Information Technology

From Motorola Solutions. To meet shopper expectations in the omnichannel world, you must be able to see what’s in-stock and where it’s located across all supply chain channels. This paper discusses how omnichannel retailing is changing end-to-end supply chain operations, especially when it comes to meeting customers' complex fulfillment demands. It also examines the growth in importance of direct-to-customer shipping and offers suggestions for how retailers can utilize technology to make all the components of the supply chain work seamlessly together.

From Intel Corporation. Merchant IT organizations are grappling with two competing priorities - maintain PCI DSS compliance, and to efficiently manage hundreds or thousands of remote devices. Not to mention that new devices are always being added, and those devices may have different form factors, support requirements, and transactional security needs.

Microsoft in partnership with the Fujitsu Center of Excellence offers this paper as a starting point for understanding how to approach development of a comprehensive cloud computing strategy. The retail enterprise IT environment serves all aspects of business operations including shopper engagement, product delivery and core business operations. To support the varied needs many retailers are embarking on a “hybrid” approach to delivering cloud services. This simply means mixing on premises service delivery with hosted or public service delivery to achieve the definition of an effective cloud computing environment. This document covers guidance for retailers when developing a "hybrid cloud" strategy to connect the three enterprise application profiles (new, strategic, and legacy) together to serve the modern shopper.

From Payfone & GlenBrook. Mobile remote commerce is beginning to emerge as an increasingly important new retail channel, with the potential to generate significant sales for sellers and payment volume for financial services players. However, this new channel presents certain unique challenges for payment systems, particularly with the respect to the potential for fraudulent use of payment cards and other financial accounts. Payfone has developed a number of customized solutions which utilize unique data elements available from the mobile data network to more accurately assess whether a given payment transaction is legitimate, and can do so in a way that is highly convenient for the buyer.

From Motorola Solutions. Lord & Taylor's flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York needed to keep their display shelves fully stocked. But display sample inventory was such a labor-intensive, time-consuming process, they could only do it once a week. With Motorola Solutions' handheld RFID readers, they saved 75% of the labor and can run display sample inventory daily. Read the case study to see how floor sample displays are now at least 95% complete, and how sales went up 2%.

From Motorola Solutions. Over the last decade, brick-and-mortar retailers have been forced to deal with the Internet revolution in all its glory. There’s no doubt that the invasion of retail stores by these mobile enablers of virtual shopping has been costly. Not just in sales, but in customer loyalty, too. Discover how retail stores are fighting back with their own aggressive omni-channel strategies based on information provided by their wireless networks.

From Motorola Solutions. This paper outlines the key trends shaping the unique needs and demands of the wireless environment in retail today. It also highlights six key strategies for establishing a successful wireless network. A thorough understanding of both is critical for driving compelling experiences for the connected shopper.

From Motorola Solutions. This white paper examines the future of retail, including changing shopper mindsets and behaviors, and the new expectations shoppers have for their in-store experience.

From Bit9. Constant updating of security patches and antivirus software libraries can slow response times and leave endpoints vulnerable to APT attacks. Endpoint protection based on detecting known malware is demonstrably ineffective—and has the potential to create numerous inefficiencies across your organization.

From Verizon. In today’s omni-channel retail world there’s just one rule: there are no rules. The store has to be open 24/7. As we all know, despite the gloomy economic conditions of the last two years there has been recession-defying growth in the use of high-end smart phones and tablets capable of supporting advanced shopping experiences. The latter are changing retail profoundly. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising: driven by the iPad, tablets offer the same portability as a smart phone plus extended screen space, which can be used to accommodate richer, more compelling mobile shopping creative propositions.

From RPE Solutions. An investment in advanced Business Intelligence is an investment in future growth and profits for today’s retail organizations.

From HCL Technologies. The demand for mobility solutions is growing with consumerism affecting enterprise IT adoption of generic devices and driving most industries to deliver over specialized devices or proprietary networks, hence fostering sales for mobility and IT services providers. This paper has been prepared to touch upon the key challenges in retail home delivery operations and how latest innovations in mobility can be applied to address these challenges with the help of HCL Mobility Solution.

From HCL. This white paper cover strategies for enabling a traditional retailer to successfully transition into an efficient cross-channel organization.

From Opterus. With solutions that are tailored to specific retail functions, retailers can maximize the efficiency of store operations and be empowered to accurately and consistently distribute information, plan, schedule, assign, prioritize, automate, communicate and monitor task compliance. The key benefit: significantly reduce expenses while improving the ability to communicate with stores and monitor store compliance. By leveraging these tailored solutions, retailers can skip the extensive training or large system configuration for easy deployment and implementation.

From Nexvu APM, LLC. The importance of innovation as a core competency for retailers has been elevated by an increasingly dynamic and technology-driven consumer market. As a result, retailers are aggressively exploring the deployment of new and innovative technologies and applications to ensure the most intuitive and satisfying user experience at all points of sale and service. Nexvu establishes a new standard for management of the modern technology environment by providing complete visibility into the health, utilization, and performance of every store IT asset simultaneously and in real-time.

From Ionit Technologies. It’s undisputed that organizations run better when employees have access to timely, actionable information. Understanding shopper behavior in stores is paramount to improving operations and increasing sales and profits. Video centric business intelligence systems correlate shopper behavior data from multiple systems and automatically deliver actionable reports to help hold companies to internal performance benchmarks.

From J.D. Associates. A successful customer loyalty program should be integrated in a retail POS system. A long-term customer loyalty strategy must be implemented and regularly monitored for effectiveness. When developing a customer loyalty strategy certain considerations deserve attention.

From Source Technologies. This white paper provides retailers a deeper understanding of how proven multi-function kiosk hardware and software can automate revenue-generating retail processes and drive traffic into retail stores. Source Technologies reveals how multi-function transactional kiosks can help retailers convert the traffic into incremental revenue. With so much competition from other brick and mortar stores as well as online destinations, getting more customers into the store is a challenge for all retailers addressable through the implementation of multi-function kiosks.

RETAILERS and MEMBERS ONLY - During this webinar, Dave Hogan, SVP and CIO of the National Retail Federation (NRF), and Janet Suleski, Research Director at AMR Research, as they present the findings from the 5th annual NRF and AMR Research Retail IT Budget Benchmarking Study 2008.

In this viewpoint paper, EDS describes a process-oriented, opportunity-driven approach to the implementation of SOA in the retail environment. This phased, results-oriented approach allows companies to create services that respond flexibly to changes in consumer demand, product design and supply-chain operations.