Business Intelligence (BI)

Dayton, Ohio - Nearly two-thirds (62%) of 400 digital marketers surveyed view improving customer satisfaction as the top reason to invest more in technology. Becoming more customer-centric is a top-two priority for 49% of respondent organizations.  

San Francisco - Salesforce.com has delivered Desk.com for Retail, with features including new pay-as-you-go pricing, reporting tools and e-commerce integrations to transform how retailers deliver a personalized service experience to every customer. The new Desk.com for Retail includes snapshot reports of cases coming in from distributors and manufacturers, as well as one-click integration to retail platforms such as Big Commerce and Shopify.

Los Angeles - DinCloud, a cloud services provider that helps businesses migrate to the cloud through business provisioning, has released customized cloud services for the retail industry including hosted virtual desktops. Store owners and employees from traditional brick-and-mortar or online retailers can use the desktops to manage store operations remotely from any device including a desktop, laptop, or tablet.

Deerfield, Ill. -- Walgreens’ same-store stores increased 7.9% in September. Total sales increased 9.4%, to $6.5 billion compared to the same month in fiscal 2014, the company reported Friday.

Comparable store front-end sales rose 1.7%, while comparable store pharmacy sales rose 11.3%.

Walgreens opened nine stores during September, including four relocations, and closed four.

Vantiv, a leading provider of payment processing services and related technology for merchants and financial institutions, has appointed Larry Drury as its chief marketing officer. Drury will report directly to CEO Charles Drucker.

Chicago - Vera Bradley has implemented ShopperTrak's Perimeter Analytics solution at each of its new U.S. stores in 2014, with plans to roll out the service across all corporate stores in the coming year. Vera Bradley plans to use ShopperTrak Perimeter Analytics for a variety of purposes, including predicting its labor model, understanding peak times for stores and creating a reliable, global platform for consistent data reporting.

Cranbury, N.J. - Carid.com, an automotive parts and accessories retailer, has partnered with the could-based hosting company Rackspace. Carid.com uses an architecture consisting of dedicated database servers connected to multiple cloud Web servers, allowing the company to deliver relevant information, useful online tools and the latest technology, as well as offer users consistent performance with no delays.

Hy-Vee is looking to improve operations and reduce shrink, and to that end, will be deploying Agilence’s Retail 20/20 exception reporting tool.  

"While looking for a solution we were keen on finding one that could help us improve our in-store operations, while also making exception reporting a priority," said Darren Baty, SVP and chief information officer, Hy-Vee. "After seeing Retail 20/20 in action it became clear that we would be able to reduce shrink and improve our front end with this tool."

Vera Bradley will be deploying consumer behavior insights and location-based analytics provider ShopperTrak's Perimeter Analytics tool at each of its new U.S. stores this year, with plans to roll out the service across all corporate stores in the coming year.

First Data Corporation has bolstered its senior leadership team as part of its ongoing transformation from a payments processor to a collaborative technology company and solutions provider for merchants and financial institutions around the world.

The company promoted two executives to new roles: Barry McCarthy to lead four strategic businesses including the STAR Network and Sanjiv Das to lead First Data’s international business. The company has also brought in two new hires: Andrew Gelb to lead the financial services business and Adam Rosman as general counsel.