of an encoder and a decoder. The transformer model processes data by tokenizing the input and conducting mathematical equations to discover the relationships between the tokens, or words. This process allows the computer to see patterns a human would if given the same query.

Before working from a transformer model, LLMs must undergo training to ensure they can fulfill general functions, and fine-tune their skills to perform specific tasks. Large language models are often trained on massive textual datasets like Wikipedia, containing trillions of words.

During training, the LLM engages in unsupervised learning, which is processing datasets given to it without specific instructions. This stage allows the LLM’s AI algorithm to decipher the meaning of words and the relationships between words. It also learns to distinguish words based on context. For example, it would learn whether “right” means “correct” or the opposite of “left.”

Key Components of LLMs

Large language models consist of several neural network layers — recurrent, embedding, attention, and feedforward layers — that work together to process input text and generate output content. Here’s how these components work:

Embedding layer: The embedding layer consists of vectors representing words in a way the machine learning model can quickly process. This part of the large language model is working on dissecting the meaning and context of the input.
Feedforward layer: The feedforward layer consists of various connected layers that transform the input embeddings. This allows the model to glean higher-level abstractions or understand the user’s intent with the text input.
Recurrent layer: The recurrent layer analyzes each word in a sequence provided in the input, capturing the relationship between words in a sentence.
Attention mechanism: The attention mechanism enables the language model to focus on single parts of the input text that are relevant to the task at hand. This layer allows the model to generate the most accurate outputs.

Business Applications of Large Language Models

Large language models have numerous applications in business environments. Key examples include:

1. Content Creation

LLMs can help generate valuable content spanning many formats, from articles and blog posts to product descriptions and social media posts — saving your company plenty of time and resources. As writing assistants, large language models can also provide real-time grammar, spelling, and phrasing suggestions.

Further, language models can help your company generate fresh outlines by analyzing existing content and trending topics, helping you develop relevant content that resonates with your target group.

2. Search Engine Optimization

Large language models can also help you optimize your content for search engines by:

Suggesting relevant keywords to enhance visibility in search results
Identifying common search queries to tailor your content to match user intent
Helping structure content to improve ranking in search results
Conducting SEO audits to analyze your website’s speed and areas for improvements

Using LLMs’ recommendations about SEO strategy can help improve user engagement and improve your site’s visibility.

3. Customer Service

Large language models can help improve the customer service experience by automating various interactions. For instance, chatbots can respond to customer inquiries, help with troubleshooting, and provide relevant information 24/7. Additionally, virtual sales assistants can engage with customers, answer product questions, and guide them through the sales process.

4. Virtual Collaboration

You can also use LLMs to enhance staff productivity and effectiveness. The AI tool can help facilitate collaboration and streamline routine tasks. Examples of functions LLMs can perform include:

Generate meeting summaries and transcriptions
Provide real-time translations for multilingual teams
Facilitate knowledge sharing
Document company and project-related processes
Assist team members with disabilities, such as vision or hearing impairment

5. Sales

Large language models can also support sales professionals with various processes, including:

Lead identification: LLMs can identify potential leads by analyzing massive amounts of data to understand customer preferences. This can help your sales teams target high-quality leads with a higher likelihood of conversion.
AI-powered chatbots: AI chatbots can engage with website visitors, collect information, and provide teams with customer insights to generate more leads.
Personalized sales outreach: Using customer information and data, LLMs can help craft personalized sales outreach messages, such as customized emails and product recommendations.
Customer feedback analysis: AI strategies can also analyze customer feedback and pain points to help sales teams personalize their approach and build stronger relationships.

6. Fraud Detection

Large language models also offer fraud detection capabilities. They can analyze textual data, identify patterns, and detect issues to help your company fight against fraud. These AI strategies provide real-time monitoring, such as financial transactions or customer interaction. They can quickly identify suspicious patterns and generate real-time alerts to jumpstart an investigation.

Applications and Use Cases in Other Industries

With various applications, you can find uses for LLMs in several fields, such as:

Marketing and advertising: LLMs excel in generating high-quality content, making them a good fit for personalized marketing, chatbots, content creation, ad targeting, and measuring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
Retail and e-commerce: Large language models can analyze customer data to generate personalized recommendations for products and services. They can also help answer customer inquiries, assist in purchases, and detect fraud.
Health care: Large language models are being used in health care to improve medical diagnoses, patient monitoring, drug discovery, and virtual reality training. LLMs are revolutionizing the health care industry to improve patient satisfaction and health outcomes.
Science: LLMs can understand proteins, molecules, and DNA. They can potentially be used in the development of vaccines, finding cures, and improving preventative care medicines.
Tech: Large language models are widely used in the tech industry, from allowing search engines to respond to queries to assisting developers with writing code.
Finance: LLMs are used in finance to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of financial markets. They can complete risk assessment tasks, assist in trading and fraud detection, and help financial institutions comply with regulations.
Legal: These AI strategies have helped lawyers, paralegals, and legal staff search massive textual datasets and generate legal phrasing. LLMs can streamline tasks like research and document drafting to save time.

Benefits of Large Language Models

The benefits of rolling out large language models for your business include:

Deeper Levels of Comprehension

Unlike earlier chatbots and automated systems that relied on keyword matching and rigid scripts, LLMs can better understand the context, sentiment, and intent behind queries. This allows better customer-support chatbots, virtual assistants, and search engines. For example, in e-commerce, when an online shopper has a question for the online assistant, AI can dissect the question and reveal its context to provide a relevant and accurate response.

Saved Time

Large language models can produce almost anything text-related, from quick suggestions to lengthy essays. As a result, marketers, journalists, and even employees who aren’t tasked with writing are using LLMs to streamline their work and create professional content. This saved time and effort can be channeled into personalizing the content.

Enhanced Efficiency and Accuracy

Traditional methods of text processing and analysis methods can be daunting and prone to errors, especially when working with vast datasets. By contrast, with their deep-learning algorithms, LLMs can analyze data at unparalleled speeds, reducing or eliminating manual work altogether. For example, businesses can use LLMs to scour customer reviews, identify common issues and areas they’re doing well, and respond to customers quickly — saving a lot of time in the process.

Personalized Experiences

By collecting data and analyzing customer behavior and preferences, LLMs offer personally tailored recommendations and experiences. For instance, LLMs can work as product recommendation engines that suggest items to shoppers based on browsing and purchasing history. This increases the likelihood of conversions and a better customer experience.

Considerations When Implementing LLMs

While LLMs provide many advantages across business applications, they also come with a few considerations to note. This technology is still growing and changing, meaning companies will need to be aware of risks like:

Hallucinations or falsehoods generated as a result of poorly trained LLMs
Biases when the datasets aren’t diverse enough
Security issues, such as cybercriminals using the LLM for phishing and spamming
Challenges in scaling and maintaining LLMs

Using LLMs for Business Success

LLMs will continue developing and learning, offering various innovations for businesses. With improvements like better accuracy, audiovisual training, and enhanced performance of automated virtual assistants, you’ll want to get ahead of the competition and use AI to transform your workplace. While it can be challenging to implement LLMs without technical expertise, the right consultants can guide your LLM strategy, ensuring it drives success for your company.

By considering your unique objectives and resources, the experts at Kopius can help you implement AI and machine learning (ML) solutions to empower your team and strengthen your company for the long term.

Our focus areas include:

Customer service automation
Data analytics and business intelligence
Process automation and optimization
AI and ML strategy development
Bias mitigation and fairness
Personalization and marketing automation
Churn prevention and customer retention
Supply chain optimization
Talent acquisition

At Kopius, our AI and ML solutions can transform inefficiencies in your company and improve your decision-making. When working with us, our experts will highlight the areas of your business that could grow the most with artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Explore LLM Opportunities With Kopius

LLMs can unlock exciting possibilities for your business, including streamlining tedious administrative tasks, generating fresh content, enhancing your marketing efforts, and personalizing the customer experience. When you’re ready to implement AI and machine learning for your business, Kopius is here to help with digital technology consulting services.

While it can be challenging to implement these strategies on your own, our consultants have the knowledge and expertise to help you get the most out of technology and drive real results. We consider your unique needs and goals to develop a plan that works best for you. To get started, contact us today.

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How Retail Analytics Transforms In-Store Operations

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Kopius

Although in-person shopping has recovered well from the pandemic, many customers feel frustrated with the experience of visiting brick-and-mortar stores.

Unified retail analytics solutions, which combine in-store technology with integrated software and advanced algorithms, can help your store learn more about your customers’ common pain points and desires so you can better cater to them.

When your customers are freer than ever to abandon your business for a competitor, you need a solution that can help you make your store the best place to shop. Using data analytics for retail operations is the key to gaining an edge in this hyper-competitive sector.

What Is Retail Analytics?

Retail analytics is the science of collecting and analyzing business data to improve your business outcomes on an ongoing basis. Depending on which sales and marketing channels your company uses, your data sources might include:

In-store devices and sensors.
Online storefronts.
Catalog orders.
Social media platforms.

