Checkpoint Systems has announced that it has collaborated with Microsoft to bring Checkpoint's RFID Merchandise Visibility solutions to the cloud and add new functionality via Microsoft analytical tools. The result is a cloud-based merchandise-visibility solution called Sense + Respond that, according to Checkpoint Systems, is designed to provide multi-channel retailers with a solution to gather real-time insights and perform predictive analytics that is fast and easy to deploy.

Sense + Respond uses Checkpoint Systems' OAT Foundation Suite (which the company describes as an Internet of Things platform), along with Microsoft Azure Cloud Solutions. The combination, the firm reports, is designed to help retailers make more informed business decisions in real time. The combination differs in certain ways from Checkpoint Systems' previously released Merchandise Visibility solutions and offers some new functionality. For example, Sense + Respond provides dynamic information regarding shoppers and the retailer, versus static reporting. Microsoft Azure also adds faster data computation for near-real-time actionable feedback, and the solution is built on a scalable, elastic infrastructure for faster application and use-case development, which broadens the use of RFID. In addition, the solution includes big-data storage and processing for machine learning and predictive analytics.

Sense + Respond, Checkpoint says, helps improve retail revenue by increasing customer engagement and conversion across channels through real-time, sensor-enabled shopper insights integrated with systems of record and business-intelligence tools. It is also designed to improve supply chain agility and optimize last-mile delivery via real-time inventory transparency and order-fulfillment process automation, as well as increase in-store shelf availability through improved inventory tracking and accuracy. Because the solution is cloud-based and built on a hybrid IT architecture, Checkpoint reports, it can be deployed faster and offers a lower total cost of ownership. The solution integrates multi-modal sensor data—RFID, Near Field Communication (NFC), location-based and so forth—with retailers' existing systems of record, and provides actionable insights to retailers by integrating Checkpoint's IoT data and machine learning with Microsoft Azure for data mining and predictive analytics capabilities, according to Checkpoint Systems.

Checkpoint will offer this new solution through its worldwide sales teams beginning in early 2016. The company will demonstrate the Sense + Respond solution at Microsoft's booth (#2803), during the National Retail Federation's Big Show, being held on Jan. 17-19 in New York City.