JOS’s Head of Business Development & IoT, Sankar S. Villupuram, explained: “Delivering successful IoT solutions involves collaboration across a wide range of departments – for instance, engineering, maintenance, finance controllers, information technology and business management. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that IoT can act as a magic wand to create cross team co-operation across organisational silos. Once people begin to understand what the technology can deliver, it generates a level of excitement which encourages teams to get out of their silos.”
He cited the example of how the internet of things is being used to improve performance in Asia’s shopping malls.
As consumers increasingly make their purchases online, the retail sector is suffering, forcing the closure of shopping malls across the globe: industry commentators predict that a third of malls will close within five years in markets as diverse as China and the USA.
Amid this fiercely competitive landscape, technology can play a role in helping shopping malls to survive and prosper. Sensors can identify the number of people entering and leaving a shopping mall, while facial recognition software can capture gender, age and other demographic information on an anonymised basis. It’s also possible to track the movement of individuals through the mall via signals from their mobile. Shopping mall owners can uncover even more useful information about visitors and their preferences if they encourage them to log in to in-store Wi-Fi. Mall owners can even combine all of this information with external data sources – weather or traffic information for instance – to reveal hidden patterns and trends in consumer behaviour.
Combining this range of IoT technologies and the data generated by them, forward-looking shopping mall owners can maximise rent yields, optimise the tenant mix and support their tenants with rich marketing data. Social and mobile channels can be integrated with mall experiences to offer customers richer, more rewarding visits – to the benefit of their tenant customers.
Villupuram continued: “These retail analytics for shopping malls are tools for the people charged with driving the viability and profitability of shopping malls – it helps them to understand the journey of all those people who pass through and shop in their mall. And yet, for the analytics to work as intended, you need to bring together a whole team of experts with complementary skillsets. You need electrical and network cabling engineers who understand the building; security professionals with diverse knowledge of infra-red sensors and video analytics; IT professionals who understand Wi-Fi interactions with customers and passive detection technology; and finally the marketing and operational professionals who are the real end users and drivers of these analytics to increase revenue and operational efficiency.”
He summed up: “Whether it’s used for understanding the efficiency of the machinery in a construction site, tracking the occupancy of a bus in real-time, or monitoring temperature and humidity of cold storage in a frontline retail store, IoT – the interaction of teams – is clearly the magic ingredient that can bring about inspiration, greater synergies between multiple functions and exceptional teamwork within an organisation.”
