Fly to Amsterdam with the Cisco Retailer

In the event you’ve ever visited the Cisco Retailer Tech Lab in San Jose, California, you’ve in all probability seen how seamlessly Cisco and our companions’ retail expertise is built-in into the shop. Now, how can we showcase that expertise at our journey shops? The method is extra environment friendly and streamlined than you may suppose, as we’ve simply seen from our most up-to-date present, Cisco Reside EMEA 2024, held in Amsterdam from February 5-9.

Earlier than the Occasion

Every little thing begins with the ground plan of the sales space on the RAI Amsterdam Conference Middle. As soon as we now have that, I’ll begin mapping out the place all the shop expertise must go: we work with our companions to resolve the place to put their options to make sure they will work optimally.

As an example, we met with EVERYANGLE to find out what areas we need to monitor for footfall analytics, queue counting, and engagement zones. Cameras needed to be positioned in strategic areas to provide us full protection of the shop.

Cogniac helped us work out the place to put our Meraki MV63 digicam to have a transparent view of particular T-shirts that had been utilized in a demo at the side of Wipro VisionEDGE. When a shirt is picked up off the rack, the MV63 relays that info to Cogniac, after which Wipro VisionEDGE receives a set off alert to vary the display subsequent to the shirt to coach the shopper in regards to the product and clarify how our merchandise empower an inclusive future for all.

Earlier than we ship out to Amsterdam, I’ll arrange the expertise we’re taking in a lab in San Jose to check that all the pieces is useful. I had our tools road-tested and packed into simply three crates by mid-December (a month and a half earlier than the present), and JLL Logistics helped us ship it throughout to Amsterdam.

Arriving in Amsterdam

A couple of days earlier than the beginning of Cisco Reside, JLL delivered the crates to our sales space on the RAI, and our workforce began unpacking and deploying the tools. Since we had the map prepared, inserting all the pieces the place it wanted to go was seamless. I gave the community workforce the location of the switches, cameras, sensible becoming rooms, and so forth beforehand so they may run the correct electrical traces by means of the sales space, and all we needed to do as soon as we arrived was plug all the pieces in.

Know-how Deployment and Retailer Operations

That is the primary yr we’re baselining the shop’s energy consumption, each on the San Jose retailer and in any respect our journey shops, with the assistance of CAE Labs’ WiserWatts. We plan to schedule our energy at subsequent yr’s reveals to match power and value financial savings. It took a bit to determine route the ability for all of the expertise by means of the Meraki MT40s (sensible energy controllers that monitor and remotely management energy). We deployed twelve MT40s for full protection of the sales space, and it took a couple of journeys to the electronics retailer to get the fitting adapters, however now that we’ve performed it as soon as, it is going to be rather a lot simpler globally. After that, Fidel (the shop’s Merchandising Challenge Supervisor) helps us place all our Meraki cameras. Every little thing is on-line by the Saturday earlier than the present begins, after which we do any last-minute configuring and deploying our digital signage playlists.

The expertise makes it rather a lot simpler for our retailer associates of their day-to-day capabilities. Meraki sensible buttons had been set as much as permit the associates to vary our digital signage (as an illustration, altering the screens to point that the shop was closed) with out requiring backend entry. Our journey shops make the most of short-term retailer associates, so the method of restocking merchandise was equally simplified: all they needed to do was enter the product’s ID, and the corresponding digital shelf label would flash behind home to point the merchandise’s location.

Touring the Tech Lab

Now that the journey retailer and tech lab are arrange, I evaluation the tour schedule with Kaleigh (the Cisco Retailer and Tech Lab’s Program Supervisor) to verify the move of the excursions is fluid. We had a tour scheduled for the Cisco Champions the day earlier than the present began, so our rehearsals needed to be accomplished upfront.

We’d arrange what we prefer to name the Triforce of Knowledge, or our triangular tech wall, to show our expertise to guests. Fidel, Courtney (our Advertising and marketing Lead), and Anjana (our Product Advertising and marketing Specialist) had wired up the merchandise, such because the Meraki MT40, VusionGroup’s SESimagotag digital shelf labels, and so forth beforehand so guests may see the expertise in-person. Meraki simply launched their new MV13 and MV33 sensible cameras a couple of days in the past, and tour attendees had the chance to achieve a sneak peek into these merchandise through the present.

And that’s it! Our set-up course of has been streamlined in a manner that permits our small workforce to have issues up and operating in a matter of some days.

To study extra in regards to the Cisco Retailer Tech Lab, come go to us in San Jose, California, or catch us at Cisco Reside US in June. In the event you had been capable of cease by the shop at Cisco Reside EMEA, thanks for saying hey! Hope to see you subsequent yr.

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