Once you’ve collected all the data you need, you’ll run analytics to create reports that reveal valuable insights into your store’s business. Several types of retail business analytics exist with varying levels of complexity:

Descriptive: Descriptive analytics provides the most basic level of data insights for your business, such as which locations carry certain products, how much of each item is on the floor, and how often store employees restock shelves. This data informs more sophisticated analytics programs.
Diagnostic: Running diagnostic analytics on your descriptive data helps you identify and understand the issues you’re facing in real time so you can find actionable solutions.
Predictive: Predictive analytics algorithms use AI to analyze your historical data and predict likely future events based on different variables, including evolving economic circumstances and supply chain disruptions.
Prescriptive: Similar to predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics uses AI algorithms to recommend solutions to the forecasts from the predictive analytics system.

The Role of Data Analytics in Retail

Historically, the retail industry has relied on intuition to make decisions about inventory, store layout, customer communications, and more.

Even the slightest adjustment can cause major consequences for inventory movement and profitability. For example, choosing to offer a 15% discount on a product over a 10% discount can cost you thousands in lost revenue — especially if you apply it to the wrong product.

Retail tech solutions eliminate the guesswork by using data and advanced digital technologies to enable more informed decision-making. Data-driven decisions can help you commit to continuous improvement and sustainable business growth.

That’s what we do at Kopius. Our team takes a collaborative approach to every project, working closely with your company’s best and brightest to design custom retail analytics solutions.

With the most accurate data at your fingertips, you can empower your team to streamline retail store operations, whether you’re focusing on an online storefront or a brick-and-mortar shop.

Key Benefits of In-Store Analytics

A well-designed retail store analytics solution helps boost business for retail companies of all sizes. Whether you’re a small local business or a multinational corporation, retail analytics can help you gain a competitive edge in the market by:

Enhancing operational efficiency: Retail store analytics makes a proactive approach to inventory management and customer service possible by alerting you to potential issues and recommending appropriate solutions before anything happens.
Boosting sales: Trends in the data you collect on customer preferences and in-store shopping behaviors help you identify ways to improve marketing, store layout, upselling, and cross-selling to bring in more sales.
Enhancing organizational visibility: Retail location analytics enables you to generate insights from all your physical stores and warehouses in real time, so you always have the most up-to-date information at your fingertips for data-backed decisions.
Improving customer experiences: When you start paying attention to customer preferences, it becomes easier to anticipate their needs and expectations. This enables you to deliver convenient, engaging shopping experiences that delight consumers.
Strengthening your supply chain: Retail analytics solutions are cloud-based, which enables them to scale as needed. This flexibility means you can monitor your entire supply chain for even more accurate decisions.

Remember that these solutions work best when they’re purpose-built for your company. A solution that claims to be “one-size-fits-all” usually leaves some gaps in data collection and analysis, which can cause you to miss important insights.

Emerging Applications for Data Analytics in the Retail Industry

Retail store analytics solutions have enormous potential for enhancing performance across all types of stores, including in-person and online. Here are some of the most promising ways businesses have leveraged retail analytics solutions to get ahead in the industry.

Enhancing Omnichannel and Multichannel Retail and Shopping Experiences

Omnichannel and multichannel strategies rely on accurate, up-to-date data to generate the results you’re looking for.

Although many sources treat omnichannel and multichannel experiences the same, they’re actually different strategies:

Multichannel: A multichannel strategy uses multiple channels, including websites, social media platforms, brick-and-mortar stores, and mobile apps, to facilitate customer interactions. Because each channel acts as a separate entity with its own goals, the customer experience can vary. This can help you appeal to a different segment of your customer base through each channel.
Omnichannel: An omnichannel strategy integrates all your sales and marketing channels to provide a seamless, consistent experience in every interaction. This approach allows you to combine the strengths of each channel for greater customer satisfaction.

For both types of experiences to work, you need a reliable source of customer data, which is where your in-store retail analytics technology comes in.

Integrated IoT sensors collect data on stock movement and customer shopping behaviors, and AI-powered analytics assess that data to identify trends that could help you improve your experiences.

For example, a customer might use your mobile app to put an item they like in their shopping cart, but they abandon their cart before checking out. If they visit your store, your analytics solution could serve them an ad featuring the product.

Leveraging Customer Behavior Insights for Business Growth

Understanding typical customer behaviors can reveal the rationale behind their purchasing decisions, which is important for effective marketing and sales.

Retail analytics solutions can help you uncover valuable insights into how your customers think, which can help you grow your business by:

Maximizing customer lifetime value: The more a customer purchases from your company, the higher their lifetime value and the more revenue you gain. Detailed customer insights can help you understand where to apply your focus to keep your most valuable customers satisfied.
Minimizing customer churn: Analyzing trends in customer behavior can predict when customers are most likely to abandon your brand, which reveals opportunities to improve the customer experience.
Improving your marketing results: Effective omnichannel and multichannel marketing strategies rely on customer data to keep audiences engaged with your brand. Collecting customer behavior data in physical stores and online channels provides a more comprehensive understanding of your customers that can boost results.
Identifying opportunities for expansion: If you’re considering expanding into other regions, accurate customer data can help you gauge which markets your business will most benefit from.

Personalization: The Key to Immersive Shopping Experiences

Personalized customer experiences are no longer just “nice to have” — they’re now a necessity for keeping your customers engaged in your business.

One study found that 81% of customers prefer to buy from companies that deliver personalized experiences. That goes for both e-commerce platforms and in-person shops.

Catering directly to your customers is essential for delivering more immersive shopping experiences both in-store and online by:

Delivering relevant discounts and offers to individual customers’ phones based on their history with the brand.
Identifying previous interactions to identify and guide customers to the specific items they’re looking for.
Sending customized marketing messages via the customer’s preferred communication channels.
Recommending relevant products and deals to specific customers for upselling and cross-selling.
Using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies to allow customers to preview products in upcoming releases.

With all the choices customers now have for both in-person and online shopping experiences, it’s important that your store meets customer expectations and differentiates itself from all the other retail businesses in your sector.

Inventory Management and Sales Forecasting

Accurate sales forecasting is critical for ensuring you have the right amount of stock on hand. Too much and you end up with dead stock and lost revenue. Too little and you run into stockouts and frustrated customers.

A comprehensive retail analytics solution that integrates with an inventory management platform improves sales forecasting through predictive analytics. The platform can analyze historical trends to generate insights into what to expect over the next period, such as:

Identifying characteristics of products that sell well.
Predicting when you should expect higher demand than usual.
Making stocking recommendations for specific products.
Determining which sales channels to divert more inventory to.

You can even use this technology to ensure proper stocking on your sales floor. For example, you can predict which products will sell faster, which can help you determine exactly how many units to put on the shelves and the best intervals to restock.

Digital Technologies Driving Retail Analytics

In-store retail analytics solutions are complex, with both online and offline components:

The Internet of Things (IoT): The IoT is a network of internet-connected objects, such as sensors and mobile devices, that communicate wirelessly with each other and the cloud. This technology allows streamlined data collection and communication, which is essential for a unified retail analytics system.
Artificial intelligence (AI): AI is a branch of computer science that allows machines to “think” like humans. In terms of data analytics, an AI-equipped software program can identify patterns and draw conclusions much like a human data analyst.
Machine learning (ML): ML is an AI technique that analyzes previous outcomes and “learns” from them, incorporating feedback on an iterative basis. Essentially, ML enables your AI-powered software to continuously improve the predictions it makes so you can easily meet rising customer expectations.
Business intelligence (BI) solutions: BI platforms leverage AI and ML capabilities to analyze business data and generate actionable insights for effective, data-driven decision-making.
Point-of-sale (POS) systems: Your POS system is the point at which your business makes sales. This system can be a physical device you use to check customers out in-store or virtually, such as a payment form in your e-commerce channels.
Inventory management platforms: These systems allow your warehousing and logistics teams to track products as they move through the supply chain, which helps you fulfill online orders more efficiently while keeping your brick-and-mortar locations stocked appropriately.
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems: A CRM platform consolidates all your customer data into one centralized hub, making it easier for customer service reps and marketing teams to deliver personalized experiences and build brand loyalty.

Deep integrations between each piece of your retail analytics solution create a seamless data flow across every channel and tool in your system. This process ensures easy access and analysis. That’s why it’s so important to design a comprehensive system where each component is compatible — as long as they can work together, your solution should provide smooth, streamlined results.

The Future of Retail Analytics and Store Operations

Analytics has become essential for more efficient in-store operations in retail businesses across all sectors, and its importance will continue growing well into the future.

The evolution of retail analytics will follow advances in the technologies behind it, especially in AI, ML, and IoT. AI and ML have only become mainstream in the past couple of years, and IoT is still developing in many ways.

As more businesses begin implementing automated processes, these digital technologies will become more necessary in their day-to-day operations. Getting ahead of the curve and investing now can help your company become more competitive in the long run.

Getting Started With Retail Tech for In-Store Operations

Diving in headfirst without taking the time to plan your transformation is one of the biggest mistakes in starting out with retail tech.

Instead, it’s best to take a phased approach that accelerates results while empowering your front-line employees to focus on customer services. Start by identifying your most important goals and focus on achieving these first.

Consulting with a team of retail tech experts is one of the best ways to begin outlining your implementation strategy. The team at Kopius is uniquely qualified to help.

