In the fast-paced world of consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, effective in-store execution is critical for success. With consumer demands evolving rapidly and competition intensifying, CPG brands face numerous challenges in ensuring their product strategy works effectively in stores.
Recently, more and more brands have turned to Image Recognition to help them capture visibility around their store execution/product strategy, both for them and their competitors and at a category level. One key challenge with IR lies in catalogue onboarding, where CPG brands must efficiently onboard new products into their catalogues, ensure accurate data collection, and stay ahead of the competition.
To address these challenges, Neurolabs introduces ZIA Capture, a groundbreaking solution designed to empower field agents and streamline the catalogue onboarding process for CPGs.
In this blog post, we'll delve into the current state of in-store execution, the role of automation in improving processes, the potential of Synthetic Computer Vision (SCV), and how ZIA Capture is transforming catalogue onboarding for CPG brands.
The Current State of In-Store Execution
In traditional in-store execution processes, CPGs rely heavily on manual shelf monitoring and human-dependent execution. However, these manual processes are prone to human errors, are time-consuming, and often lack real-time insights, leading to a lack of visibility.
With the increasing complexity of retail environments and the growing volume of products on shelves, manual processes become increasingly inefficient and unsustainable.
Moreover, collaboration between CPG brands and retailers in gathering operational information is often limited. This results in data quality and decision-making challenges as both parties struggle to obtain accurate and timely information about product performance, shelf placements, and competitor activities.
To address these challenges, there is a transition towards automation to streamline processes and improve efficiency. CPGs seek innovative solutions to capture product and promotional visibility in-store, collect rich insights, and enable more agile decision-making processes.
With automation, CPG brands can make tangible enhancements to their operations and efficiency in time and costs while becoming more agile. They can be proactive, seize opportunities, take more market share, and make better-informed decisions faster.
The Role of Automation in In-Store Execution
Automation plays a pivotal role in revolutionising in-store execution processes. By leveraging technology such as Image Recognition (IR), CPG brands can streamline operations, improve data accuracy, and gain actionable insights into store performance. However, traditional approaches to IR have limitations, including extensive data requirements and difficulties in adapting to the dynamic retail environment.
Synthetic Computer Vision (SCV) offers a transformative solution to the limitations of traditional image recognition methods. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on vast amounts of real-world data and manual processes, SCV uses synthetic data, creating digital twins of real-world products and promotions to train computer vision models. This allows for greater flexibility, scalability, and adaptability in detecting and recognising objects in images.
Neurolabs is at the forefront of utilising SCV for SKU-level detection of CPG products. By leveraging synthetic data and advanced algorithms, Neurolabs' SCV technology enables CPG brands to accurately and efficiently onboard products into their catalogues, gain insights into competitor activities, and optimise in-store execution processes.
ZIA Capture: Transforming Catalogue Onboarding
At the core of Neurolabs' Synthetic Computer Vision (SCV) solution lies ZIA Capture —an innovative app that empowers field agents and facilitates seamless connectivity with the broader ZIA platform. ZIA Capture revolutionises the catalogue onboarding process for CPG brands, enhancing efficiency and accuracy at every step.
ZIA Capture's two-way connectivity with the ZIA platform sets it apart, fostering collaboration and synergy between field agents and catalogue managers. Through ZIA Capture, those managing the catalogue in ZIA can effortlessly create tasks for field agents, specifying the onboarding of specific SKUs by their EAN code or visual appearance. This streamlined communication ensures that field agents focus on the most relevant tasks, optimising their efforts and maximising productivity.
The above illustrates the process where ZIA Capture automatically generates a 3D digital replica of the product upon capture. You can then see its integration into the ZIA product catalogue, followed by detection of the products in-store.
Moreover, ZIA Capture and ZIA integration ensures immediate and seamless data synchronisation. When a product is onboarded using ZIA Capture, critical information such as name, barcode, type, and category is automatically filled in within the ZIA platform. This real-time data synchronisation eliminates manual data entry errors and accelerates the overall onboarding process, enabling brands to maintain accurate and up-to-date catalogues with minimal effort.
