Summary

• Consumers and retailers expect frictionless, personalized, integrated shopping experiences.

• Open, scalable, secure and connected solutions can provide a unique lens through which retailers can track shopper experience, inventory intelligence, loss prevention and operational effectiveness.

• Today, the right combination of AI-driven, cloud-based SaaS applications, services and cutting-edge IoT technology is the key to building next-generation retail environments.

The full story

For decades, retail analytics solutions have proven invaluable to retailers, allowing businesses to identify the opportunity in every in-store interaction. Though the technology has evolved over the years, frictionless, personalized, intelligent and connected shopper engagement sits at the core of retail analytics solutions and the next-generation environments it enables.

The history of retail analytics, theft prevention and optimization

The field of analytics arose alongside the new computing technologies of the 1960s. As more sophisticated computers became available to businesses, so too did advanced means for collecting, analyzing and interpreting data. Retail decision-makers used these descriptive-analytic capabilities to take a new approach to business.

At the same time, retailers realized that they could improve their approach to theft prevention. In 1966, Kroger Supermarkets implemented the first anti-theft pedestals and tags. The parallel paths of these two fields set the stage for the robust analytics suites to come. By the mid-2010s, theft-prevention technology and the ever-evolving analytical capabilities of modern computers were working together in complex, innovative suites of solutions that help retailers optimize their floor design, staffing, stocking and other operational endeavors.

The evolution of retail analytics has come from a long history of retailers and data experts working together to tailor solutions to retailers' needs. Today, retailers and their technology partners capitalize on cutting-edge technology—like AI—to facilitate the next-generation, sustainable retail practices customers want and have come to expect. Innovative and outcome-based, cloud-based SaaS solutions help retailers solve the problems relevant to their businesses and fast forward retail. From shopper experiences, loss prevention and inventory intelligence to store performance, robust retail analytics programs have allowed retailers to meet the industry's ever-evolving challenges.

Today's analytics landscape

The next step in retail optimization and analytics is sustainable, precise and outcomes-based. Connected, cloud-based SaaS platforms and transformative services designed to facilitate digital transformations are becoming increasingly necessary in today's retail landscape. Source data from across these complex, integrated analytics ecosystems are designed to provide predictive and prescriptive insights to help deliver on more precise decision-making across shopper experiences, inventory intelligence, loss prevention and operational effectiveness. Integrated services—like professional and retail consulting, design, deploy and integration, management and support services, learner services and customer success—deliver seamless and secure operations across complex and heterogeneous technological environments for optimal performance.

Retailers and technology innovators have worked side-by-side for decades to streamline retail experiences across channels and departments while modernizing locations with an eye toward sustainability. Today's retail analytics solutions integrate SaaS applications and services with cutting-edge IoT technology to anticipate the future of retail, allowing retailers to operate sustainably, with precision and with a future-focused approach.

Modern retailers need digital-first IT infrastructures to meet their customers' evolving shopping and communication preferences. Customers and retailers alike rely on real-time information to inform their habits and decisions. As such, retailers need agile, secure and cost-efficient solutions enabled by an intelligent operating core for predictive and prescriptive insights in real-time to keep up with these changes. The actionable insights these next-generation platforms can deliver are of exponential value to retailers. By leveraging existing investments to provide unique data sets, retailers can gain insights that guide retail decisions to meet customer needs and business demands.

What's next?

Identifying the right path forward in retail can be difficult. Short-term solutions to immediate obstacles can be enticing, but keeping up in today's retail world requires an eye toward long-term growth and sustainable retail practices. To fulfill this need, Sensormatic Solutions by Johnson Controls has introduced Sensormatic IQ. This scalable analytics solution provides precise, actionable insights and transformative services retailers need to fast forward their digital transformation journeys.

Each retailer's digital transformation journey is unique, and the era of personalized, connected, precise retail analytics solutions is here to push those journeys forward. Sensormatic IQ's ever-evolving platform integrates new sensors and data streams as they become available, providing valuable analytics at any scale. As retailers' digital ecosystems grow, Sensormatic IQ will grow and change over time as retailers do, offering flexible entry points to digital transformation journeys for years to come.