How Kopius Can Help

A team of experienced retail tech consultants can help you identify the right solutions for your business, designing a custom in-store retail analytics solution tailored to your unique requirements. That’s where the JumpStart program from Kopius, Inc. comes in.

The JumpStart program is our data-driven approach to the common pain points retail companies face daily. Our people meet with yours to discuss your needs and expectations, and we work closely with you to determine the right configuration of digital technologies for your goals.

Read our case studies to see how we’ve helped businesses like yours implement robust retail tech solutions and achieve excellent returns.

JumpStart Your Retail Operations With Help From Kopius

If your company is considering investing in retail analytics solutions, you can count on Kopius to help you create a comprehensive system that meets your store’s unique needs.

We designed our JumpStart program to spark innovation and drive customer, digital technology, and data success. By combining tech smarts and collaboration with a user-centric approach, we can help you fast-track business results and platform solutions.

Add our brainpower to your team and see where we can take you. Contact our specialists today to JumpStart your future success.

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How IoT Is Leveraged in Retail Automation

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Kopius

While technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and automated tools have become mainstream in many industries, they’re only just emerging into the retail space.

Investing in an integrated retail and automation solution now can help you launch your business ahead of the competition and build your reputation as a thought leader.

Introduction to IoT in Retail Automation

Before diving into the details of IoT and retail automation, it’s important to understand how these technologies work together to create a comprehensive retail system.

In retail, the term “IoT” refers to the network of internet-connected devices in your stores and throughout your supply chain that collect, analyze, and report on business data. Some essential data you can track with retail IoT include:

Customer behaviors: Sensors and cameras equipped with video analytics capabilities can reveal how customers typically move through the store, which displays they pay the most attention to, and where your customer service could improve.
Inventory movement: Tagged inventory sends continuous signals to your inventory management system, updating inventory levels in real time for rapid replenishment and insights into customer preferences.
Ambient conditions: Temperature and motion sensors can determine when people are most likely to be shopping, allowing these devices to automatically adjust the environmental conditions when more people are present.

IoT technologies allow you to complete your digital transformation by connecting the digital side of your company to the physical world. In other words, your IoT devices measure data from your real-world storefront and then input that information into a digital solution for analysis and reporting. These insights make it easy to identify areas for improvement, such as customer service personalization and supply chain optimization.

Types of IoT Devices Used in Retail

IoT systems can be either simple or highly complex, depending on their scale and the diversity of technologies you use.

Some of the most commonly used IoT retail devices include:

RFID tags: Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags continuously transmit location data via radio waves, which allows you to track stock movement in real time.
Sensors: Sensing devices monitor in-store conditions like foot traffic, lighting levels, temperature, and more to help you enhance the shopping experience and improve your energy efficiency.
Cameras: You can use video analytics technologies to see how customers move through your store, which is valuable data for improving store layout. Real-time video analytics can also enhance store security by enabling you to catch criminal activity like theft in video feeds, streamlining investigations and preventing repeat offenders.
Beacons: These Bluetooth devices sense when customers are nearby and automatically trigger preset actions relevant to each person. For example, a beacon could automatically award loyalty program members points every time they set foot in one of your stores.

Different stores will need different arrangements of devices, so it can help to work with a team of expert retail tech consultants to determine your specific requirements.

What Role Does IoT Play in Retail Automation?

IoT is transforming the industry as we know it, but how does it connect to automation in retail? Think of automation as the missing piece of the retail IoT puzzle.

Automated technologies enable seamless communication and trigger specific actions between each of your IoT devices, creating a complete system that operates with only minimal human intervention.

For example, a smart shelf can automatically update stock levels in your inventory management system. The software solution can automatically request a replenishment once those levels hit a predetermined point.

Core Components of IoT in Retail

Although every system is different in its individual configuration, most contain the same parts. The core components of a retail IoT solution include:

1. Smart Inventory Management

When combined with a cloud-based inventory management solution, your IoT network can help you keep better track of inventory levels to prevent issues from interfering with the customer experience.

Here’s how:

Enhanced visibility: With the ability to track the whereabouts of each item in real time, you can minimize your potential losses by proactively mitigating issues like overstocking and stockouts across all your locations.
Replenishment and demand planning: Real-time visibility into inventory levels through weight sensors and smart shelves enables automated systems to recognize when you’re getting low and prompt an immediate replenishment order, optimizing inventory levels based on current demand.
Reduced risk of theft: RFID tags make it harder for shoplifters to steal from stores by alerting employees when unpurchased items cross a certain threshold. Additionally, retailers can use data from incidents to identify opportunities to tighten security.

2. Supply Chain Optimization

Supply chain disruptions can have serious consequences for retail companies. Retail IoT technologies and real-time analytics allow you to take a proactive approach to supply chain issues, saving you valuable time and money.

Some ways IoT helps optimize the supply chain include:

Shorter lead times: The ability to receive real-time inventory updates enables greater business agility and efficiency, allowing you to pivot as soon as issues arise.
Environmental monitoring: Sensors can track ambient conditions in warehouses and transport vehicles to ensure perishable and other delicate products meet quality standards when they arrive.
Demand responsiveness: Insights into fluctuating customer demand enable companies to quickly adapt, which helps ensure the right products are available at the right times.
Streamlined collaboration: When all your supply chain partners have total visibility into your inventory and demand forecasting data, they can use that information to better coordinate production, warehousing, and logistics.

3. In-Store Analytics for Enhanced Customer Support

IoT devices collect a lot of data, but you need to be able to use that data to make any real change. That’s where in-store analytics solutions come in.

Here are some ways IoT and data analytics solutions can help improve the in-person shopping experience:

Staffing: Foot traffic data from your in-store IoT devices can help you predict peak hours, enabling you to plan staff schedules around these periods.
Personalized service: In-store analytics help you understand typical customer needs and preferences, which can make it easier to meet specific customers where they are on an individual level rather than as part of a segment.
Optimizing floor layout: Analytics can reveal how customers typically move around a store, enabling retailers to determine how to arrange products and displays in a way that helps customers find what they’re looking for faster.

The Impact of IoT on Retail Strategies

While IoT and retail automation are still emerging technologies, they’ve made a large impact on the industry. Here are some of the most important applications to pay attention to when considering the use of IoT.

Omnichannel Retailing and IoT

Omnichannel retailing has become a big deal in the past few years, and for good reason — creating a consistent experience across all your sales and marketing channels delivers a convenient, satisfying experience for customers. From one channel to the next, shopping or interacting with your brand is seamless.

This level of service is only possible because of IoT, which bridges the gap between your online and physical stores. The customer data you collect through your in-store IoT devices, as well as through your e-commerce and social media channels, provides valuable insight into what customers want from interactions with your brand. When you know what customers want, you can apply those changes across all your channels for a cohesive brand experience.

Personalized Marketing Strategies

According to one global study, 80% of consumers say they like receiving personalized product recommendations from brands. Brands that fail to deliver personalized service often lose customers because the experience lacks an emotional connection and is often less convenient.

But for many customers, the expectation of personalization has only risen. Hyper-personalization goes beyond traditional personalized marketing strategies by using advanced technologies like AI and IoT to collect and analyze individual customer data in real time.

So, rather than simply changing the name of the recipient in your marketing emails, you can reach each customer on an individual level. Automated retail software solutions let you apply hyper-personalization on a massive scale through digital channels, enticing more customers to visit your stores.

Understanding Automation in the Retail Industry

Automation and IoT technologies go hand in hand — you can’t have one without the other. Many automated solutions connect to IoT devices, which creates a seamless transfer of data and action across your entire store.

Automated Retail Technologies and Their Applications

Some of the ways retailers are incorporating IoT and retail automation into the shopping experience include:

Self-checkout systems: One of the most popular examples of retail automation is the self-checkout, which enables customers to quickly pay for their items and leave. Self-checkout lanes now make up about 38% of all checkout aisles at grocery stores, with their heaviest users being shoppers aged 19 to 24.
RFID tags: RFID tags are essentially smart labels that use radio frequency to track product movement and communicate it to other components in the system. You can use them to ensure you have enough product on the floor and help customers find what they need easier.
Smart shelves: By using a network of connected RFID tags, digital displays, and IoT sensors, smart shelves can detect the location of items and communicate that information to you. This data can help you identify trends in consumer behaviors and preferences, which is essential for optimizing marketing and store layout.

Store Automation Solutions

Even a basic level of in-store automation is now essential for a retail company’s success, but why? The benefits of implementing these solutions include:

Reduced costs: Higher efficiency means your staff can do more faster, and in retail, that means they can deliver excellent service to more customers. This combination can help you reduce costs associated with returns, human error, and reputational damage while also boosting your profitability.
Operational efficiency: Automation augments your human staff by streamlining their workflows and taking the burden of repetitive tasks off their hands, which empowers them to tackle more valuable work in less time.
Easier scalability: Automating routine processes reduces your hiring needs by boosting your human employees’ productivity, which provides more flexibility for expanding your business in the future.
Better customer service: Automated solutions can take care of tasks that eat up store employees’ time, which allows them to focus all their attention on helping customers on the floor.

