Strategy

Leading national outdoor gear and apparel retailer REI named agency executive Ben Steele as the company's first ever chief creative officer.

Steele most recently served as executive creative director at Hornall Anderson in Seattle, a globally recognized brand experience design agency with additional offices in London and New York. He will start in his role at REI's headquarters on January 1, 2015.

New York -- Samsung Electronics and SAP SE are partnering to deliver enterprise mobility solutions for a number of industries, including an integrated payments solution.  

Marc Dietz has joined big data analytics provider RetailNext as chief marketing officer.

Dietz joins RetailNext from IBM where he led worldwide marketing for the company's SaaS portfolio, including multiple acquisitions such as DemandTec, Coremetrics, and Silverpop. Prior to the $440 million acquisition of DemandTec by IBM, Dietz led all marketing efforts at the cloud-based analytics provider for retailers and consumer products companies. He helped grow DemandTec from an early stage through IPO in 2007, and the IBM transaction in 2012, according to RetailNext.

New York -- Amid a public fight for Thanksgiving weekend foot traffic, retailers are also battling behind the scenes to prepare for peak-season e-commerce orders. According to a new Kurt Salmon survey, retailers will reduce their processing and shipping time frames for multi-item orders by almost two days this holiday season.  

Seattle -- Outdoor outfitter REI has added a chief creative officer slot, and hired Ben Steele to fill the position, effective Jan. 1. Steele most recently served as executive creative director at global brand firm Hornall Anderson in Seattle.

 

Bracknell, England -- JDA Software Group announced that eyewear manufacturer/marketer Luxottica Group SpA has gone live with its implementation of JDA Supply Chain Planner, from the JDA Manufacturing Planning.  

Target, Dollar General and Barnes & Noble are helping customers make an international connection with a new offering from UltraMobile.

Washington -- Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to slow down this month following record levels seen in September and October as retailers rushed to bring merchandise into the country ahead of a possible shutdown of West Coast ports, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.