Target, Inc.

Revelations of job cuts at leading retailers, the latest involving Sam’s Club, are a reminder that pro-active expense control remains retailers' best friend when it comes to ensuring profitability when faced with a murky outlook for consumer spending.

Sam’s Club on Friday became the latest retailer to disclose plans to eliminate 2,300 hourly and middle management positions. The move was characterized as a rebalancing of resources, according to Sam’s Club spokesman Bill Durling. Other retailers such as Macy’s and Target also recently announced job cuts.

Hudson's Bay Company has appointed Douglas Scovanner as EVP of finance and accounting, on an interim basis. Scovanner will support acting CFO with the day-to-day stewardship of the company’s financial planning, asset protection and accounting functions.

Prior to this appointment, Scovanner spent nearly two decades at Target, most recently as EVP and CFO.

Michaels may have been the victim of an attack on its data, but it wasn’t going to wait to find out the way Target and Neiman Marcus did before warning customers.

In a statement laced with the word, “may,” Michaels said it recently learned of possible fraudulent activity on some U.S. payment cards that had been used at its stores, which it said suggested the company may have experienced a data security attack.

Target’s data security breach has already cost all credit unions between $25 million to $30 million. Those numbers are expected to climb in coming weeks as more of the cooperative financial institutions report their costs and as fraud losses are incurred down the road, according to preliminary results of a survey of credit unions by the Credit Union National Association (CUNA).

Adconion Direct, a leading global cross-channel digital advertising company, has named Nathan Jokinen as VP of strategic development. Jokinen spent nearly a decade in business development and digital strategy at Target.

Target is the latest major retailer to announce it will stop offering health insurance to its part-time employees. In a company blog post on Jan. 21, Target said it will no longer provide health insurance coverage to part time workers after April 1.

As the holiday dust clears and we settle into a new year, it’s only fitting that retailers take a moment to reflect on successes of 2013 and identify opportunities for 2014. How can we be more efficient this year? Can we waste less while producing more? Where can we make simple adjustments that add up to big bottom line savings?

A 20,000-sq.-ft. store called TargetExpress is set to become the newest addition to the retailer’s portfolio of formats when it opens this July in downtown Minneapolis.

In an interview with The New York Times, Target EVP for property development John Griffith said Target signed a lease last week for a space on the ground floor of an apartment building called the Marshall which is under construction near the University of Minnesota campus. The store is scheduled to open July 27.