Some Key Benefits:
- Decreased Product Onboarding Time: ZIA Capture reduces product onboarding time by an impressive 97%, enabling CPG brands to onboard new products quickly and efficiently.
- Elimination of Human Errors: By automating the catalogue onboarding process, ZIA Capture eliminates human errors and the need for manual annotations, ensuring data accuracy and consistency.
- Enhanced Visibility: ZIA Capture allows brands to onboard competitor products, promotions, and strategies, enabling them to make informed decisions and stay ahead of the competition.
- Universality: ZIA Capture works for any shape or category of product, whether it’s a rigid product like a box or bottle, a soft product like a packet, or even one with deformities; our technology can detect it.
- Adaptability: CPG brands can quickly adapt to packaging changes and seasonal promotions, ensuring agility and flexibility in responding to market dynamics.
ZIA and our dedicated onboarding app, ZIA Capture, represent the future of in-store execution for CPG brands. ZIA gives you control over your catalogue, reducing reliance on third-party IR vendors. Empowering field agents with advanced SCV technology enables brands to streamline catalogue onboarding processes, improve data accuracy, and gain valuable insights into store performance.
The Future of In-Store Execution with ZIA Capture
Now that we have explored the uses of ZIA for better catalogue onboarding and in-store execution let’s look at ways our technology is helping our clients digitise and keep their catalogues up to date with greater accuracy and scalability.
Tier 1 Soft Drinks Manufacturer
Challenge: A renowned beverage manufacturer with a vast product portfolio exceeding 1000 SKUs faced the challenge of maintaining an up-to-date catalogue. While leveraging their own master product catalogue artwork resolved a significant portion of their catalogue, approximately 60%, they encountered difficulties in proactively onboarding products from other brands lacking artwork.
Solution: Neurolabs stepped in with its innovative ZIA Capture solution to address this manufacturer's catalogue management challenges. Equipping field representatives with ZIA Capture gave them a powerful tool for proactively onboarding products, even without artwork. Additionally, Neurolabs identified the warehouse as an optimal point in the supply chain to initiate the onboarding process, leveraging the fact that every product passes through the warehouse before reaching the stores.
Global Field Marketing Agency
Challenge: A prominent global field marketing agency with a vast team of field representatives faced the challenge of efficiently keeping its catalogue up to date. While their proximity to stores allowed them to digitise new products on demand, they needed a solution to streamline the process further and ensure rapid onboarding of new SKUs without downtime.
Solution: Neurolabs collaborated with this global field marketing agency to implement an efficient catalogue management solution tailored to their needs. Leveraging Neurolabs' ZIA Capture technology, the agency gained the ability to onboard new products swiftly and seamlessly. With ZIA Capture, their field representatives could digitise new SKUs on demand, ensuring timely updates to the catalogue.
Empower field agents today,
In essence, ZIA Capture serves as the bridge between field agents and the broader ZIA platform, facilitating efficient collaboration and enhancing the effectiveness of catalogue management for CPG brands.
With its intuitive interface and seamless connectivity, ZIA Capture empowers field agents to contribute effectively to catalogue onboarding while ensuring that the ZIA platform remains a hub of accurate and actionable insights for brands striving for excellence in the competitive CPG landscape.
Our versatile technology reduces the need for third-party IR vendors and gives you control of your catalogue, allowing you to manage it at scale. With a future-forward technology like ZIA, CPG brands can stay ahead of the competition, drive growth, and succeed in the dynamic retail world.
Discover how ZIA can transform your catalogue management. Book a demo today!
At Neurolabs, we are revolutionising in-store retail performance with our advanced image recognition technology, ZIA. Our cutting-edge technology enables retailers, field marketing agencies and CPG brands to optimise store execution, enhance the customer experience, and boost revenue as we build the most comprehensive 3D asset library for product recognition in the CPG industry.