Navigating the Latest Retail IoT Trends

According to market projections, the global IoT market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 29.3% over the rest of the decade. The retail IoT market is especially suited for positive growth, with excellent potential for innovation and high activity in merger and acquisition.

Much of this growth is due to the rapid advancements in technologies like:

AI: AI-powered analytics solutions can identify patterns like humans, which enables them to generate valuable insights into your company’s historical data. You can use these insights to inform your inventory and store management decisions for greater efficiency and better customer service.
Machine learning (ML): ML is a branch of AI that enables AI algorithms to continuously learn from previous interactions, which means the recommendations and actions your program delivers will become more relevant to your business and your customers.
Blockchain: This technology enables transparent data sharing through a series of linked blocks, which cannot be edited after completion. Some companies are incorporating blockchain into their shipping and fulfillment operations to enhance accountability and trust with business partners.

Preparing for the Future of Automation in Retail

Future-proofing your organization with advanced automated solutions is essential for gaining a competitive edge. One of the biggest challenges every company will face in implementing retail automation is setting up the proper infrastructure for the system:

A strong, stable internet connection
A robust, centralized cloud database to store and analyze IoT data
Wireless or Bluetooth connectivity between all IoT devices

Companies also need to ensure their employees receive the proper training to use these technologies to enhance their everyday work. You’ll have to carefully consider what support mechanisms you can provide to assist your staff in troubleshooting any issues that pop up.

Kopius’s Approach to Retail Automation Solutions

Retail tech is complex, with many moving parts that need careful planning and attention to ensure they work properly.

If you’re unsure where to start, Kopius can help. We take a collaborative approach to retail tech, which enables us to deliver unparalleled results for retailers of various sizes and sectors.

Our team of experts will work closely with you and your people to understand your specific pain points, goals, and expectations. We’ll then design a custom solution tailored to your business that takes into account all existing physical and digital infrastructure.

Want to learn more about the companies we’ve helped? Read our case studies to see real examples of our work.

Begin Your Retail Tech Journey With Help From Kopius

IoT and retail automation present exciting opportunities for companies that invest in the proper infrastructure and support. That’s why we’re here.

When you take advantage of our JumpStart program, you gain access to our emerging tech team’s knowledge and expertise, which will help you spark innovations and strategize new projects that support your business goals.

What’s more, your solutions are tailored to your business — no matter how complex the specifications, we can create a custom retail analytics project that meets your organization’s unique requirements.

Are you ready to get started? We are, too. Contact us today to set up a consultation with our experts.

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The Power of IoT in Industrial Innovation

Posted on July 16, 2024 by Kopius

Industrial companies are prioritizing digital technologies to keep pace in a challenging market. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a common foundational technology powering this digital transformation, helping manufacturing companies connect, monitor, analyze, and make informed, data-driven decisions. Industrial IoT solutions enhance efficiency, maximize revenue growth, and reduce costs across your organization.

Explore how IoT technology works, its benefits, and how to leverage it for your manufacturing processes.

Introduction to IoT in Industrial Innovation

IoT is a network of interconnected devices with sensors, software, and connectivity that collect and exchange data. These devices communicate with each other and with centralized systems to perform tasks based on the data they receive.

Elements of IoT include:

Devices: IoT uses physical objects like actuators, sensors, and other gadgets that are connected to the internet.
Connectivity: Protocols like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are critical elements in IoT and manufacturing, as they facilitate communication between devices and central systems.
Data: IoT devices use the information they collect through sensors to transmit and process it for decision-making.
Cloud: The cloud provides storage, processing power, and analytics capabilities to handle large and complex volumes of IoT data.
Applications: These are the software applications that utilize IoT data for monitoring, control, automation, and optimization.
Security technologies: These include encryption, authentication, and access control mechanisms to share data in a highly controlled and secured way.

There are endless possibilities for the Internet of Things in manufacturing. The digital technology is shaping the industry, allowing for real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and data-driven decision-making. Drive growth with IoT by using it to reduce your downtime, increase efficiency, and improve product quality — all critical in a rapidly evolving market.

Benefits of IoT Adoption

IoT optimizes your processes, enhances supply chain visibility, and drives operation excellence. Here are a few benefits of leveraging manufacturing IoT technologies.

Visualize Operations

IoT provides real-time data insights and identifies bottlenecks to make continuous improvements in your warehouse. Consider a warehouse that handles thousands of products for an e-commerce company. By leveraging data from IoT, the warehouse can automatically track the quality of each product and raise an alert or automatically place an order to replenish the stock when needed.

When you leverage IoT, you can measure real-time product output, adjust your production schedules and inventory levels accordingly, and maximize resource utilization. You can also enhance the efficiency of your operations by using IoT-powered predictive analytics to forecast demand patterns.

Easier Maintenance

Use IoT to remotely monitor your equipment’s health and performance. This way, you can come up with predictive maintenance strategies that reduce downtime, extend the life span of your equipment, and enhance its overall effectiveness. By remotely accessing equipment status and performance data in real time, your team detects issues early, schedules maintenance quickly, and prevents costly breakdowns that could impact your production schedule.

Cost Reduction

Manufacturing IoT reduces operation costs associated with maintenance, energy use, and inventory management by optimizing processes and tasks. Additionally, IoT insights into your equipment and energy use patterns allow you to implement energy-saving measures and resource-efficient practices that lead to long-term cost savings and sustainability goals.

Quality Assurance

IoT contributes to quality assurance in many ways. It can monitor your production processes in real time to detect defects early. It can also ensure compliance with quality standards so you deliver products that meet customer expectations for reliability and performance. Ultimately, IoT improves product consistency, reduces defects, and ensures customer satisfaction by delivering high-quality products.

Industrial IoT Applications

The uses for IoT are endless, and many companies have become more efficient because of it. Consider the various IoT applications and use cases.

Optimizing Supply Chains

Industrial Internet of Things solutions include greater supply chain visibility. Get real-time insights into each stage of the supply chain, from raw material sourcing to delivery. The digital technology collects and analyzes data from connected devices, helping you track inventory levels, monitor shipment status, and identify inefficiencies. Use IoT in supply chain operations to process data and gain insights into performance metrics, trends, and opportunities for optimization.

Amazon, Volvo, and Nissan are all examples of companies successfully leveraging IoT to manage and optimize their supply chains for greater efficiency. Volvo uses IoT to track and deliver products worldwide, Nissan uses it to link multiple industrial units, and Amazon uses an IoT event simulator that creates and transmits location telemetry to a centralized system.

Powering Additive Manufacturing

IoT also improves additive manufacturing technologies and processes. Additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, involves building objects layer by layer with digital 3D models. Compared to traditional manufacturing methods, 3D printers reduce material waste and offer faster prototyping, production, and customization — without needing expensive tools.

IoT enhances additive manufacturing technologies by:

Enabling real-time monitoring of printers.
Optimizing machine performance.
Ensuring quality control through sensors that detect deviations.
Facilitating predictive maintenance to prevent downtime.
Streamlining production workflows for increased efficiency.

GE Aviation is successfully leveraging additive manufacturing and IoT technologies to optimize the performance of its jet engines. The company is also improving the efficiency of its jet engine production lines with machine learning. IoT allows them to efficiently and accurately analyze data for aircraft testing, improving aircraft models and performance.

Integrating With Cobots

Collaborative robots, also known as cobots, are being used in manufacturing processes like picking, packing and palletizing products, welding, assembly, material handling, and quality control. When integrated with IoT, cobots can produce goods more quickly and efficiently while reducing costs associated with human labor. Cobots also offer better precision and repeatability, increasing production quality.

Cobots also promote workplace safety. For example, Ford uses cobots to support skilled workers with injuries or illnesses that limit their physical work capacity. Ford developed Robbie the Cobot to work with the assembly line employees to press in and attach covers for the engine block’s variable camshaft timing.

Enhancing the Role of Digital Twins

Digital twins provide a real-time virtual representation of a physical device or asset. Manufacturers might use digital twins to test product customizations and modifications. They can also recreate production lines with bottlenecks and simulate corrections digitally before executing the physical corrections.

Implementing IoT with digital twin capabilities in a factory or machine plant allows better visibility, accurate predictions, documentation, and communication. An example is the multinational aerospace and defense company Rolls-Royce, which uses IoT digital twin technology to monitor its engines, extending the time between maintenance for engines by up to 50%.

JumpStart Your Manufacturing Innovation

Industrial IoT solutions make many processes much more efficient, reducing costs and optimizing supply chains. While it can transform your business for the better, IoT can be challenging to implement without the right resources on your side. Kopius’ JumpStart program helps you successfully integrate manufacturing IoT into your processes and unlock opportunities for innovation.

Our program fast-tracks new manufacturing solutions so that you achieve faster business results. Connect with us today to meet your digital initiatives and gain a competitive edge.

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Understanding IoT Security and Its Importance in Retail

Posted on July 16, 2024 by Kopius

Digital technology is revolutionizing how retail businesses operate and interact with their customers. The Internet of Things (IoT) plays a key role in the industry’s evolution, helping stores gather valuable customer data to supercharge decision-making and deliver enhanced shopping experiences.

Internet of Things security is crucial to leveraging advanced digital technologies successfully. Understanding the importance of robust IoT security is key to ensuring your retail business is ready to innovate, adapt, and meet modern consumer demands without compromising confidential data.

