Where LP And Merchandising Meet

The video surveillance camera market remains healthy (Forrester calls it a $2 billion market this year), and it's poised for continued growth. A glut of bandwidth and the promise of interdisciplinary business intelligence from high-level video analytics have led retailers to camera installations often numbering in the hundreds per location. The LP benefit of this infrastructure is obvious and the ROI proven. But many retailers are still struggling as they inch their way toward leveraging these investments for business intelligence (BI) purposes in the merchandising arena. Historic acrimony between departments once at odds over "locking down" the store versus "freeing up" merchandise is one culprit. Another is uncertainty around how best to leverage the myriad of technologies currently on the market.

That video intelligence enhanced with high-level analytical software can offer big advantages to businesses is generally accepted. Retailers can increase margins by using this intelligence to protect assets, improve customer service, make merchandising decisions, and manage inventory. But much confusion remains, thanks in large part to a market that's burdened with over-promising intelligent video vendors offering solutions that run on disparate platforms.

Evaluate Your Needs: Basic Or High-Level?
Basic video analytics will provide you event alarms, where your camera is programmed to capture an event (an object being moved, a person walking through a door) and the software yields an alert. High-level analytics take this a step further by applying a layer of intelligence, allowing you to compare multiple points of data — from multiple points of view — over time to draw conclusions, giving merchandisers insight and direction. Many of today's offerings even include reporting tools.

With high-level analytics, retailers who want to refine their merchandise displays or analyze traffic patterns around end caps are capable of mining valuable information from a technology with roots in LP. With today's high-level video analytics, you can automate analysis of customer behavior, providing insights that lead to better merchandising, increased basket sizes, and ultimately greater revenue.

On The Web: Get an electronic version of the Loss Prevention/Security Supplement at ismretail.com.

Treat a potential intelligent video application investment just as you would any other BI-driven application decision. Understand the workflow or process you want to improve, and determine the business value you'll achieve by making that improvement. ARTS (Association For Retail Technology Standards) has developed a video analytics schema you can use as your guide, which you can download for free at www.nrf-arts.org. Then go shopping. I assure you there is no shortage of intelligent video providers eager to communicate their value beyond the LP department.