Business Intelligence (BI)

London – The Dynamic Action retail decision intelligence application from OrderDynamics now incorporates offline and online store data to provide a comprehensive omni-channel view of products, customers, channels and marketing. The OrderDynamics commerce suite, with Dynamic Action’s newest capabilities at the core, identifies opportunities for retailers to achieve this type of omni-channel functionality:

• Re-allocation of stock between stores and warehouses.

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.

Los Angeles - Mobile shopping app provider Ibotta Inc. has partnered with Roximity, a provider of location-based mobile technology to deliver iBeacon-based mobile messages to shoppers within store aisles across the U.S. Roximity will enhance Ibotta’s ability to engage millions of shoppers, by providing detailed and relevant information about leading consumer products and rebates available to them in stores, while they shop.

Just a little more than a month after Supervalu announced a data breach, the company has confirmed a second malware attack on its payment systems.

On Aug. 14, Supervalu announced that it had experienced a criminal intrusion into the portion of its computer network that processes payment card transactions at some of its retail food stores, including some of its associated stand-alone liquor stores, but not including its Save-A-Lot stores.

San Mateo, Calif. - NetSuite Inc. has released an integrated solution with ChannelAdvisor.

Louisville – Convenience chain Thorntons Inc. has implemented the Paytronix Loyalty Platform to support its new Refreshing Rewards customer loyalty program across 174 locations. Leveraging the Paytronix loyalty engine enabled the c-store chain to quickly test a variety of elements in a secure, market-focused pilot program and then rapidly roll out the program to all its stores.

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.

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.