Join us as we delve deeper into Cisco and Cisco partner technology deployed at the Cisco Store! We spoke with Ali McKeand (Chief Technologist for Innovation at CAE Labs) to discuss how their technology enhances sustainability efforts at the Cisco Store and other retail environments. With a focus on Cisco-based innovation and programmability, Ali has been working with Cisco and various technologies for the past two decades.
How do CAE Labs enhance a retailer’s and shopper’s in-store and/or virtual shopping experience? What issue does it address?
We aim to accelerate the delivery of new technology value to both retailers and their customers. CAE Labs’ innovation enables rapid adoption of Cisco technology, reducing project costs and time. With over three decades of experience in retail, we can efficiently provision a new store location with Cisco technology in seconds, compared to the traditional hours it used to take.
Consumers are increasingly mindful of the products they purchase, especially from brands focused on decarbonization. Leveraging platforms like Cisco Meraki and solutions like WiserWatts from CAE Labs helps optimize network services to operate only during core hours, reducing energy waste and carbon emissions. We have already saved over 10,000 kWh of energy waste per month across our customer base.
What message do you want people to take away about WiserWatts when they see it in action at the Cisco Store Tech Lab?
I want people to see how the integration of Cisco technology with API programmability, through solutions like WiserWatts, leads to a more environmentally friendly approach to powering the Cisco Store’s technology only when necessary during core hours.
WiserWatts, showcased at Cisco Live, allows for tracking power consumption and live scheduling of device usage, enabling retailers to power devices only during core operational hours. At Cisco’s San Jose campus, WiserWatts resulted in a 66% reduction in power consumption.
Most importantly, I want people to witness how we’ve optimized the network at scale through refined automation, making energy savings and decarbonization more achievable.
Our work at the Cisco Store demonstrates easy-to-implement use cases, such as powering off PoE devices not needed 24/7, and automating the on/off cycle of smart power controllers like Meraki MT40. This not only reduces energy waste but also cuts operational costs and carbon emissions.
How do you see CAE Labs’ technology being utilized in retail environments in the future?
We are focused on providing retailers with service assurance as they transition their store infrastructure to the cloud, particularly with Cisco Networking Cloud for Meraki and Catalyst devices. Our capabilities in service assurance, sustainability, automation, and orchestration aim to facilitate large-scale changes in store infrastructure efficiently.
Our collaboration with a national retailer in the UK showcases our ability to implement changes at scale swiftly, reducing implementation time and costs significantly. This approach can benefit e-commerce businesses by enabling quicker onboarding of new partnerships like Amazon and Deliveroo.
Our goal is to productize our approach, making it easily accessible for retailers of all sizes to manage, maintain, and add value to their store estates.
For customers with multiple locations, whether in retail, healthcare, or education, leveraging platforms like Cisco Meraki offers adaptability and innovation. A unified networking solution with a programmatic API-first approach is key for addressing evolving challenges and driving innovation.
What do you foresee as a priority for shoppers in the next 5 years?
Frictionless experiences. Retailers are increasingly investing resources in creating seamless consumption experiences, and this trend is likely to continue over the next few years.
One example is that self-checkout experiences have continually expanded, and a lot of our retailers have far fewer manned checkout lanes. We’re figuring out new ways in how we can leverage technology such as smart cameras and IoT sensors to improve the overall customer journey — from when they come in to when they leave — and we want to see how we can remove those friction points that hinder their experience.
Over the next 5 years, I can foresee there being less human presence in store estates, and more refinement on how we can get from A to B as quickly as possible using technology as the enabler. The Cisco Meraki platform is one of the best networking platforms out there to do that, as it combinates in solving many problems for retailers outside of just pure network connectivity like other competing vendors.
Likewise, what do you think will be a priority for retailers in the next 5 years?
Simplification of their technology stacks. Retail has gotten complex over the last five years, and especially over the pandemic a lot of ‘temp-tech’ was deployed to solve a pertinent timely problem, but not necessarily fully utilized and adopted. The bedrock and foundation of any retailer is the underlying infrastructure on which different colleague and customer experiences (and other retail technologies) operate and layer on top. The dawn of more easily attainable automation potentially helps this simplification as well.
We also can’t ignore security. The programmatic, scalable, and secure architecture from Cisco has been the winning platform for a lot of retail projects that we’ve done over the past decade.
Interested in learning more about CAE Labs? Visit our page or reach out now.
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