Context-based Services

Locating People and Equipment in Real-time Using Existing Infrastructures
Optimum product placement is crucial to gaining advantage over competitors and reaching customers. However, merchandising opportunities are limited, while advertising is expensive and can be a "hit or miss" proposition. How do you ensure that your promotional messages reach the appropriate customer at the opportune time?

Location plays a key role in back office operations, too. Productivity is about getting the most from your assets, both physical and tangible. Idle, unused, or spare equipment can be costly. How much money has been squandered purchasing new equipment because the existing materials could not be found?

Accenture Technology Labs has developed a prototype with the ability to locate people or objects indoors, in real-time, enabling targeted interaction. A type of Global Positioning System (GPS) for inside buildings, Accenture Context-based Services is based on wireless LAN infrastructures already prevalent in most workplaces.

Pervasive Technology for Perceptive Services
GPS provides myriad practical uses for anything within sight of a satellite, yet it is impractical for indoor purposes where people and objects are out of view. The possibility to locate things indoors in real-time exists, but requires building new and expensive infrastructures. To bridge the gap between current business constraints and the ongoing need for more perceptive technology, Accenture Technology Labs started research two years ago to help companies realize the benefits of localization indoors without incurring enormous implementation costs.

Accenture Context-based Services enables users to identify the location of objects or individuals with wireless local area network (WLAN) enabled devices or tags within three meters of accuracy. Context-rich applications can be implemented to provide a picture of stock items or assets a person might be near, and how long they have been near it, for example. Furthermore, information could be pushed to the person regarding equipment operating conditions, or health and safety instructions.

Context-based Services could be transmitted through a number of devices. For example, consumers could be pushed information regarding a particular brand or promotion via screens placed on store aisles or shopping carts, through personal digital assistants (PDAs), or WLAN-enabled tablet PCs. These promotion alerts would be specific to products found on the aisle in which the consumer was shopping.

Made to Measure
The potential usages of Accenture Context-based Services as well as their near and long-term benefits are numerous.

Companies can gain valuable marketing insight on individuals from traffic tendencies to buying patterns. Knowing exactly where your customers are and what they are interested in could help you tailor or create new products and services, thus offering more personalized customer experiences. Companies could push coupons for pizzas or ice cream to a customer walking through the frozen food section. Retailers could conduct in-store games where consumers are instructed to go to a certain place at a given time in order to win. This would, in turn, create other product placement opportunities.

Knowledgeable employees also help drive sales. But with constantly evolving goods, services, and marketing campaigns, the challenge is keeping staff up-to-date. Sales may be lost by not having pertinent information on hand. With Context-based Services, staff could be relayed current inventory information and data on items related to the product being purchased.

The opportunities for cross-selling abound, as do the possibilities for increased inventory control and greater economies of scale on deliveries and other purchase-related transactions. Electronic conveyance of up-to-the-minute sales messages and promotions will lead to more harmonious sales processes, and decreased training costs (shorter learning curves). The use of context could also be considered for security purposes. For example, companies could confine access to sensitive financial applications to the controller's office.

Location contextual information could enable you to determine the frequency of usage of expensive office equipment and thus optimize its utilization. Theme parks could use this prototype at points of sale to enhance the user experience by managing the flow of visitors.

Accenture Context-based Services could also be invaluable in emergency situations by enabling hospital staff to locate x-ray machines at a moment's notice, or relay life-saving evacuation information to individuals. Schools could use them to help monitor the whereabouts of students. Businesses and individuals could not only react quickly to situations, but also perhaps trigger preventative actions.

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