Learn more about how IoT security works and why it’s so pivotal in the retail sector.

What Is IoT Security in Retail?

IoT security’s key elements in the retail industry include:

Data protection: Customer and business data collected by IoT devices requires robust security solutions, like encryptions and advanced access controls to ensure compliance and privacy.
Device security: An important element of IoT security is protecting individual IoT devices with routine software updates and authentication mechanisms. This helps prevent unauthorized access and safeguard data integrity.
Network security: The network infrastructure used in connecting IoT devices requires firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and secure communication protocols to combat data breaches.
Physical security: IoT security also employs physical protections, like surveillance cameras, access control systems, and tamper seals, to combat theft and tampering.
Vendor management: Third-party vendors that retail businesses work with through IoT devices must meet strict security standards to mitigate potential risks.
Team education and training: Cybersecurity and physical security awareness training ensures your team keeps devices secure and responds to incidents effectively. Human error is to blame for at least 88% of data breaches, so education on IoT cybersecurity best practices is essential.

Any organization that leverages interconnected technologies that collect, store, share, and manage personal or payment information — especially from customers — must prioritize robust security measures. IoT-enabled retail businesses need strong protections for their networks and physical devices to combat potential threats that can wreak havoc on their operations, reputation, and bottom line.

Robust cybersecurity in the retail industry is essential in today’s high-risk digital landscape, especially as cyber threats grow rapidly and more companies rely on IoT than ever before.

IoT Security Examples for the Retail Industry

Some common IoT devices used for retail security include:

Surveillance cameras: IoT-enabled closed-circuit television security systems can enhance retail store security through round-the-clock surveillance.
Sensors: Specialized IoT sensors can monitor environmental changes, detect issues, and share alerts about potential intruders in a retail or digital space.
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and readers: These digital technologies can enhance how retailers track and manage their inventory and assets. They can boost anti-theft measures through real-time location tracking and identification.
Smart locks: Smart locks and IoT-enabled access control solutions allow retail businesses to oversee entry into different areas of their store, including restricted zones.
Point-of-sale (POS) systems: Retailers also use IoT-enabled POS terminals to securely process customer transactions, track sales data, and improve accurate inventory management.

Why Is Retail IoT Security So Important?

Security in IoT is critical for keeping customer data protected and private. IoT systems in retail environments collect sensitive information about your shoppers, including personal insights, purchase histories, behavioral data, and payment details.

Without adequate security measures, the data from IoT devices, including surveillance cameras and sensors, may be vulnerable to cybercriminals looking to capitalize on system vulnerabilities.

Retailers need a deep understanding of their IoT and security issues. This ensures they take the necessary measures to combat unauthorized access and data breaches that can lead to theft, misuse, or fraud. Protecting customer privacy should always be a top priority.

In addition to safeguarding your customers’ information, IoT security is vital for supporting smooth business operations. Protecting your critical infrastructure against potential attacks helps prevent disruptions, financial losses, and reputational damage due to incidents.

Establishing strong security measures helps retail businesses safeguard their daily workflows and processes. They can also use IoT insights to drive efficiency, reduce downtime, and ultimately improve performance.

Retailers need a secure, agile, and scalable IoT ecosystem to adapt to the ever-changing market. That way, they can maintain operational efficiency and deliver the most intuitive and satisfying customer experiences.

The Benefits of Robust IoT Data Security in Retail

Retail businesses can reap many benefits from prioritizing a strong security posture to safeguard their data and private information. Keeping your IoT systems secure is essential to your company’s longevity and bottom line. Explore some of the key advantages below.

1. Data Breach and Cyberattack Prevention

IoT networks in the retail industry store sensitive data that cybercriminals want to access and exploit. Businesses need strong monitoring mechanisms, encryption protocols, and access controls to effectively combat data breaches, theft, and cyberattacks. These incidents can devastate retail operations, so a proactive approach to IoT security is essential for identifying and mitigating potential risks.

Rigorous data security measures are also key to protecting your retail business’s intellectual property. IoT systems often store confidential data relating to products, services, and company operations. Guarding these insights with proper cybersecurity measures is key to maintaining a competitive edge and capitalizing on proprietary processes or solutions.

2. Brand Reputation Protection

Demonstrating your retail business’s commitment to data protection is essential for fostering customer trust. Robust IoT security is key to portraying your brand’s reputation as reliable and safe. If consumers feel confident that your company will protect their payment details and personal information, they will be more likely to engage with your business and make purchases. Your level of security directly impacts customer loyalty and satisfaction, and a good reputation supports greater retention and growth.

If a data breach or cyberattack occurs, a powerful response plan effectively minimizes the impact on your customers and brand. Keeping your customers’ private data safe through robust security measures is integral to managing your brand’s trustworthiness.

3. Operational Continuity

Another benefit of robust IoT security is ensuring continued operations. Cyberattacks and data breaches can result in significant disruptions, leading to:

Revenue loss.
System failures.
Downtime.
Data loss.
Reputational damage.
Customer dissatisfaction.

Everything from inventory management to POS transactions can encounter disturbances from a security incident, leading to friction and negative experiences for your shoppers. Consumers demand uninterrupted service and reliable operations. Secure IoT networks and devices are necessary to avoid these issues, supporting productivity, efficiency, and continued operations.

4. Competitive Advantage

Retail businesses can also enjoy a competitive advantage by implementing strong IoT security measures. By establishing a reputation for prioritizing data security, companies can enhance their brand credibility and attract security-conscious consumers.

Today’s shoppers want to know they can trust the retailers they buy from, and maintaining a secure digital environment is key to demonstrating your commitment to protecting customer data. Investing in IoT security can give you an edge over the competition by delivering seamless customer experiences and benefiting your brand reputation.

Secure IoT systems also support enhanced data-backed decision-making to grow your business.

5. Cost Savings

The consequences of a data breach or cyberattack can be expensive. Regulatory fines, legal fees, theft, and data recovery can add up quickly. In 2023, the average cost of a data breach in the United States was a whopping $9.48 million, which can put a retailer out of business. Robust IoT data security measures can save costs and protect a company’s bottom line.

Retail businesses need strong protections to support long-term operational efficiency and business growth. Fostering a reputation for strong security and avoiding security incidents can also help companies protect their brand value and equity, reducing the costs of customer acquisition, retention, and even marketing.

Internet of Things Security Challenges for Retailers

Explore the key challenges of IoT security for retail businesses:

Large attack surface: As companies introduce new digital technologies, Internet of Things device security is increasingly complicated by the growing attack surface. Cybercriminals have more entry points for potential attacks and data breaches, and retailers must implement greater defenses to combat the new vulnerabilities.
Legacy systems: Another common security hurdle for retail businesses is integrating IoT devices with legacy systems. Compatibility issues can pose a serious threat, as many older solutions do not feature adequate protections in today’s digital landscape. Finding ways to protect older systems with the latest security standards can be complicated, expensive, and time-consuming.
Supply chain risks: Third-party suppliers, partners, and vendors can introduce security risks throughout a retail business’s supply chain. Companies must find ways to secure their entire digital ecosystem and combat vulnerabilities, including devices, software, and services from outside organizations. Limited transparency and supply chain complexity can make tracking every component’s security posture difficult. Working with partners that prioritize robust IoT security is essential.
Standardization: There are no universal IoT security criteria for retailers to follow, making uniformity and standardization difficult. Ensuring consistent security practices across diverse IoT devices and networks can be challenging and lead to potential vulnerabilities.
Insider threats: Employee negligence or misconduct can be a huge IoT security challenge for retail businesses. Comprehensive training, education, and monitoring can help companies manage insider threats and ensure their team members do not intentionally or accidentally compromise IoT data.
Physical security: Safeguarding physical IoT devices and infrastructure from unauthorized access, theft, and vandalism can be another major challenge for retailers. Proper surveillance and access control systems are necessary for ensuring physical security.

Compliance Standards for IoT Security in Retail

These IoT and security compliance requirements help ensure ethical data handling practices:

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS): The PCI DSS outlines requirements for how cardholder data is collected, stored, and transmitted by a company’s IoT devices, such as POS terminals.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework: Retailers must secure IoT devices and networks according to NIST guidelines to ensure the strongest cybersecurity posture.
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines: The FTC outlines guidance for securing a business’s IoT system.

Retailers must also follow industry- and state-specific regulations, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Compliance is necessary to avoid fines and reputational damage while demonstrating a company’s commitment to security to potential customers and partners. Meeting these standards helps retailers ensure they maintain a secure IoT environment.

Best Practices for Securing Retail IoT Devices

A few key strategies and best practices can help retail businesses maintain ongoing IoT security and protect their data:

1. Carry Out Regular Testing

Retailers should regularly test their IoT systems to identify possible vulnerabilities. Taking a proactive risk mitigation approach is key to maintaining the most secure network, and testing is an essential part of tackling potential dangers before they become larger and more serious threats.

2. Segment Your IoT Network

A top tip for ensuring optimal IoT network security is segmenting your network. By splitting up the system into smaller networks, you can gain greater insight into each segment, allowing your team to pinpoint security threats more efficiently than looking at the network as a whole.

