30 FABRICARE step apply makeup based on the shape of her face.” In the future, an app may even recognize that a consumer is tired and then recommend a product in real time to help her look refreshed. At WalMart, facial recognition is being tested to determine if customers waiting in line are unhappy with the wait, and the data could direct sales associates to help those frustrated with their in-store experience. In the E.U., MasterCard is rolling out its Identity Check App—dubbed “Selfie Pay”—allowing consumers to authorize payments via facial recognition through their smartphone cameras. In Bejing, Kentucky Fried Chicken is piloting Visual Recognition to predict customer orders based on age and gender. Over time, M.L. will enhance the experience by predicting return customer orders based on their order history. In the U.S., a major pizza chain uses Visual Recognition to assure quality is consistent—for example, does each pizza have the correct amount of pepperoni? Visual Recognition tech powers RealCadence by VoloForce, a software firm offering cloud-based retail operations software as a service (SAAS). The software helps retailers to ensure that all point-of-sale collateral and window displays globally are displayed according to brand guidelines. A photo of a shop window can be uploaded into the cloud data-base that checks the visual against quality guidelines and immediately approves or offers correction about the installation. SAY MY NAME The same pizza chain that uses Visual Recognition to assure quality also ties M.L. with Voice Recognition so that when consumers tell their Smart Home Devices (Amazon Echo/Goole Home/Apple HomePod) to order pizza, the restaurant is notified of a predicted order—while the consumer is still ordering—so that the restaurant can begin making the pizza immediately, reducing delivery time. Banks in the U.K. use voice recognition to withdraw money. Can Voice Activated chat bots soon guide customer through stores, make recommendations, and help them shop? According to Andreessen, “Mobile First” is soon to be replaced with “Machine Learning” first. SO WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR MOST RETAILERS? While retailers know that digital is important, most don’t fully understand how to best utilize it, and so adoption is slow and strategies are still siloed into “online” and “in-store.” In the end, it’s the people, not the tech, that delay deployment. At a recent Hitachi IOT retail futures dinner in London, most brands who attended cited changing ways of working, mobilizing people, and organizational structure as challenges to strategically thinking about and effectively implementing tech and new data analytics models. Disruption is frightening, and without leadership buy-in driving it from the top, change is daunting and hard, they say. In just 16 years, the entire music industry was transformed to a complete digital model (Apple launched iTunes in 2001). When embraced, digital ecosystems create new products, new distribution channels, and new revenue streams. Which retailers will survive the next 16 years? Craig Crawford is founderprenuer of Crawford IT, a London-based consulting firm specializing in the digital transformation of brands; Twitter @getamobilelife; +44 07834584785 Disclaimer: Responsibility for opinions expressed in this article is that of the author and quoted persons, not of DLI. Mention of any trade name or proprietary product in Fabricare does not constitute a guarantee or warranty of the product by DLI and does not imply its approval to the exclusion of other products that may also be suitable. Facial recognition can help buinesses guage customer satisfaction and willingness to buy. continued from page 29 FE ATURE