Insight Tech

Self-Self-serve kiosks have become a regular sight in fast QSR operations as restaurant groups awaken to their benefits – and the Coronavirus pandemic has only served to expedite their uptake.

“Kiosks were gaining momentum before the pandemic—lots of customers were saying they would prefer going to a restaurant that uses them versus one that doesn’t,” says Patrick Hagemeister, international account director at Pyramid Computer, which supplies kiosks to a number of high-profile restaurant groups.

“That trend has been enforced by the pandemic. People are definitely more willing to use them now.”

There have been concerns about the cleanliness of touchscreens during the pandemic and restaurant operators and technology providers have responded to these concerns. While some companies employ members of staff to wipe clean screens after each use, other simple solutions have included sanitisers being attached to kiosks, an approach implemented by Pyramid.

Furthermore, there is a drive towards creating touchless kiosks, where depth cameras can record customer movements enabling them to make a selection without having to touch the screen.

Touchless kiosks put QSRs back on track: Some see 60% higher revenue, says @Pyramidcompuk via @insightdottech

One such company that has recognised the advantages of installing kiosks is Hesburger, the largest fast food chain in Finland and the Baltics, operating in nine countries with around 500 restaurants. The company has begun equipping its restaurants with Pyramid’s Polytouch 32-inch Passport kiosks.

The kiosks contain an Intel^® Core^™ processor that ensures reliable and continuous performance with a payment module that handles every process quickly and efficiently. The screens display menu information in high resolution and the kiosks feature a wide-angle scanner that captures barcodes on promotional coupons. When not in use by a customer they display dynamic content and can be used as an advertising tool.

There are additional benefits to kiosks, which can increase customer order spend as well as help speed up wait times, says Hagemeister.

“It depends on how the menu is structured and if it allows for cross selling, but the more modifiers the menu has the better. If [a kiosk] is adding suggestions and keeps asking questions at every single step without bothering the customer so that they are still having a convenient customer journey, then the customer will order more.”

He suggests this is the case because kiosks can reduce the pressure on customers to make quick decisions and can also use high-quality food images to entice them to add to their order in a way that a vocal upsell by a cashier often can’t. The kiosks always provide a consistent experience unlike placing an order with a person, where the customer experience is entirely dependent on the staff taking the order

“When using a restaurant at rush hour, if you have a queue lined up behind you feel the pressure to not spend more time. If you go to the kiosk you will find nice pictures and it makes you hungry and the suggestions help. You have more time to carefully choose what you want and maybe order more.”

Hagemeister says some of Pyramid’s customers are reporting a 60% rise in average customer spend compared to the regular cashier. “That’s crazy high. The pandemic has made all restaurants suffer very much or most of them that haven’t been able to adapt to delivery and kerbside pick-up. When restaurants can reopen kiosks give them a good chance to earn more money and get back on track.”

Smile for the Camera

There are other advantages of using kiosks. Hagemeister points to software and hardware such as cameras fitted on kiosks that can see how many people are in a queue and which can reduce the number of menu items available accordingly in order to increase throughput. He also says that cameras could potentially be used for demographic recognition to help businesses make more intuitive upsells.

“Then you can recommend items based on gender and age, which will help create a list of items that you attribute to certain customer groups. Even first-time customers would get a recommendation based on age and gender.”

Intel also says that demographic recognition for kiosks can play an important role in the customer journey and that its technology can help transform kiosks from merely taking customer orders to being much more intuitive.

“An interactive kiosk in a restaurant does not only take your order and pass it back to the kitchen so that they can prepare it,” says Farhaan Mohideen, product strategy and IoT spokesperson at Intel.

Intel’s partners use both its hardware and software to build intelligent kiosk systems.

Mohideen suggests kiosks enabled with emotion recognition and gaze detection can provide key information to the restaurant. Facial expressions could provide information as to whether a customer might need help with their order or might alert the business to a problem with the software. Similarly gaze detection could recognise what caught the user’s eye and remind the customer at the point of checkout if they would like to add it to the basket.

“When I’m standing at a kiosk, if I’ve provided my credentials through an app or facial recognition it might show my past orders so I don’t need to go through the full menu to figure out what to order.”

As the kiosk develops its intelligence with AI algorithms, Intel provides software toolkits such as Intel^® Distribution of OpenVINO^™ toolkit that allows algorithms to be fully optimised to run AI inferencing best on its hardware.

This also opens new opportunities for partners to experiment and continue to innovate and bring new features to kiosks, says Mohideen, including enabling touchless interactions as well as integrating loyalty as part of a single transaction.

