Yodiwo South Africa, an IOT, mobile solutions and IOT-as-a-Service provider, has formed a strategic partnership with Cold Tech Marketing.

Yodiwo is the Africa representative of Yodiwo AB, creator of the Yodigram solution for in-store analytics.

The partnership will see Cold Tech Marketing roll out Yodigram image recognition software to its customer base of over 2.5 million in 19-plus African countries.

According to the partners, the alliance is poised to revolutionise the smart retail sector in South Africa with intelligent IOT platform capabilities, analytics, and machine learning algorithms at a price point versus response time that's effective for the local market.

Working alongside Cold Tech's intelligent IOT platform and systems, Yodigram is designed to deliver in-store SKU image recognition capabilities "with high levels of accuracy and reporting functionality", according to the companies.

Yodigram provides an 'as-a-service' and follows a 'pay-as-you-go' model. Yodiwo said there is an initial once-off setup cost which refers to the configuration of the platform to recognise specific products, and the license model is based on a monthly recurring fee per point-of-sales (PoS) and a number of product categories to be monitored.

While the company did not specify the exact cost, it did state: "Cost is based on the number of photographs a customer takes in a store. These photos are analysed and KPI is generated. We also charge a setup fee to set-up -this is customer specific, depending on the amount of work that is required."

Images to the cloud

The agreement between Yodiwo and Cod Tech Marketing will facilitate a targeted solution that allows long-term integration into IOT platforms and reporting systems such as Salesforce Automation tool.

According to the companies, people who work in merchandising use this tool, specifically a mobile application to take photos from the shelves or desks with products in a store, send them to the cloud where Yodigram backend system will digitise their contents and provide reports about inventory, planogram compliance, share of shelve and many other important KPIs for the operation of a store.

"We generally target FMCG companies that stock products/SKUs in supermarkets shelves and upright refrigerators," Yodiwo added.

Lesley Lawrence, Development Director and co-founder of Cold Tech Marketing, said: "The image recognition solution we were using prior to our agreement with Yodiwo South Africa was too rigid for the needs of the local market. We needed a practical and powerful solution that would allow us to not only scale our African operations, but deliver high-end capabilities to our customers

Rodney Taylor, CEO of Yodiwo SA, said, "The partnership is very exciting for both organisations. It combines the innovative features of Yodigram for planogram compliance and inventory management with Cold Tech's deep knowledge of the African retail market. After the successful launch of Yodigram in Europe, and with the help of Yodiwo SA and expertise of Cold Tech, we will modernise and digitally transform the daily store operation in Africa."