“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” said Scots-Irish mathematical physicist and engineer, William Thomson – The Right Honorable Lord Kelvin – more than 100 years ago.

Today, Thomson’s words have never been more poignant, not least for the retail sector. Until recently retail had been at something of a standstill in terms of technology and analytics. Since the introduction of barcodes in the 1980s, for example, very little has developed for item-level inventory management, and since the introduction of EAS security tags little has been done for theft prevention.

Omni-channel retailing needs RFID and real-time inventory management tracking

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) has been a game-changer for the retail sector. The non-line-of-sight tag and reader system has enabled real-time item-level inventory tracking throughout the retail supply chain, providing unprecedented visibility. Its smaller tags and real-time tracking accuracy has revolutionized loss prevention efforts, and, it enables omni-channel retailing, widely accepted as “the future of shopping.”

The ubiquitous nature of comprehensive RFID solutions, such as Mojix RFID, not only provides real-time inventory management visibility but also creates a wealth of data for advanced analytics. In fact, the emergence of RFID has spurred a new generation of big data analytical platforms, such as Mojix ViZix, specially designed for the retail sector.

End-to-end supply chain visibility + big data = actionable intelligence

In real terms, the ability to aggregate inventory tracking data of goods from the factory, to the warehouse and on to the store, will allow retailers to pinpoint where common delays are occurring, for example. With this actionable intelligence they can solve specific problems and or reassess their supply chain holistically.

Understand your customer better with big data analytics from Mojix

Similarly, data on customer behavior can be correlated against all manner of other variables, from time, day and weather, to visual merchandising, marketing and promotions. Within this big data are gems of actionable intelligence that are making the difference between success and failure in the today’s evolving retail sector.

Lord Kelvin might say, “if you want to improve it, you will have to start measuring it, and RFID technology with an IoT platform is the best way to do that.”

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