Your Product is Calling

Get Ready for a Revolution

This is part two of the article we posted last month. In that article we discussed the technology breakthrough with signaling devices that is permitting the production of unique digital identify tags. We expect the cost of the tags to be pennies. Even low value, low margin products can be tagged. Our latest round of prototypes demonstrate the disruptive potential of the technology to value chains for many Industries. The Physical Web has arrived.

Google coined the term Physical Web in 2014. They announced their vision for an economy where everything is interconnected. It was more vision than capability then. The Internet of Things (IOT) is the common term today, but we are still partial to PW. Afterall, the majority of the GDP is the sale and distribution of physical product. If we can connect the physical to digital in an affordable and effective manner, we open a vast array of new opportunities.

Let’s start with the simple case. By tagging every product in a store with a unique ID which advertises itself on a regular cycle, we have gained great visibility to the status of our inventory. If these same products can provide us with their real-time movement and other data, such as temperature, we have even greater opportunity to remake the demand and supply chains of our operations and to serve customers more intensively. Of course, this requires very low-cost tags that can be pervasively deployed, and applications which ingest and rationalize those signals for human consumption. The effect is to bring page views, ads, browsing, clicks, and shopping cart additions of online experiences into the physical store. And it can all be done while preserving privacy and avoiding adverse ad placement. With low-cost battery-free tags, the Physical Web is on steroids.

That’s why we think there is a revolution coming.

One hurdle, of course, is the delivery of flexible tags at scale. These “nano computers” will need to be commercial grade, and be able to withstand a range of environmental conditions without fail. We expect that milestone to reached by mid-2021.

A bigger hurdle is rethinking the value-chain so that the technology can be adopted and leveraged with optimal market impact. Everything changes. With the Physical Web, companies should use the opportunity to not rework, but to replace old processes built on assumptions that are outdated. We are entering an era of a genuine real-time economy. With immediate transparency on inventory levels, customer demand, sales trends, price sensitivity, spoilage, shrinkage, and other key operational factors, whole new processes can be created for marketing, sales, customer service, delivery, and warranties. Companies will need disciplined change management to transition the organization and retrain the workforce.

A revolution is coming, but it will require some forward thinking leadership. Our prototypes on the Physical Web are signaling good things coming. Your products will be calling soon. So, give us a call first and let’s discuss the opportunities.