Solving the Data Blind Spots in Physical Locations with Cisco DNA Spaces

In a digitally disrupted world full of new online experiences, there is a blind spot lurking offline in our physical spaces – data without context. While digital transformation continues to rock industries, it’s also creating mountains of data that can be the greatest source of opportunity for business. Being able to identify and recognize data patterns is becoming crucial, especially in physical spaces.

To help unlock data blind spots, we’re introducing Cisco DNA Spaces, a powerful end-to-end indoor location cloud platform that will provide rich location services, including analytics, toolkits and API to Cisco wireless customers.  This platform is the integration of CMX (Connected Mobile Experience) and the July Systems location cloud using a dramatically simplified licensing and consumption model. We have combined the best of both solutions to create a SaaS offering that is scalable and reliable.

Turning Insights into Action

By leveraging existing wireless investments to digitize spaces – the people and things in a location – Cisco DNA Spaces allows customers to do three important things:

See and understand what’s happening in their physical spaces

Act on this knowledge to realize outcomes (engage customers, track things, notify business systems)

Extend beyond and integrate into customer enterprise systems and partner applications

As just one example of how the platform can be used, consider a hospital setting. With Cisco DNA Spaces location intelligence, facility managers will be able to see not just which spaces (i.e. waiting rooms, cafeterias) are used and when, but also where people come from to get to those rooms, how long they stay in them, what data resources they use and where they go after they leave. By understanding these patterns, a hospital can make data-informed improvements, such as locating medical equipment and other assets, or triggering alerts if equipment moves to a location for which it’s not designated. This improved healthcare experience for end-users and hospital staff provides a new level of engagement, creating opportunity, efficiencies, cost savings and better experiences.

The numbers highlight the opportunity:

All 25 million Cisco wireless access points in the field can be connected to Cisco DNA Spaces, representing an enormous opportunity for our customers and partners to bring wireless location services to a universe of users.

Cisco DNA Spaces is already live in 21,000+ locations spread across roughly 1.5 billion square feet. The tool has recorded over 131 billion location updates, providing dramatic value to existing customers in healthcare and retail, sports venues and other businesses.

Two Offerings to Meet Business Needs

Cisco DNA Spaces SEE is our core new offering that helps you understand key behavior of people and things through metrics like visit duration, visit frequency, visit distribution, real-time view and more. It also allows you to measure and benchmark your location’s performance with historical, group and industry data points. All existing Cisco wireless customers can start a 90-day free trial

Cisco DNA Spaces ACT offers other tools for physical space management. This includes a captive portal to engage with visitors and API access that allows third parties to use Cisco DNA Spaces to build new business applications, as well as deeper operational insights, such as environmental sensor data integration and anomaly detection for IoT devices.

Putting data to use for physical spaces is a game-changer and just one example of exciting technology that will propel the network forward in 2019. Data and insights are not just providing smarter ways to do business, but are creating new ways to connect, engage and learn like never before. Now all of that valuable data hiding in physical spaces no longer has to be a mystery.  We can unlock the data blind spots.