Artificial Intelligence

Retailers employing variety of solutions to reinvent the checkout

The store is generally considered to represent the “last mile” of the retail supply chain. In recent years, retailers have focused on making this final, crucial step as easy and convenient for customers as possible.

San Jose, Calif. - EBay Inc. has appointed Craig Hayman as president of its eBay Enterprise business. Hayman brings more than 30 years of enterprise technology leadership including executive positions at IBM’s Industry Cloud Solutions and WebSphere businesses.

▲ Data breaches are on the rise: Mounting an attack on retail systems has become increasingly attractive to attackers because malware can be delivered at very low cost, according to Mark Bower, VP product management and solutions, Voltage Security, a Cupertino, California, provider of data-centric encryption and tokenization.

“So it becomes very attractive to attackers to try and steal credit card and personal data they can monetize very quickly,” he added.

As to the role of a financial chief, “the CFO has the responsibility to look at overall r

Manhattan Associates Momentum 2014

“We will have real-time temperature monitoring by the end of the year. Imagine what that means.”

— Tony Thompson, president and COO, Papa John’s International Inc.

“It’s hard to talk to anyone at Amazon. Everything has to be automated through their site.

As the key cog in the wheel of a retail chain’s financial structure, today’s retail CFOs find themselves caught in the crosshairs of senior management and stakeholders demanding maximum profit and measurable growth amid increased consolidation and tightened revenues.

But that’s nothing new. Financial chiefs have always had to balance profit and loss with expansion strategies.

A pound of prevention (which in this case means the use of chip-based payment cards, encryption of data stored in the enterprise, and restriction of third-party network access) is not a complete cure when it comes to improved data security for retailers, according to panelists at the recent CIO Symposium at the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

One complicating issue is that the “cloud” is becoming a “fog” as the Internet of Things continues expanding the range of devices that are online with IP addresses, creating new security liabilities.

“IP ad

By Adam Blake, VP and General Manager, Department and Specialty Retail, NCR

Cambridge, Mass. - Vee24, a provider of live video assistance solutions, is releasing the VeeStudio Software Development Kit (SDK) for iOS and Android, as well as VeeAssist, a new co-browsing product designed to enhance call center satisfaction. VeeAssist expands the company’s assisted selling solutions, including live video help, from the Web to now also support traditional telephony-based call center engagements, while the mobile toolkit extends its live help solution into brands’ iOS and Android mobile applications.