Wisenet Retail Insight launched in Europe by Hanwha Techwin

Hanwha Techwin has introduced a business intelligence application which enables retailers to gain a greater understanding of customer behaviour and buying patterns. Wisenet Retail Insight uses people counting, heat mapping and queue management applications running on board selected Wisenet Q and Wisenet X fixed lens and fish-eye cameras to display statistical analytics on a centralised dashboard.

Accessed from anywhere on the network, Retail Insight is a web-based application which consolidates the data captured by the three analytics applications running on up to 500 Wisenet Q or X Series cameras and presents it on a customisable dashboard.

Retailers are able to take advantage of the captured data to measure the impact of advertising, online promotions and other marketing activities on the number of people who enter their stores, as well as making best use of Human Resources in order to manage the peaks and troughs of customer flow at checkouts.

“With revenues and profitability under threat at present due to the Coronavirus pandemic, retailers are understandably looking at ways in which to improve productivity going forward,” said Uri Guterman, head of product and marketing for Hanwha Techwin Europe.

He continued: “In terms of the business intelligence which could be made available to operations, marketing, merchandising and store management, the metadata traditionally extracted from Electronic Point-of-Sale systems is unlikely to be sufficient for retailers to identify opportunities to increase productivity or improve the customer experience.”

Retail Insight generates reports in a variety of formats including PDF, Excel, CSV or HTML. With the help of five customisable tabbed screens, end users are able to view real-time updates on a wide range of activity, including the number of store visitors for any particular time of day or cumulatively over a specified period of time.

Security professionals can also access valuable data on queue congestion times as well as heat mapping information showing the busiest areas of a given store.

Metro Security wins Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition of M.A.R.S

Metro Security has won a 2019 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category for the development of M.A.R.S (Metro Analytic Retail Solution), an integration software that brings retailers’ risk data into one location at the click of a mouse.

Managing director Trevor Wallace, who attended a reception at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday 11 June, enthused: “This award is a real honour for Metro Security. We’re a company that has been able to build a strong reputation off the back of British-designed software and hardware development.”

The M.A.R.S solution, which integrates retailers’ existing technology – including Electronic Point of Sale and CCTV data – to deliver transparency of information in order to detect theft and fraud, came to the attention of the Queen’s Award adjudicators after a number of High Street and petrol forecourt retailers reported transformative loss reduction results following its deployment.

Trevor Wallace (left) and son Darren at Buckingham Palace

The technology allows businesses to remotely access and deep dive into data with the support of CCTV evidence to build criminal cases for the police to prosecute, which also assists in reducing police investigation time.

Wallace, who established the Romford-based business back in 1978, continued: “Our technology is a collaborative effort with our customers. They tell us what management information they want and how they want it packaged. We then work with them, and their other partners, to deliver it. We see ourselves as a kind of Q character from the James Bond franchise. We quietly work in the background to enable technologies to work together to catch the bad guys. We’re not quite on Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but this Royal recognition is a major boon for the business and an acknowledgement of the hard work and long hours put in by the team. This prestigious accolade is a true recognition of their enterprise.”

The Deputy Lord Lieutenant will be visiting the business in Ashton Road to bestow the Queen’s Award for Enterprise certificate and crystal award.