3. Update Systems Often

Regularly patching and updating your network is essential for ongoing IoT device security. Cybercriminals and hackers are continuously searching for new vulnerabilities on your attack surface. Routine updates will help your systems remain protected against threats and ensure you have the latest security measures in place.

4. Implement Advanced Access Management

Retailers should prioritize unauthorized access prevention measures to ensure IoT data is safe from cybercriminals and hackers. Advanced controls and multifactor authentication can help businesses protect their systems, safeguarding confidential business insights and sensitive customer information.

5. Maintain Ongoing Monitoring

Monitoring every facet of your IoT network will help your business manage and mitigate security risks. Retailers need greater insight and visibility of their attack surface to ensure secure devices and uncompromised data.

6. Prioritize Comprehensive Team Training

Retail businesses can maximize IoT security by informing employees of potential threats and training them on the best practices. Continuous education and training update team members on securely using IoT devices, ensuring ongoing data protection.

Starting Your IoT Security Journey

The best way to ensure IoT security is to partner with an experienced provider who understands the best practices for protecting your environment against threats and vulnerabilities. With the JumpStart Retail partnership program from Kopius, your business can leverage IoT to foster tech-enabled innovation, elevate customer engagement, and create more satisfying digital and in-store experiences.

We designed our solution with robust IoT security to protect your business’s sensitive information and combat data breaches. Our experts will work with your team to determine the best measures for safeguarding your digital and physical environment from unauthorized access.

We make securing your data simple. Browse some of our case studies to see how we’ve empowered businesses to take a more innovative approach to data security.

JumpStart Your Retail IoT Security Strategy With Kopius

Innovating your retail business to keep up with the competition and ensuring a robust cybersecurity posture is essential. Kopius makes it easy to JumpStart digital technology and data success. Our data and AI ideation and prioritization program fast-tracks and enhances your company’s results.

We’ll help you boost customer satisfaction through an informed, data-driven approach. Our tech team’s extensive expertise allows us to supercharge IoT security solutions for retailers worldwide. We’ll tailor your program to your business’s unique needs and industry requirements, helping you improve customer experiences and benefiting your bottom line.

Contact our experts to partner with Kopius and JumpStart your business today.

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Benefits of Digital Twins in Manufacturing

Posted on July 16, 2024 by Kopius

The manufacturing industry can leverage digital twins to understand operations better and optimize processes. With greater insight into your systems and equipment from these cutting-edge digital technologies, your team can effectively drive efficiency and innovation to stay competitive.

Explore how digital twins can benefit your manufacturing operations and drive future growth.

What Is a Digital Twin in Manufacturing?

A digital twin in manufacturing refers to a virtual replica of physical assets, systems, or processes informed by Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. This twin functions as a virtual representation of one of your machines, production lines, or products by mimicking its real-world behavior. You can use this digital technology to simulate different scenarios and analyze performance for more informed decision-making and monitoring.

Digital twin technology is commonly confused with simulations, but the two differ. A simulation typically relies on a computer-aided design system or similar solution to forecast how physical assets will work or behave. Digital models use IoT data collected from your specific equipment and systems.

The Role of Digital Twins in Manufacturing

The manufacturing industry’s use of these virtual models is among the most advanced of any sector. Some common digital twin applications for industrial production include:

Design and development: Manufacturers use these solutions to create digital prototypes of their production systems on products. Digital twins offer a low-stakes way to test configurations, identify potential hurdles, and optimize performance before production.
Performance monitoring: Digital models enable teams to monitor assets and system processes continuously. The data collected from IoT sensors can track key performance indicators, flag inefficiencies, and make proactive adjustments to support efficiency.
Quality control: Manufacturing plants leverage digital twins to compare real-time data with the virtual model to detect potential deviations and bottlenecks early, enabling early intervention to ensure consistent quality standards.
Training and simulations: Digital twins can also function as simulations for training manufacturing personnel on new equipment and production processes in a safe and risk-free virtual environment. Operators can use this digital technology to undergo training and practice to prepare for real-world scenarios.
Lifecycle management: Businesses can leverage these digital tools to gain insight into each stage of a product or system, from design to production. Manufacturers can use the insights from digital twins to optimize lifecycles and enhance overall quality.

7 Benefits of Digital Twin Technology

Explore the key digital twin benefits for manufacturing operations below.

1. Predictive Maintenance

Manufacturers can leverage digital models to enhance equipment and production reliability through data-driven predictive maintenance. Real-time data from the sensors can predict when a breakdown is likely to occur. By flagging issues and inefficiencies early, your team can stay on top of upkeep to ensure asset performance and productivity. Your personnel can use virtual replicas to proactively identify and address repair needs before they result in costly unplanned downtime or equipment replacements.

2. Process Optimization

Digital twins can facilitate manufacturing process optimization by giving your team a virtual representation of your operations to simulate different scenarios. You can use these insights to identify bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement.

Manufacturers use these solutions to refine their production processes at every level, ensuring optimal workflow design. Fine-tuning processes based on digital twin insights can help industrial production personnel reduce lead times, support better performance, and achieve higher productivity.

3. Cost Reduction

A huge advantage of digital twins is reducing costs by informing optimized maintenance schedules, minimizing unplanned downtime, and reducing the time and expenses associated with operator training. Your manufacturing operation can use the insights from digital models to use resources more efficiently and reduce waste. These technologies can also improve profitability for manufacturers by informing decision-making.

4. Real-Time Monitoring

Live data tracking capabilities from IoT sensors inform virtual models and enable businesses to quickly identify trends and problematic operations. These robust insights are integral to timely interventions and quality assurance measures.

The continuous stream of real-time data is key to efficiently responding to anomalies before failures occur, helping manufacturers support the smoothest operations.

5. Product Innovation

Digital twin technology can help businesses drive product innovation. Virtual prototyping and simulation can help manufacturers test different configurations, materials, and features to explore new ideas more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Digital models can help you bring innovative products to market or implement optimized processes faster, giving your operation a competitive edge.

6. Data-Driven Planning

Another advantage of using these virtual models is having access to real-time data to drive decision-making and support accurate predictions regarding manufacturing operations. Digital twins can guide the following:

Resource allocation
Production planning
Quality control
Supply chain management
Opportunities for improvement

Strategic, data-driven planning helps manufacturers mitigate risks and make smarter decisions to drive profitability, sustainability, and longevity.

7. Scalability

The manufacturing industry can also leverage digital twins to swiftly adapt to changing market demands and scale. These tools can easily accommodate increased data volumes as your business introduces new products, production lines, and facilities into its operations. Your team can make informed, data-backed decisions thanks to these tools’ predictive and monitoring capabilities.

Overcoming the Challenges of Adopting Digital Twin Solutions

While utilizing digital twins can be highly advantageous for manufacturers, a few key challenges can impact adoption and implementation:

Data integration: IoT systems collect data from multiple sources, and differing data formats can complicate integration and interoperability.
Data quality: The insights that inform digital twins must be accurate, consistent, and reliable. Issues with data quality can result in misleading behavior and negatively impact decision-making.
Security and privacy: Robust data security measures are necessary for safeguarding intellectual property and combatting cyberthreats.
Skill gaps: Your team may lack expertise in IoT systems and digital twin technologies, which can slow implementation. Training and ongoing education may be necessary to maximize the benefits of these solutions for your manufacturing business.

Future Trends for Digital Twins in Manufacturing

Digital technology is constantly evolving, and digital twins are no exception. The following are a few future digital twin trends to watch out for in the manufacturing industry.

Edge Computing Adoption

Edge computing can process data locally and in real time, close to the data source, for incredible accuracy. It can offer several benefits to digital twin systems, including reducing latency, improving reliability, and optimizing bandwidth usage.

Extended Reality

Businesses are using augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to enhance their use of digital twins. AR and VR allow businesses to provide users with a more immersive and engaging experience when interacting with virtual models. Manufacturers can use AR and VR to assess product viability and enhance testing.

Best Practices for Implementing Digital Twins With IoT

Following a few best practices will help your manufacturing operation maximize the benefits of digital twins and IoT solutions:

Prioritize data quality: Monitoring and verifying data quality is key to ensuring that the insights from your IoT sensors deliver the most accurate and relevant data for your digital models.
Implement robust security and privacy measures: Strong data security solutions are essential to protect private information transmitted between your digital twin platform and IoT devices.
Establish a feedback loop: Encourage users to share feedback about your manufacturing operation’s digital twins to support continuous improvement and inform newer, more accurate virtual model iterations.

JumpStart Your Manufacturing Transformation With Kopius

If you’re ready to enhance your manufacturing operations, turn to Kopius. We’ll help you transform your business with tech-enabled innovation.

With our JumpStart program, you will streamline new manufacturing solutions and fast-track business results to drive long-term growth. Our experts will assist you in tackling your digital manufacturing initiatives and overcoming common challenges through our data-driven approach. We’ll help your operation gain a competitive edge through the latest digital technologies and solutions.

Are you interested in learning more about elevating your business and unlocking your potential? Contact Kopius to JumpStart your smart manufacturing success today.

