At the SAP Leonardo Live conference in Frankfurt, Swarovski revealed how it uses SAP Leonardo to integrate machine learning into its retail business model, writes TIANA CLINE.
From jewellery to tsatskes, home décor and watches, Swarovski is a global name when it comes crystal-anything. It’s also a company with humble roots – Swarovski started out in 1895 as a small crystal manufacturing business in Wattens, Austria.
You probably know Swarovski retail, but to stay ahead of the pack from both a business and creative perspective, the company relies heavily on enterprise software solutions and intelligent applications to innovate their business model.
And with the help of SAP Leonardo, the game-changing system and Internet of Things (IoT) platform launched in Frankfurt this week, they’re integrating machine learning into their retail business model to prepare, provision and analyse their data (and essentially make their damaged good process a lot simpler).
At the Swarovski global repair centre, the company was faced with a challenge when new items were sent in to be fixed. With a massive product catalogue, locating a material number, business unit, produce date or even produce often ended up in time-consuming Google searches.
And while they were successful, the results yielded were comprised of a picture and not necessarily the data required to take the next step.
With SAP machine learning, a feature of Leonardo, Swarovski created an intelligent library of classified product images which enabled faster customer interaction – the database now brings up precise images and potential product repair costs.
Unlike traditional image searches where background noise and quality affect results, machine learning is not reliant on shape and other factors, the results are bases on intelligent learning algorithms and AI-based insights that have the ability to unlock “hidden knowledge” in data. Machine-based neural networks can understand a billion pieces of data in seconds.
What’s next for the crystal company? According to Werner Huber, the IT Demand Manager at Swarovski Corporate IT, they’re looking at installing in-store sensors which can count the customers coming in, smartly being able to distinguish between those who use the store as a through path, for example, or those who return.
There is also the potential for facial recognition, so they can gather smart data based on gender, approximate age, buying patterns, etc.
(A few years back, Swarovski also built a app to showcase their crystal assortment, called the Crystal Collection App.)
With the help of SAP, Swarovski is at the forefront of design, creativity, and technological innovation.
