Let's take a look at these principles in action. Fujitsu's portfolio company GK Software is a great example of how to bring together a broad ecosystem of technology, in this case, to solve the real business challenges of the retail sector. At its core, GK Software offers SaaS-based retail technology to global retailers, including checkout, consumer engagement and store operations. He was a market leader for over 35 years.
GK is developed from the roots of POS solutions to build comprehensive, sophisticated software capabilities for the retail sector that combine AI, business workflows, sensors and IoT, driving the transformational impact of retail.
One example is how GK gave retail customers a way to add specific AI technology to their self-checkout solutions to reduce costs and improve convenience at a feasible price. A major challenge for large retailers is preventing intentional or intentional fraud in self-checkout by customers who have failed to scan all items. To tackle this challenge effectively, retailers face enormous costs of replacing the entire hardware landscape and hiring additional staff to oversee the customer. GK's “Vision” technology allows retailers to now retroactively integrate AI into self-checkouts and leverage computer vision technology to help customers and staff ensure that all items have been scanned correctly. This retrofit approach opens the door for retailers to apply new technology at effective price points and apply it at large scale, creating products that are highly applicable in today's scenarios, adding real value. The technology also creates a more useful experience by guessing the customer's age (avoiding waiting for an assistant to check it out) and recognizing items that require manual searching, such as fruits and vegetables.
Looking back at the heatmap above, UI, CV, OCR and ML are integrated to provide an impact theme (in this case, fraud and loss prevention). Importantly, we discussed and addressed the important operational challenges of deploying this in a live environment.
The second example is GK's price optimization solution. Large costs for retailers come from supply and demand fluctuations, namely meeting demand from customers with the right level of stock. Overattacks lead to holding costs. This could be 30% of the annual value of the inventory. Conversely, because they do not hold sufficient stocks, retailers become vulnerable to sudden changes in demand. For example, consider how an unexpected weather spell will change what consumers buy from supermarkets. A shortage of stock is not just a lost revenue, but also a cost from the goodwill of the customer.
GK Software offers solutions that dynamically optimize pricing. This allows for supply and demand smoothing and reduces retailer cost exposure to surplus or shortfalls. This technology determines the best price for each item and changes it in real time on the shelves. Again, the solution combines component technology. In this case, it is an intelligent travel for physical stores integrated to provide inventory management systems, machine learning, and impact themes (optimized pricing).
Solutions typically handle daily price calculations for over 500,000 stocks, with a 3-5% increase in revenue.
These capabilities span the supply chain of in-store experiences, logistics, and retailers, from customers to physical front-ends to back-end systems. Fujitsu complements GK's software expertise with technology spanning AI enablement, cybersecurity, managed services, platform configuration and ongoing innovation.
AI can be a disruptive and game-changing technology in both cases, but it is just one component of a complex system. These examples show that the power of AI comes from integrating it into core processes that bring big ticket benefits to the business rather than pilots of 100 use cases.
Looking ahead, we continue to expand this foundation, offering AI-powered workflow management, content optimization, and LLM-based training services. As a combined force, we are building an end-to-end, intelligent digital platform for modern retail.