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What To Look For In a Tech Partner

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Diego Anfossi

To Address Growing Technology Needs, You Need a Partner to Meet You Where You Are. Here’s What to Look for.

We live in a world where organizational technology needs grow greater every day. Companies are racing to take advantage of emerging technology like generative AI, and to do that they have to make decisions about where to store it, how to structure it, and how to visualize it that will impact them for years to come. And emerging tech is only part of the equation. You still have your existing technology needs, like building products and applications and creating engaging user experiences for your customers.

No company can do it all. At some point, you will likely need to partner with an external company to supplement your internal team. But finding the right partner isn’t always straightforward—you need one to meet you where you are with the right technology, the right people, and the right delivery model.

Here are three important things to consider.

A Problem First, Technology Second Approach

Behind every technology solution is a business challenge, or at least there should be. And while the challenge may be clear, finding the right solution isn’t always straightforward. It’s important to not be too prescriptive about the technology solution before you fully understand the problem. If you choose a partner who only does one thing, that’s always going to be the answer to your problem. That specific technology or even technology in general may only be part of the solution. Sometimes people and processes are what matter most.

Look for a partner who will take the time to truly understand your business challenge, then bring the right technology and wrap around services to bear to solve the problem.

Blocks with downward arrows on the left one block on the right with an arrow pointing up

The Ability to Assemble the Right Team

By 2026, more than 90% of organizations globally will experience impact from the IT skills crisis, amounting to some $5.5 trillion in losses due to product delays, impaired competitiveness, and loss of business, according to IDC. It’s a startling statistic that underscores just how complex the IT labor market is. Part of the complexity stems from how quickly technology is evolving—there are just so many emerging areas of expertise. But as the world becomes increasingly software and data centric, the broader IT labor market is becoming increasingly compressed, too. It’s hard to find people with the right skill set when and where you need them.

Look for a partner with proven, repeatable process in place and an established recruiting engine for bringing skilled experts to the table, ideally people they have long-term working relationships with.

A Flexible Delivery Model

Every organization is unique, as is every technology initiative. Sometimes the best solution is to completely outsource an initiative and ask your partner to own it from beginning to end, but it’s certainly not the only approach. In other instances, you may need your partner to manage a project side-by-side with your team or to augment your staff during peak periods. Flexibility extends to where the team is located, too. If you’re augmenting your team, do you need them to be onshore or can you take advantage of nearshore economies of scale?

Look for a partner who is flexible and offers a range of delivery approaches tailored to your business needs.

Meeting You Where You Are

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics currently projects that IT-related jobs will continue to grow at a much faster pace than average through 2032. Companies that strategically align themselves with a technology partner that can meet you where you are will be better positioned to navigate the advancing technology landscape and the increasing demand for expertise. When evaluating a partner, look for one who will take the time to understand your underlying business challenge, bring the right people together and the right technology to bear, and deliver in whatever way works best for you.

Partner with Kopius to JumpStart Success

Innovating technology is crucial, or your business will be left behind. Our expertise in technology and business helps our clients deliver tangible outcomes and accelerate growth. At Kopius, we’ve designed a program to JumpStart your customer, technology, and data success.

Kopius has an expert emerging tech team. We bring this expertise to your JumpStart program and help uncover innovative ideas and technologies supporting your business goals. We bring fresh perspectives while focusing on your current operations to ensure the greatest success.

Partner with Kopius and JumpStart your future success.

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Beyond the Sensor—IoT as a Starting Point for Solving Your Organization’s Most Pressing Tech Challenges

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Jim Darrin

Man in a hard hat reviewing data on a tablet

Across virtually every industry, in healthcare, industrial, retail and other settings, IoT is a go-to way of monitoring everything from user behavior, to equipment to the environment. It can even be used to keep track of what’s happening within our bodies. But the bigger question is why? Why are you monitoring those endpoints, and what problem are you trying to solve? Fundamentally, IoT is about data, and it’s often just a starting point. It is part of a large ecosystem of other data sources and technologies that you can bring to bear to solve your organization’s—and in some cases, the world’s—most pressing challenges.

And in fact, long-term, sustainable solutions often extend beyond technology. People and processes may be at the root of your challenges, and you will need to look beyond the sensor to effect change.

From When to Why: How IoT Brought a People and Practices Issue to the Forefront

Case in point: a leading lumber company’s door manufacturing business was among its most profitable segments. They were looking to increase their return on investment by making their machines more productive. That meant finding ways to make them run faster and reduce idle time. They reached out to Kopius, and as a first step, we worked with them to put sensors on their machines so we could pull data to better understand when they were idle and for how long. It was valuable information, but to increase productivity, we needed to understand why they were idle.

It wasn’t because of mechanical issues. Instead, the answer had to do with the way orders are processed and initiated for manufacturing, which is a people and process issue. The company’s order fulfillment process was largely manual. When an order came in, a physical bill of material was created, then someone walked it over to the area of the facility dedicated to door manufacturing. Often, they were pulled away, distracted by a more time sensitive task or by a coworker. In other cases, materials for the doors would get delivered to the wrong area. So, to solve the problem of humans being prone to error, we recommended a change management process and leveraged automation to support better tracking of materials. The expected impact was a 40% increase in production and $50M increase in annual revenue for the door division.

For this company, the initial request for IoT sensors was just the starting point for long term efficiency, agility, and sustainability. It sparked ongoing discussions that have opened a world of possibilities for what other insights could be gleaned from their data. What kinds of sensors would generate data that would help them predict when their equipment needed servicing? How could they lay a foundation for storing and structuring their data so when the time is right, they can leverage AI to gain insights into their business that humans can’t see?

A Problem-First, Technology Second Approach

This experience underscores my initial point. IoT is just one element of a larger ecosystem of technology, data, and process improvements that can be brought to bear to solve your business challenges. If you stay focused on the why—your underlying business problem—and let that guide your technology approach, you can take your business farther, faster.

JumpStart IoT Success

Innovating technology is crucial, or your business will be left behind. Our expertise in IoT technology and business helps our clients deliver tangible outcomes and accelerate growth. At Kopius, we’ve designed a program to JumpStart your customer, technology, and data success.

Partner with Kopius and JumpStart your future success.

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How IoT Is Reshaping the Retail Experience

Posted on May 20, 2024 by Kopius

Retail technology, or retail tech, has transformed the industry for both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retailers. The Internet of Things (IoT) is one example of technology set to revolutionize how businesses interact with consumers forever.

Learning more about the current state of IoT in retail and where experts predict it will go can help your business determine how best to incorporate this technology in your everyday operations.

Understanding the IoT Revolution in Retail

Although IoT and retail are still a fairly new combination for most retailers, it’s a promising technology that is set to transform retail as we know it.

IoT is the concept behind smart retail, which is an evolving practice that uses connected technology to create a seamless shopping experience designed to meet today’s increasingly advanced customer expectations. Whether people are visiting your stores in person or shopping online, an IoT experience is significantly more memorable and convenient than a conventional one.

What Is the Internet of Things in Retail?

The Internet of Things in the retail industry is a comprehensive network that collects, monitors, and analyzes customer data in real time using a range of internet-connected devices:

RFID tags: Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags use radio frequencies to continuously transmit signals for location tracking and identification. Unlike traditional barcodes, you can receive RFID signals over long distances, which is ideal for maximum efficiency in retail and shipping purposes.
Cameras: Internet-connected CCTV cameras with video analytics capabilities can capture behavioral and operational data in brick-and-mortar stores for valuable insights into potential areas for process optimization.
Sensors: Various internet-connected sensors, such as pressure sensors, accelerometers, and temperature sensors, can provide data on customer behavior, foot traffic, and store conditions to streamline operations.
Bluetooth: Bluetooth connectivity enables you to build wireless networks of connected devices, creating seamless communication paths between each system component.
Beacons: One of the most popular examples of IoT devices, a beacon is a device that detects when people are nearby and automatically triggers a preset action. For example, a beacon may deliver personalized marketing messages on a screen when a returning customer walks by.

The specific devices you should use in your IoT retail system depend on your specific business, the products you sell, and your preferences.

IoT Use Cases Driving Retail Experiences

While many believe brick-and-mortar business is outdated, combining IoT and the retail industry can bring in-person shopping experiences back in a new, exciting way. It can also enhance online shopping experiences through a greater potential for data collection and personalization than conventional e-commerce practices.

Here are some examples of real Internet of Things use cases:

In-Store Operations and Analytics

Using IoT data for research and analysis can help businesses make strategic decisions about operational enhancements that generate real results. Plus, automated devices free up store employees from handling time-consuming tasks like manual inventory counts and equipment checks so they can focus on value-added tasks.

Here are a few examples:

Staffing levels: IoT cameras and sensors near store entrances and exits can track customer foot traffic over the course of a typical day, providing valuable insights for scheduling staff.
Physical security: CCTV systems equipped with IoT capabilities can continuously monitor your store for suspicious behavior, automating surveillance and reducing your overall risk.
Store setup: Strategically placed cameras equipped with video analytics technology can also track customer movement patterns, helping you make strategic decisions about where to place products and displays.
Inventory: IoT-enabled devices can save your employees valuable time in manually scanning and counting items during peak hours. RFID tags and sensors attached to products can track customer purchases in real time, and an integrated notification system can alert you as soon as stock levels dip below a predetermined number.
Self-checkout automation: RFID tags and cameras can track when items leave the store, automatically charging customers for their purchase, as in the case of Amazon Go.
Predictive maintenance: Attaching IoT sensors to store equipment can help you save valuable time and money on preventive maintenance by monitoring equipment conditions in real time. When the sensor detects abnormalities in the equipment, it can flag your employees to perform maintenance.