As organizations push deeper into the cloud and the IoT edge, the cybersecurity landscape is changing. To keep up, companies must change the way they protect their most valuable assets and infrastructure. The past year has driven that lesson home, as IT teams find themselves managing a myriad of computers outside their protected network to accommodate remote work.

And the proliferation of IoT devices—many of which lack the most basic security protections—vastly broadens the attack surface, creating new risks for organizations. “If a device is compromised, attackers can go from there to the corporate network,” says Alex Ting, senior cybersecurity advisor at MasterSAM, a cybersecurity company, specializing in Privileged Access Management.

Traditional methods such as VPNs and firewalls do not comprehensively address the threats of this scale and magnitude. But new technologies in automation and advanced analytics offer stronger, broader protections, while simplifying management for IT personnel.

The IoT Security Problem

While IoT connectivity is growing by the minute, security has lagged. Devices are programmed with default passwords that often go unchanged. Automated security updates—a standard feature of modern cloud-based software—typically don’t exist, leaving dangerous gaps for hackers to exploit.

To make matters worse, the same default credentials are commonly used for all devices of a particular ilk, and some can be found by searching public databases.

By infecting a large group of devices with malware, an attacker can also direct them to overwhelm a company’s servers, disrupting websites and ecommerce in a botnet attack. That happened with the infamous Mirai botnet in 2016, which corralled hundreds of thousands of internet-connected cameras and routers to shut down sites including GitHub, Twitter, Netflix, and Airbnb.

To guard against these threats, MasterSAM and Intel^® jointly developed the Universal Secure Access Management (USAM) X series hardware appliance, making it easier for clients to manage privileged accounts. USAM delivers its cybersecurity products, services, support, and maintenance in a single package. “Now they don’t have to look for hardware or software—they just plug in the box,” Ting says.

The solution automatically creates and securely stores all device passwords, changing them at set durations. It also provides fine-grained access controls.

“Organizations decide who can access a device and require human approval when necessary,” Ting says. “In addition, we can monitor and record user activity to detect suspicious events, such as inappropriate commands or large-scale downloads of sensitive information.”

The @SMasterSam solution enables privileged account management, providing several ways to defend against cybersecurity threats. via @insightdottech

IoT Threats Extend Their Range

As organizations and cities connect more systems to the IoT, attacks could threaten everything from factories to water systems and power grids. “We are seeing an increased convergence of the IT and OT spaces, making it easier for attacks to spread,” says Ting.

For example, at aluminum manufacturer Norsk Hydro, a ransomware attack spread to production lines after an office employee clicked a phishing link. Some operations shut down, and the entire workforce had to do their jobs with pen and paper.

Ransomware, botnets, and other attacks often propagate through software vulnerabilities or outdated operating systems. To help clients keep up with thousands of users and devices, Silverlake uses Intel^® Active Management Technology, which allows IT to install security updates and fix device problems remotely. It runs even when a device’s operating system shuts down, allowing technicians to resolve problems without physical intervention or lengthy wait times.

Protecting Privileged Accounts

Attackers don’t have to search for vulnerabilities if they can hack into privileged accounts, which belong to IT administrators and others with access to critical systems and data. Because privileged users have access to many devices and systems, they give hackers an ideal way to spread attacks.

The USAM solution enables privileged account management, providing several ways to defend against these threats, illustrated by the launch experience at a major ASEAN commercial bank.

The bank had 1,500 company resources to manage, including user devices, servers, and network equipment. Providing secure access was an enormous challenge for the small IT and security staff, which managed equipment and device passwords manually. In some cases, a technician had to walk over to users’ computers and log in, without ensuring log-offs or recording sessions. Some passwords were kept in envelopes locked in a safe, causing mass confusion when users made errors or forgot to update them.

The bank implemented USAM to store passwords in a secure online vault and manage them with automated controls to avoid human error and free up staff. Access to sensitive systems is now tied to user and device identity and further controlled with multifactor authentication. Managers can approve or deny access requests with a click, and privileged sessions are remotely monitored and recorded. The bank also added analytics to gather data about privileged activities, such as accessing critical systems.

Adding Controls and Convenience

To further guard clients’ sensitive information, USAM is embedded with Intel^® Software Guard Extensions (Intel^® SGX), which protects data when it’s being processed in memory – for example, when a person or an IoT device is using a server. It prevents memory dumps and verifies that applications have not been compromised and contain the latest security updates.

MasterSAM continues to seek ways to improve security for its clients, who are increasingly turning to deep-learning technologies to spot evolving threats and improve anomaly detection. “As more organizations adopt cloud infrastructure, they will require more access controls and better analytics,” Ting says. “In the cloud, you need to change constantly to keep up.”

