Cisco Unveils In-Store Mobility Solutions for Retail Industry

Cisco® today announced the availability of Cisco In-Store Mobility Solutions designed to help transform retail store environments. The solutions are an important first step in executing Cisco’s mobility vision, also announced today: to deliver highly secure, manageable and extensible mobile solutions that enable businesses to improve their operations and enhance the consumer experience. These offerings are the latest in a series of technology solutions that Cisco has unveiled for the retail industry this year.

Cisco In-Store Mobility Solutions integrate Cisco Unified Communications and wireless solutions with Cisco Services best practices. The foundation of these solutions is the Cisco Unified Wireless Network, which helps protect the store environment from wireless threats, helps safeguard customer financial information, and serves as the platform to deliver mobility applications to employees, suppliers and customers, anywhere in the store. For retailers, there are several compelling benefits of mobility solutions. First, the customer experience is improved with easy access to information and self-service capabilities. Also, operations can be streamlined by increasing employee responsiveness, curbing inventory losses, reducing costs and creating new revenue-generating opportunities.

“Retailers today are looking for ways to respond more quickly to customer demands and improve collaboration among associates and customers,” said Ed Jimenez, director of global retail industry marketing at Cisco. “Retailers are looking for their infrastructures to provide more than just wireless data connectivity: They are looking for advanced mobile services such as voice, location capabilities, and the delivery of rich media. Cisco’s In-Store Mobility Solutions make this possible.”

Cisco In-Store Mobility Solutions comprise two offerings:
Cisco In-Store Mobile Voice: The Cisco In-Store Mobile Voice Solution improves associate productivity and collaboration by combining Cisco Unified Communications and the Cisco Unified Wireless Network to deliver mobile voice and data applications through Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7921G handsets and a variety of other devices from Cisco partners. New, highly secure mobile technologies are enabling retailers to provide their store employees with a greater ability to quickly access information and collaborate with their co-workers without having to leave the sales floor. At the same time, and over the same wireless infrastructure, integrated unified communications and innovative applications are delivering mobility solutions that help customers build new connections between people, places and things. With the Berbee PushToTalk application, employees are able to immediately communicate with other associates and managers, adding the convenience of a walkie-talkie function to a Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone system.

“Delivering excellent customer service at any location within the store, not just at the checkout, is a key focus for Dick’s Sporting Goods,” said Tim Dorsch, the company’s network infrastructure manager. “By using mobile technologies such as voice over wireless local-area networks, we can improve responsiveness to customer demands and in most cases resolve requests without ever leaving the customer.”

Cisco In-Store Personal Shopper: The Cisco In-Store Mobile Personal Shopper combines the Cisco Unified Wireless Network and the MediaCartTM solution to produce an interactive shopping cart with a video display that enables customer self-service at the point of choice. Retailers can deliver promotions, shopping lists, real-time price checking and store navigation capabilities directly to the display.

MediaCart, built on Cisco technology, uses passive radio frequency identification sensors (provided by ThingMagic) to determine in real time a customer’s location and deliver targeted point-of-choice advertising to the shopping cart at points where featured products are located. MediaCart data analyses provide valuable information to retailers, including real-time performance reports about optimal messages and customer buying patterns. This information gives retailers and vendors insight into which advertisements are effective and allows them to change promotions at any time.

“Retailers are turning to technology to help establish more direct connections with their customers,” said Steve Carpenter, CEO of Media Cart Holdings. “The Cisco and MediaCart solution cuts through the clutter of in-store media to deliver personalized content to the shopper, providing a unique opportunity for retailers to influence buying behavior at the point of choice and improve customer loyalty.”

Cisco In-Store Mobility Solutions operate on the Cisco Intelligent Retail Network, enabling retailers to quickly implement strategies that create a unique consumer experience and differentiate their brands. By deploying a solid infrastructure and advanced technologies, retailers can better sense and respond to individual customers’ needs. Built on the Cisco Service-Oriented Network Architecture framework, a Cisco Intelligent Retail Network provides a reliable, flexible and highly secure platform for delivering the capabilities needed to compete in the world of connected consumers. For more information about the Cisco Intelligent Retail Network solution, visit www.cisco.com/go/retail.

Availability
The Cisco In-Store Mobility Solutions are available now from authorized Cisco partners. Cisco and its Wireless LAN Specialized Partners offer a broad portfolio of end-to-end services based on proven methodologies for planning, designing, implementing, operating and optimizing to enhance the performance and reliability of the voice applications running on a wireless LAN infrastructure. A wide variety of specialized networking services and support services are available to help deliver a highly secure voice-based services solution with a low total cost of ownership.

More information is available at: http://www.cisco.com/wlanservices

About Cisco Systems
Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.