Every retailer has a unique objective. That said, the “unique” aspect is exactly why IoT is so interesting. Understanding the various challenges and goals faced by customers, then developing and applying the best solution to meet said challenges and goals is what makes it fun.
Matt Wright, Principal Software Architect at Kopius

The applications for this information go well beyond managing your store in the current moment — you can also effectively prepare your business for the future using this data.

An integrated, AI-powered analytics solution can extract powerful insights from historical data, identifying trends and shifts in consumer behavior over time. Monitoring these trends will help inform your decisions about future-proofing your business, allowing you to create a retail experience that stays relevant for years to come.

Retail CDP and Personalized Marketing

When it comes to marketing, taking a one-size-fits-all approach is a surefire way to reach no one. Personalization, or tailoring your messaging to your customers’ individual preferences, is essential for connecting with them in a way that inspires loyalty and enhances your reputation.

Tapping into retail IoT capabilities can help you create hyper-personalized omnichannel advertising and marketing campaigns for maximum effectiveness. For example, the data your in-store IoT devices collect can provide valuable insight into customer behaviors such as:

How often someone visits your store
Which items a customer typically purchases
What time of day customers are most likely to make a purchase

While in-store IoT devices can efficiently capture massive amounts of customer data, you need some way to activate that data to ensure a strong return on investment.

An integrated customer data platform (CDP) provides a centralized database for all the behavioral and demographic data your IoT devices collect. You can also combine your in-store data with information from your e-commerce channels for a 360-degree view of all your customers and their preferences.

Data analytics software can then extract valuable insights from that information for:

Better market segmentation
More accurate targeting
Enhanced messaging

These insights will help you identify where the best potential growth areas are in your business. For example, the audience you typically target in marketing may not be the same audience that shops from you — and good data collection and analytics will help you determine whether this is the case so you can adjust your strategy.

Enhancing Customer Experiences Through IoT

When properly implemented, IoT networks can significantly improve both in-person and online shopping experiences with capabilities such as:

Better inventory management: Attaching RFID tags to products or product packaging helps you accurately track stock movement and quantities in your warehouses, making it easier to ensure you always have enough product to meet customer demand without the risk of dead stock.
Memorable product demos: Connected systems create more memorable in-person product demonstrations by bridging the gap between the real and the digital. Customers can interact with your products in new and exciting ways, significantly boosting your chances of making a sale.
In-store marketing: IoT solutions like beacon technology enable retailers to offer customers tailored promotions and real-time discounts based on their preferences and previous purchasing behavior. It is important to seize opportunities that present a more pleasant experience through technology. The companies that utilize IoT and other retail technologies to improve the accessibility of their customers or their employees are the ones pathing a new way within their industries.
Eye-catching displays: Internet-connected lights, screens, and smart shelves come together to create memorable displays that capture customers’ attention — and change in real time to keep them looking.
Order tracking: When customers purchase products online, they want to ensure their order arrives on time and in good condition. RFID tags and sensors, combined with integrated shipping management software, give customers greater visibility into the status of their orders, providing peace of mind.

Ultimately, the best approach your business can take to IoT and the customer experience is understanding your customers first. Knowing who they are and what they look for in a shopping experience is critical for designing experiences they will love.

Addressing Data and Security in IoT-Enabled Retail

As with any technology that captures personal data, customers have concerns over whether companies that use IoT devices to collect their data will take the proper measures to protect it.

Safeguarding Customer Data

This is always an important topic with customers when implementing IoT solutions. Often times, the “edge” devices generating data are field deployed and outside physical boundaries controlled by the customer. Sometimes the devices have no way to prevent anyone from physically accessing the devices, which poses an obvious risk to data security and integrity. Luckily, there are numerous mechanisms within IoT to address some of these concerns – things like Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), data encryption, and physical mechanisms such as Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) can all be implemented to mitigate data risks.
Matt Wright, Principal Software Architect at Kopius

Before and throughout implementation, your business should follow best practices for protecting customer information within an IoT framework:

Segment your IoT network: Network segmentation breaks up your primary IoT network into multiple smaller networks, which enables you to quarantine and resolve security threats as soon as one appears.
Run frequent updates: Hackers often take advantage of known system vulnerabilities, and regularly updating and patching your network helps protect against these risks by remediating them.
Use advanced authentication technologies: Identity and access management, multi-factor authentication, and similar technologies prevent unauthorized users from accessing your data by requiring additional forms of authentication at login.
Test regularly: Regularly testing your system is essential for discovering potential vulnerabilities, helping you determine the best course of action to eliminate them.
Monitor all endpoints: The more devices you add to your IoT network, the larger your attack surface — and the greater your risk. A centralized software system that provides comprehensive visibility into each device in your network is critical for effectively protecting your customer data.
Train your employees: Over 70% of all data breaches involve the human element, and uninformed employees are often the reason why. Effective training is necessary to ensure everyone in your business knows how to securely use your IoT devices.

For retailers without extensive IT departments, developing an IoT cybersecurity solution in partnership with a reliable technology consulting firm is a cost-effective way to create a comprehensive solution that complies with all relevant cybersecurity standards. Your consultant will work closely with you to determine your business’s specific security needs so you can address all the potential gaps in your system.

The Future of IoT Security in Retail

One of the biggest developments in IoT security across all industries is the need for standardization and regulation.

The federal IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020 bars the United States federal government from purchasing and/or using IoT devices that do not comply with standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology after December 2022.

Although the law only affects the public sector, stricter regulations for IoT devices are likely to impact the private sector in the coming years. The state of California, for example, has taken steps to legislate IoT security with the passing of Senate Bill 327 — also known as the California IoT Security Act — in late 2018. This law requires IoT device manufacturers to equip their products with unique first-time passwords as well as other appropriate security features, such as:

Data encryption
Regular software updates or patches
Secure APIs

Because SB-327 is a state law, it only applies to device manufacturers selling their products in California. However, as IoT implementation expands, other states may follow suit.

The Benefits of IoT in Retail

Some of the most significant benefits of implementing IoT solutions in a retail business include:

Cost savings: Automated IoT devices can help you reduce your operational expenses by identifying issues and adjusting your conditions to keep costs low. For example, smart lighting networks connected to motion sensors can raise store lights during peak hours and dim them when the store is quiet, lowering your energy usage.
Greater customer loyalty: Hyper-personalized marketing and memorable experiences improve customer satisfaction, inspiring customers to return frequently.
More accurate inventory: Tracking inventory movement in real time helps you ensure you have enough product available when customers want it.
Better customer service: Automating routine, time-consuming tasks like inventory counting and maintenance frees up your employees to handle more pressing tasks on the floor, such as assisting customers in finding products.
Gaining a competitive edge: Although many companies are starting to see the value in IoT for the retail industry, this technology is still in its early stages. Investing now can help you get a leg up over your competitors and plan a future strategy.
Data-driven decision-making: The data you collect from your IoT devices provides invaluable information about your customers’ preferences, purchasing habits, and shopping behaviors, which can help you make more informed decisions to grow your business.

It’s important to note that simply purchasing and deploying IoT devices is not the end of the story. Your IoT network should be seamlessly integrated with a robust digital infrastructure to support the high volumes of incoming data your devices will collect daily.

A Fortune 500 company worked with Kopius to develop a Sound Pressure Level proof-of-concept, which is a terrific example of a company gaining a competitive edge in the market by blending accessibility initiatives with IoT technology. Using microphones and real-time SPL data, we were able to better understand the soundscape of the store environment, while isolating specific sound sources that may cause discomfort to hearing aid users. This, in turn, provided usable insights for layout designers to make decisions about sound insulation and improve the accessibility of their stores for individuals with hearing disabilities.
Spencer McCluskey, Director of Delivery of Kopius

Preparing for What’s Next: IoT in Retail

The economic future for IoT technology is bright. Projections estimate that the global IoT retail market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 28.4% from 2023 to 2030.

That said, new technologies come and go at an overwhelming pace. Companies need to adopt a forward-thinking mindset when adopting the latest IoT tech. Working with an experienced, knowledgeable team of consultants can help you develop a streamlined IoT system that will help your business adapt to rapid changes in retail technology.

Contact Us to JumpStart Your Retail Technology Success

Investing in IoT and other emerging retail technologies helps your business stay competitive and resilient amid the constant shifts in the retail tech landscape — and partnering with the right organization is key to getting the most out of your investment.

With 600 expert team members dedicated to delivering excellence in digital strategy, development, and future growth, Kopius can provide our clients with custom, industry-leading solutions tailored to their unique requirements.

Thanks to our extensive experience designing solutions for retailers in various countries, you can count on the team at Kopius to unlock flexible, scalable digital possibilities for your business. Contact us today to learn more about our retail technology services or schedule a consultation.

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