As ICSC Kicks Off, Retail Is Buying What Proptech Is Selling

This week the annual ICSC Las Vegas will draw thousands of retail real estate professionals to share the latest about the marketplaces and spaces where people shop, dine, work, play and gather, as the organization behind the event likes to say.

This year ICSC+PropTech will be prominently featured there. Two of the many retail real estate topics that will be discussed surround security and logistics.

And one of the proptech companies that will exhibit at ICSC is EyeQ Monitoring, an Atlanta-based provider that uses artificial intelligence to power its security platform designed specifically for large-scale commercial real estate portfolios, including the retail sector.

“Specifically within retail CRE, our business is really about proactive monitoring solutions from leveraging artificial intelligence behind video,” said Markus Scott, CEO at EyeQ Monitoring. “And, so, when I say remote video monitoring applications, that’s everything from figuring out how to augment or automate security through video cameras and artificial intelligence all the way through providing better operational insight into those environments for our retail property management ownership groups.”

Founded in 2007, and now with 190 employees across 47 states, EyeQ Monitoring is at ICSC in part to showcase its new integration with its rapid surveillance units, which enable AI-powered “virtual guarding” in areas without internet access — from overflow parking lots to vacant spaces and large building perimeters. The company claims that its clients are seeing approximately 30 percent fewer incidents and 50 percent fewer operational disruptions with its technology.

EyeQ Monitoring covers the entire retail supply chain, from goods arriving at port, to trucks and trains moving across the country, to the actual distribution facilities, providing security and operational insights all the way into the store, according to Scott.

“You’ve seen these rapid surveillance units before,” said Scott. “They might be mobile trailers sitting in a parking lot, or cameras on a fixed beam. They’re technology points that have slightly different ways of distributing video than being on the building. We’ve done a lot to build our ability to work with our retail partners who are looking to deploy those quick types of assets, to be able to bring video back to our center, process it here, and allow our team to respond to security risks and threats. But also to still drive that same type of operational insight. We’ve got partners all around the country that we’ve integrated with to make sure we can still provide that same benefit of intervention and operational intelligence back to the customers.”

For property owners and managers, that means greater visibility across large or fragmented properties, faster response to incidents before they escalate, and new insight into how spaces are actually being used, he said.

“Using analytics behind video in a specific type of property, we may want to key in on a particular type of behavior,” Scott explained. “And we’ll write those analytics around identifying that type of behavior and then bring that into our global security operations center for an agent to actually be able to see, then interact and intervene in said situation. In simple cases, that might be a property nobody’s supposed to be trespassing on. So we want to see who that person is. We want to interact with them, and then escalate to authorities where needed, and, if it’s not needed, not take up the time of responding officers to something that’s a false alarm.

“It might be about the direction that people are headed on a property, or the number of people that are gathering. Or looking for things that look like car break-ins in a parking lot outside a grocery store, so that their patrons’ vehicles are better protected.”

Big-box stores and shopping centers are a particular growth sector for EyeQ Monitoring’s work, with the company promising what Scott maintains is better guarding technology for a fraction of the cost of paying a human guard. The company’s rapid surveillance units also have the advantage of quick integration for customers who need security in 24 hours, versus calling an integrator and putting up a big camera system that might take a month or two, he said.

Scott also emphasized the importance of EyeQ Monitoring’s proprietary AI algorithms, which are tailored to the big-box stores and shopping centers, to improve employee and customer safety, and drive cost-effectiveness. The company aims to expand its value proposition through collaborations with other tech providers.

“We really have a strong conviction that we have to have vertically focused algorithms,” Scott said. “With our analytics, in order to really provide good insight and be able to do it cost effectively, we have to understand the pain points of the markets that we serve. So we’ve leaned heavily first on having proprietary analytics that are purpose built for security. That’s our most important mission, but it also allows us to be able to drive the insights for the operational piece as well.”

Unlike EyeQ Monitoring, JBF Consulting is a long-established boutique firm founded in 2003 that provides insights for retail logistics and supply chain companies working to de-risk complex technology initiatives and improve transformation outcomes.

Although not designed as a technology company, JBF Consulting finds itself advising clients on tech options and utilization more than ever, said Brad Forester, founder and managing partner of JBF Consulting.

“So, to be transparent, I had to look up ‘proptech’ and figure out what that meant in our kind of industry,” Forester said with a laugh. “But I know what it means now and how it correlates to what we do on behalf of retail companies.”

A key issue for JBF Consulting’s clients has to do with why so many retail logistics technology implementations exceed budgets, miss timelines, and ultimately fail to deliver expected return on investment, said Forester. As organizations across the retail industry continue investing in transportation and warehouse management systems, enterprise resource planning platforms, and broader digital transformation initiatives, many are discovering that the root causes of failure occur well before implementation.

JBF Consulting has found that misaligned vendor selection, unrealistic timelines, and gaps in planning and design create downstream execution challenges that derail even the most promising retail supply chain technology investment.

“From a retail standpoint, we are working with a wide variety of retailers — from grocery to big box stores,” said Forester. “For the brick-and-mortar retailers that we serve, we’re helping them with the strategy, the selection of tools and technology, the orchestration of access, policy data, system hardware and application technology to power their operational and transportation systems, with a supply-chain execution focus.

“I think the primary challenge that today’s retail environment is trying to solve is that there’s still a very wide variety of distribution channels, whether it is direct to consumer online, whether it’s buy online, pick up in a store, or it’s shipped from store, as well as the traditional brick-and-mortar replenishment of orders,” Forester said.

For suppliers, Forester said it’s about better navigating black swan events, including steeper import taxes.

“If we are moving our physical supply chain network to accommodate a lower tariff burden, then help us figure out what the ripple or trickle down implications are for our systems, for our process,” Forester said. “Retailers really need to stay agile and be very flexible. We saw this with COVID and other black swan events like Liberation Day. Retailers have to be very quick and ensure fresh product on the shelf at the right time for their buyers, whether it’s food or fashion, and they need to maintain a quick pace within the supply chain. 

“Those pressures, along with regulations, black swans, and limitations on the physical side as well, are creating a lot of pinches and new variables that are difficult to solve for. From a technology standpoint, they present a lot of challenges that didn’t used to exist, and it’s forcing retailers to think more creatively, taking a more design-first approach in terms of how they implement their systems to maintain that agility going forward.”

Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com.