Successfully managing convenience stores is anything but convenient when you lack insight into key retail data. Many store owners struggle to accurately track inventory, manage cash flow, and spot pricing errors and signs of theft—especially when they manage multiple locations. And often, their store technology lags that of other industries. When owners open new stores, they typically replicate the same existing IT model, which limits their ability to scale.

Today’s edge-to-cloud technologies can help. Allowing managers to see and solve problems as they occur makes inventory management and scaling easier—increasing productivity and profitability.

Gaining Access to Retail Data

Retailers who have trouble keeping up with operations can gain better control with a management system such as Petrosoft CStoreOffice, a cloud-based solution that allows convenience store owners to stay competitive while managing costs. “We help operators simplify their business by automating a variety of operational procedures and reducing risks,” Petrosoft CEO Sergei Gorloff explains.

CStoreOffice was born of the frustrations Gorloff experienced as an owner of 21 convenience stores. Overseeing them required driving more than 100,000 miles a year. He began to look for technology that could ease the load and keep the company’s overhead at a minimum.

“Given the competitive landscape, it was critical to get retail data as fast as possible, and without any additional workload for store employees, in order to track inventory and adjust prices in a format that was easy for the whole team to understand,” he says. After coming up empty in his search for a solution that would accommodate existing IT systems, he designed his own.

Using service-oriented, cloud-based architecture in its software and Intel^® processor-powered computing at the edge, the solution provides a central portal accessible from any device with a browser. This allows store owners to manage operations remotely, minimize errors, provide inventory loss control, streamline procedures, and secure data.

For example, during Hurricane Irma in Florida, one customer had three stores destroyed but was still able to access all its data in the cloud or from a mobile device and take action in real time. “During that very challenging time, one thing they didn’t have to worry about was having visibility into their operations. The information was safe, available, and uninterrupted,” Gorloff says.

“We help operators simplify their business by automating a variety of operational procedures and reducing risks.” @petrosoft_inc via @insightdottech

No two retailers use data in the same way, and CStoreOffice can be customized to each customer’s needs, depending on their business drivers and approach to management. For some, that means relying on basic operational uses, like cash reconciliation or fuel inventory management. Others expand it to include all back-office workflows, integrated point-of-sale technology, and even food service ordering.

“The application allows operators to cherry-pick the solutions that meet their needs. While we have customers that may use 95% of our total functionality, others might use just 5% of the capacity and still benefit from it,” Gorloff says.

Optimizing Inventory with Retail Analytics

The average convenience store carries 6,000 distinct stock keeping units (SKUs), making inventory management challenging. And operators often hold excessive inventory, which hurts cash flow, as their money sits on the shelf rather than working for them in the bank.

Advanced analytics allow stores to optimize inventory levels, easing cash flow worries and boosting profits. For example, one Petrosoft customer lost control over his cash flow during a rapid expansion. “He told me his primary objective was to sleep at night; he worried every day that he lacked sufficient cash in the bank to cover his payroll and bills,” Gorloff says. Within six weeks of installing the system, the customer was able to reduce inventory by 40%. That freed up about $1 million, increasing his cash flow and bank balance.

Petrosoft’s cloud-based architecture also allowed the retailer to implement the solution quickly. Like 90% of customers, he didn’t require on-site help from an IT specialist, Gorloff says. In contrast, a different software vendor said it could take 18 months to achieve full functionality.

New Analytic Capabilities

For the future, Petrosoft is currently developing AI and ML capabilities that will allow stores to offer the personalized promotions and inventory selection today’s customers increasingly expect. “What may fly off the shelves in one neighborhood will be dead inventory elsewhere, so this will allow stores to choose an assortment of goods based on diverse demographics,” says Gorloff.

The pandemic has taught retailers how important it is to provide the right goods at the right time. Gorloff was able to quickly adapt his stores’ inventory as traffic skyrocketed and customer demands changed dramatically.

“Customizing inventory is a game changer. We turned our operation on a dime to adapt to new demand for products such as toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and food,” he says, adding that some of his stores saw a triple-digit increase in sales of those items.

Leveling the Playing Field

CStoreOffice was designed to meet the challenges Gorloff saw in his own operations, and he continues that ethos by hiring industry insiders—former convenience store managers and regional supervisors—who can bring real-world experience to train and support customers.

“With Petrosoft, I can continue to successfully oversee my convenience store operations while also running a corporation,” Gorloff says. “What used to be labor-intensive, routine work is now much more creative and rewarding.”

If you want to grab a snack and go, the convenience of a vending machine is hard to beat. But today’s shoppers want more. They prefer fresh food, like salads, cheese, and yogurt, which aren’t usually sold in traditional machines. And maybe an occasional cookie—but only if the calorie and sugar count is acceptable. If it’s locked inside a vending machine, who knows?

