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AI is serving herbal tea to HK consumers

According to a recent report, a listed company holdings group has harnessed artificial intelligence (AI) to quench the thirst of consumers and investors with the launch of smart kiosks.

Research by a leading institute in marketing science suggests that the average online consumer spends a mere 19 seconds on choosing which brand to purchase. It’s even worse in stores, where consumers take just 13 seconds to make up their minds.

With such a narrow window of opportunity, shopkeepers have their work cut out when it comes to sizing up customers and making sales. Thus, the group is rolling out intelligent kiosks that use a combination of visual recognition technology and artificial intelligence to identify what each customer is most likely to want, then offers them a choice of tea or healthy food product tailored to their particular tastes.

The new kiosks are smart vending machines fitted with cameras that are connected to the internet, part of the Internet of Things, in turn providing real-time reporting to the company. A camera photographs the customer standing in front of them. The image is transmitted to a cloud for instant analysis by a custom-designed model.

Focusing on multiple factors – climate at the point of sale, the applicant’s age, gender, etc. – the model examines the data in real time, building a predictive profile that tells the relevant kiosk which drink or product a particular customer is most likely to buy. The kiosk can then make a “personalized” herbal product recommendation.

The new AI technology transforms the relationship the retailer has with the customer at the vending kiosk. What was previously an anonymous purchase has now become a profiled person offered the most appropriate beverage, and most importantly a profiled demographic to allow targeted promotion at the point of sale. Beyond this is the ability to plot trends across time and kiosks by any of the variables. Kiosks will become an intelligent device and part of the HFT sales force and ERP architecture.

The general manager and executive director of the group said that there are currently about 10 smart vending machines in operation, and a total of 20 smart vending machines will be launched during the year to cover locations beyond the current 117 stores, especially at commercial and office buildings. The company will be investing in big data research, smart vending machines and the development of unmanned stores.

HFT partnered with a premier IT solution provider to develop the intelligence kiosk. The solutions provider developed a face recognition API, leveraging its parent company’s advanced AI technology to analyse each customer’s features.

In addition, the system can factor in big data from a host of connected or IoT devices, such as point-of-sales data, membership information, inventory records and external factors like temperature and humidity to improve the accuracy of predictions.

There is more to the company’s AI experiment than improving customer satisfaction—there is also an important strategic dimension. For example, the system can generate detailed sales breakdowns by a host of variables, and project the information on an easy-to-read dashboard for strategic planning or instant action. Sample data for Q2 2018 demonstrates that 15-30 year-olds generate the majority of revenue from the widest variety of tea options.

The general manager of the company’s partner stated that the new AI kiosks that will be rolled out in the retail sector are positive proof of how widespread AI has become and the impact it is having on everyone’s daily life.

For the company, the AI-enabled kiosks are part of a long-term goal to enhance efficiency and time to market. The capital expenditure for each new physical store on average is around HK$800,000. The kiosks cost a fraction of this and are 24/7.

The group currently owns 117 self-operated stores in Hong Kong, and it intends to roll out more kiosks across Hong Kong. It was able to report a year-on-year increase in total revenue of 10.1% to HK$391.9 million for the six months ended 30 June 2018.

During the same period, gross profit rose by 6.6% to HK$237.6 million. The kiosks are part of a focused strategy to get closer to customers and generate satisfactory returns for investors.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

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IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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