Artificial Intelligence

Ottawa, Canada – Price intelligence technology provider 360pi, is collaborating and integrating with IBM to facilitate more automated and dynamic pricing for joint customers. The resulting solution leverages 360pi’s real-time price intelligence for exact and “like” products within IBM’s cloud-based omnichannel pricing platform.

By R.J. Carver, Corporate Development Associate, Plug and Play Tech Center

San Jose, Calif. – eBay Inc. is reversing course on its previous decision to keep its fast-growing online payments business PayPal as part of the company, and is instead spinning the unit off as a separate publicly traded company. The decision will generate $180 million for activist investor Carl Icahn, who attempted to force eBay to spin off PayPal in a public dispute earlier this year. It comes as the payments sector is heating up and generating increased interest as Apple gets set to launch its Apple Pay mobile payments service.

American Express has promoted Neal Sample, currently Enterprise Growth’s chief information officer and chief marketing technologist, to president. He will report to American Express CEO Kenneth I. Chenault and will serve as a member of the company's operating committee.

Sample replaces Dan Schulman, formerly group president of Enterprise Growth, who has resigned his position to become CEO of eBay’s spun-off PayPal business.

Atlanta - Manhattan Associates Inc. is releasing a new capability within its omnichannel Order Management application. Known as Available to Commerce (ATC), this capability gives retailers the power to offer specific units of inventory available for sale in the most appropriate channel (online, store, same-day delivery, etc.) and then optimize how the order is fulfilled, all based on a variety of strategic planning and daily operational variables.

New York -- SmartFocus announced that U.K. department store retailer House of Frasier has selected SmartFocus' Insights technology to gain a holistic view of their customers and continually deliver personalized interactions that increase engagement.

E-commerce technology company Qubit has announced a $26m Series B investment led by Accel Partners, with participation from original investor Balderton Capital and Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce.com's corporate investment group.

Qubit's personalization platform collects detailed information about users' interactions with a website and analyses it to identify patterns of behavior that drive revenue and inspire business-wide optimization decisions.

By Bill Davis, Director, MB&G Consulting

Keeping stores in peak condition remains the top priority of retail facility managers, who are increasingly being asked to do more with less. Chain Store Age spoke with Lauryn Blank, CEO of Global Facility Management & Construction, about the impact of technology on store maintenance and other trends. She also provided some timely advice for winter challenges.

Curbing the rising cost of utilities can improve the bottom line

For multi-site retail companies, energy efficiency makes business sense. It allows retailers to reduce cost and risk, and create good will with investors, employees, customers and the government. Ultimately, it also helps improve the bottom line.

When it comes to energy management, reducing operating cost should be the focus where the cost of energy is a sizeable part of operating the business.