Prism Skylabs
Video Analytics

In the Big Data landscape, visual analytics is emerging as the next great source for companies to learn about consumer behavior. Data collected from visual sources makes it simple to measure and evaluate customer experiences and how they’re related to store products and promotions. However, challenges arise for CIOs as they have to access and understand new ways to model Big Data. Prism, a cloud-based technology, provides a turnkey solution that collects and provides accurate business insights to stores. “We transform real-world patterns and trends into powerful reports and visual summaries that anyone can understand,” says Steve Russell, CEO and Founder of Prism.

The company’s services turn ordinary cameras and connected devices into analytics tool. Prism distills massive amounts of complex data into easy-to-understand visual summaries so customers can extract actionable answers from it.

As more and more video sensors and devices are gathering Big Data, it has become critical to deploy network connections. The Prism Connect program partners with leading camera manufacturers to power new types of visual sensors with broad applications in retail and other consumer-facing businesses. “Prism Connect puts all this incredible power for processing big data on a chip the size of your thumbnail—and you can take that chip and embed it in any of the visual IoT devices emerging in the market,” adds Russell.

Prism analyzes customers’ paths by providing effective and comprehensive maps. “Our path maps are a great example of processing big data into something instantly digestible—we turn the paths of every customer that enters a store throughout the day into a simple, aggregate visualization that shows where shoppers go and how they move through the retail space,” adds Russell. These analytics enable any retailer to view cutting-edge visual metrics around customer flow rate, group size, and occupancy and dwell time.

This customer path data is also translated into traffic and activity heat maps, which show retailers the “hot” and “cold” areas in their stores based on where customers go, what products they interact with, and where there’s the most aggregate activity.

We transform real-world patterns and trends into powerful reports and visual summaries that anyone can understand

Using these heat maps, path maps, and customer counting features, Prism helps their retailer cus-tomers understand the data they unlock by deploying the software. One of the company’s clients, Lolli and Pops, is a high-end supplier of confections and vintage treats that expanded from one to 22 stores in little more than a year. Lolli and Pops connected Prism to their existing video cameras in minutes. “They wanted to monitor the pulse of all their stores in order to ensure that they were always delivering the best experience—but quickly realized Prism could offer more direct returns. “Prism directly enabled L&P to increase their sales by 1-2 percent yearly,” cites Russell. Prism heat maps provided L&P with privacy-protected visualizations of in-store customer movement and product in-teraction. That data was then put to use to redesign L&P’s displays and store layouts, and the direct sales growth followed.

Prism’s innovation is both technical and operational— the app’s technology also reduces human error and data inaccuracies that are found with traditional retail analytics. “Prism’s software and hardware integrations really speak for themselves when it comes to differentiating our products as uniquely turnkey,” says Russell. So what’s next for the fast-growing company? The IoT is transforming retail and tech markets, and Prism is on track to lead the field in understanding visual big data. But of course, as Russell says, the biggest focus will always be on improving understanding for our customers in any vertical.