Artificial Intelligence

Omnichannel marketers have gained a new personalization weapon to engage with shoppers thanks to a partnership between nGage Labs and Web Decisions.

The firms announced a new arrangement that combines nGage’s personalized mobile customer engagement capabilities with Web Decision’s omnichannel marketing database solutions to create a fully integrated database-drive mobile customer engagement solution.

Redmond, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. has enhanced Microsoft Dynamics CRM by adding a comprehensive set of new marketing, customer care and social listening capabilities to the suite. The new release is expected in the second quarter of 2014.

Retail and financial trade associations have banded together to combat cyber crime in wake of the Target data breach.

Minneapolis — A “phishing” attack using an email containing malware reportedly enabled hackers to gain access to Target’s computer network in 2013. According to the security blogger Brian Krebs, an employee at the HVAC vendor Fazio Mechanical in Sharpsburg, Penn. which includes Target among its clients, opened a fraudulent email that allowed hackers to enter Fazio’s network and take over a computer.

Shopkick, a real-world shopping app, has expanded testing of its shopBeacon technology. The new technology, which was deployed in late November at two Macy’s stores, will be active in thousands of stores nationwide by the end of the first quarter.

Domo, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) venture, has named Matt Belkin as chief strategic solutions officer and SVP of consulting.

In this role, Belkin will oversee the development of Domo's consulting organization and be responsible for developing “packaged solutions and best practices.”

Most recently, Belkin was VP of customer strategy at Adobe Systems' digital marketing division, which he joined from Omniture. He was part of the team there that helped grow the company's revenue from $20 million in 2004 to more than $1 billion in 2013.

By Dr. Paul Helman, KSS Retail

Before 2013 was over, prognosticators were making bold predictions about retail margins in 2014. As technology disrupts the market and chains feel the squeeze, a number of key areas will demand attention in the coming months.

Rock Bottom Pricing

Ottawa, Canada - Price and product intelligence technology vendor 360pi has launched 360insights, a suite of integrated visualizations and dashboard reports that gives retailers real-time visibility into how they can immediately increase revenues and margins through adjustments to their pricing and product mixes. Retailers can have this same visibility into their own competitor and category set and the power to identify opportunities and take meaningful actions that will drive revenues and margins.