Retail businesses are frustrated, too. They don’t have a good idea of what’s selling and what’s not, and they often don’t spot problems until it’s too late. Today, a new generation of smart vending machine systems is helping to solve these problems, offering customers a more convenient shopping experience, while providing better information and new opportunities for retailers and brands.

Technology developed by Shekel Brainweigh, a retail technology innovator, allows customers to open the door of its innovative, intelligent vending machine and inspect products before they buy. And real-time information about their interactions and purchases can be sent to machine operators and retailers. Shekel partnered with refrigerated-products manufacturer Imbera Cooling and vending machine management company Parlevel Systems to deliver its smart-cooler solution called hubz.

For shoppers, the hubz experience is radically different from using a traditional vending machine.

Point-of-Sale “Home Fridge”

“With a traditional machine, you press F6 and you get one product. With our machine, you open the door and take as many products as you want,” says Eliran Vaknin, Head of Product for Shekel Brainweigh Retail Innovation Division. “You can look at the expiration date, read the nutritional information, and put something back if you don’t want it. It’s like using your fridge at home.”

Except to get into this fridge, you need a credit card, debit card, an app such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, or a brand loyalty mobile app. “That will identify you, and after that, you cannot take anything from the shelf without us tracking it,” Vaknin says.

Shekel uses two tracking technologies. The first is its secret sauce—a custom IoT load sensor that accurately identifies products by their weight. “Shekel is a 50-year-old company with expertise in weighing solutions,” explains Rami Behar, the company’s Chief Business Development Officer.

The second technology uses AI-embedded software algorithms to track the exact location of products as they travel from the shelf to the customer’s hand and out the glass door—or back onto the shelf if the customer changes their mind (Video 1).

Video 1. The hubz smart vending cooler uses AI-enabled sensors to identify and monitor products. (Source: Shekel Brainweigh)

For retailers, giving customers better choices and allowing multiple-item transactions boosts profits. Fresh food also sells at higher prices, and consumers are more likely to buy it if they can inspect it first.

“On average, hubz coolers double the sales of standard vending machines that were in the same place,” Behar says.

Receiving up-to-the-minute information about transactions and customer preferences allows retailers to better predict sales and understand trends. @ShekelLtd via @insightdottech

Improving Operations with Retail Analytics

Streaming data gives retailers and machine operators better control over inventory management. With hubz, an Intel^® NUC small form-factor PC is embedded in the cooler, then processes and sends data about a product’s journey from the time a customer picks it up until it is purchased or replaced.

A second Intel^® processor-based computer relays information about inventory and transactions, including customer conversion rates. It also alerts operators if the cooler’s temperature is off or the door is left ajar—problems they can fix remotely.

Receiving up-to-the-minute information about transactions and customer preferences allows retailers to better predict sales and understand trends. They can test new products, rearrange  planograms, and do shelf placements on the fly, instead of basing decisions on information delivered weekly by technicians. Those who use an app for transactions can also offer customers on-the-spot targeted promotions.

AI Technology Helps Brands

Retailers aren’t the only ones who profit from insights about customer behavior.

“This is very valuable information for consumer packaged-goods (CPG) companies,” Behar says. The ability to sell products 24/7 without incurring labor costs or dealing with intermediaries is a huge draw for manufacturers.

These advantages—and the elimination of the soft-food-squashing mechanical arms found in traditional vending machines—tipped the scales for Israeli dairy producer Tnuva. It decided to try selling its milk, cheese, yogurt, and other dairy products directly to consumers for the first time, using Shekel’s smart cooler.

When a trial of 40 coolers proved successful, Tnuva began rolling out 100 more, placing them in office buildings, fitness centers, train stations, hospitals, and other high-traffic public locations. What they learned surprised them.

“It was totally different from the regular vending machine experience,” Vaknin says. “Peak sales were not at snack times, but at 5 or 6 p.m., when people were finishing up work and decided to collect some milk and cheese for the evening meal. Usually, they bought two or three products. It was like a replacement for a local convenience store.”

Tnuva smart coolers now handle tens of thousands of transactions per month. Streaming data is sent to a central cloud-based dashboard, where it is analyzed to reveal trends. Centralized control also simplifies management and makes scaling easier.

Like its customers, Shekel continues to learn from the information collected by its machines.

“We are gaining lots of data over time from every purchase and every customer trial. That helps us keep improving our algorithm technology,” says Vaknin. “This is the future of convenience shopping.”

 

This article was edited by Christina Cardoza, Associate Editorial Director for insight.tech.

This article was originally published on March 22, 2021.