Digital Transformation Has Skipped the Physical Floor
Back-office systems have been digitized for two decades. The sales floor, kitchen, and shop floor are often still running on manual observation.
Most large enterprises have thoroughly digitized their back office — ERP, finance, HR, supply chain planning all run on structured, queryable systems. The physical floor where the actual operation happens — the sales floor, the kitchen line, the assembly line — frequently still runs on manual walkthroughs, paper checklists, and a manager's memory.
That asymmetry means the systems with the most complete data (ERP, POS) have the least visibility into physical cause and effect, while the place where operational problems actually originate produces the least structured data.
Computer vision is one of the few technologies that can digitize the physical floor at the same fidelity the back office already enjoys — turning a camera that was already there into a structured, queryable data source instead of a passive recording device.