Mickey Mouse innovation

Original post:  June 15, 2015

Perhaps the greatest challenge with technology is finding creative ways to merge the fantastical new capabilities with existing applications. There are so many possibilities, but it can be horrifically expensive to retrofit aging platforms. This is especially true if you have significant capital invested in what you already have!

When cutting-edge technology is discussed, you may think of obvious candidates like Google or Apple. You may not associate innovation with Disney. To me, that speaks to how well Disney has integrated their technology. It seems almost like a seamless extension of the existing platform instead of a wholly different experience.

Disney has spent over a billion dollars on technology. Perhaps the most visible example of this is in its smart bands.

This article from Wired helps explain how it works:

The MagicBands look like simple, stylish rubber wristbands offered in cheery shades of grey, blue, green, pink, yellow, orange and red. Inside each is an RFID chip and a radio like those in a 2.4-GHz cordless phone. The wristband has enough battery to last two years. It may look unpretentious, but the band connects you to a vast and powerful system of sensors within the park. And yet, when you visit Disney World, the most remarkable thing about the MagicBands is that they don’t feel remarkable at all. They’re as ubiquitous as sunburns and giant frozen lemonades. Despite their futuristic intentions, they’re already invisible.

Part of the trick lies in the clever way Disney teaches you to use them—and, by extension, how to use the park. It begins when you book your ticket online and pick your favorite rides. Disney’s servers crunch your preferences, then neatly package them into an itinerary calculated to keep the route between stops from being a slog—or a frustrating zig-zag back and forth across the park. Then, in the weeks before your trip, the wristband arrives in the mail, etched with your name—I’m yours, try me on. For kids, the MagicBand is akin to a Christmas present tucked under the tree, perfumed with the spice of anticipation. For parents, it’s a modest kind of superpower that wields access to the park.

....

It’s amazing how much friction Disney has engineered away: There’s no need to rent a car or waste time at the baggage carousel. You don’t need to carry cash, because the MagicBand is linked to your credit card. You don’t need to wait in long lines. You don’t even have to go to the trouble of taking out your wallet when your kid grabs a stuffed Olaf, looks up at you, and promises to be good if you’ll just let them have this one thing, please.

This is just what the experience looks like to you, the visitor. For Disney, the MagicBands, the thousands of sensors they talk with, and the 100 systems linked together to create MyMagicPlus turn the park into a giant computer—streaming real-time data about where guests are, what they’re doing, and what they want. It’s designed to anticipate your desires.

Which makes it exactly the type of thing Apple, Facebook, and Google are trying to build. Except Disney World isn’t just an app or a phone—it’s both, wrapped in an idealized vision of life that’s as safely self-contained as a snow globe. Disney is thus granted permission to explore services that might seem invasive anywhere else. But then, that’s the trick: Every new experience with technology tends to gently nudge our notions of what we’re comfortable with.

There are substantial business benefits as well. The "Fast Pass" system which allows users to skip the lines on rides three times per day also helps Disney.

It also allows Disney to optimize employees. The goal was to create a system that would essentially replace the time spent fiddling with payments and tickets for moments of personal interactions with visitors. The MagicBands and MyMagicPlus allow employees to “move past transactions, into an interactive space, where they can personalize the experience,” Crofton says. What started as a grand technology platform has inevitably changed the texture of the experience.

Here is a link to the complete article:  Disney's $1 Billion Bet on a Magical Wristband | WIRED

"When checkout is working really well, it will feel like stealing."

Original post:  May 29, 2014

I work with the UDI program. Much of it revolves around bar codes; they were invented to help speed checkout lines for retail outlets. According to this article in the National Retail Federation, "Brave New World", there is a potential future for retail that doesn't involve bar codes! Michael Chui, a partner with McKinsey explains:

“People have said when checkout is working really well, it will feel like stealing,” Chui says. “You grab a pair of shoes and you just walk out.”

Through a population of sensor technologies placed strategically within stores, retailers will recognize customers when they walk in the door through smart devices or other means, Chui says. Stores will have payment cards on file; customers will be billed when they leave the store with the merchandise, essentially bypassing the checkout.

“That could create a really interesting way to improve the customer experience,” says Chui.

With a new "Internet of Things" (IoT) allowing for devices to connect to each other, it may be possible to link devices together in the store. Gartner estimates an explosion in this market that will eventually top $200 billion by 2020.

The increasingly low cost of processors in sensors will afford the ability to connect “just about anything,” Gartner reports, “from the very simple to the very complex, to offer remote control, monitoring and sensing.” 

As IoT technology deploys, retail stores will become more intelligent locales in connecting physical objects in the stores with digital processes, but largely in a favorable, behind-the-scenes manner, Dorf says. Through analytic data gleaned from IoT sensors, the intelligent store will give store managers greater insight into how shoppers and store associates interact with products and where resources need to be deployed to enhance the shopping experience.

“The Internet of Things is really meant to be pretty unobtrusive,” he says. “It’s one of those things where retailers will have lots of sensors in their stores, but you won’t know [about] them unless you go looking for them.”

This leads to the "holy grail" of the completely connected supply chain, according to Ajith Sankaran with Blueocean:

With seamless, real-time gathering of data in the physical store — similar to how brands and retailers gather data via electronic commerce — inventory and supply chain functions like SKU management and optimization promise to be among the biggest beneficiaries of IoT in retail, Sankaran says. In many respects, retailers are moving more quickly in back-office operations with IoT deployment than they are on the sales floor.

“The use of sensors and RFID tags on products enables real-time monitoring as the products move through the supply chain,” he says. “This can integrate backward to the supplier systems, enabling them to send stocks at the optimum time. At the retailer’s warehouse and stores, sensors can be deployed at product level and at aisle and shelf levels to enable higher efficiencies in restocking, automating order fulfillment and stock management.”

  

Here is another link to the full article:  https://nrf.com/news/retail-trends/brave-new-world