Business Intelligence (BI)

With some 3,200 franchised, independently owned and corporate stores, the fast-growing Danish jewelry retailer Pandora needs to ensure customer relationship management (CRM) consistency throughout its operation — especially during the heavily promotional holiday season. It does so by using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system and a retail portal based on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

Cambridge, Mass. – More than three-quarters of digital marketers say loyalty program success depends on how well they do personalization. According to “Refresh Your Approach to 1:1 Marketing,” a new survey of digital marketers from Forrester Consulting on behalf of ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, about half (48%) of digital marketers say they face challenges in personalizing individual consumer interactions.

Atlanta – Customers of real estate management software provider Yardi can now have access to thousands of The Home Depot products either in store or online with a click of a button via the online procurement system offered with Yardi Procure to Pay, a fully automated end-to-end procurement and invoice processing platform.

New York -- Poor data collection and linkage practices are leaving organizations unable to move forward with key business goals, according to a new study by Experian Data Quality, a part of Experian Marketing Services.

The report, “Finding insight through data collection and linkage,” finds that while most organizations are looking to leverage data better to drive consumer insight, they are hindered by a lack of reliable and consolidated data sources.

New York -- Instagram is making itself more advertising-friendly, adding a new suite of business tools for its advertisers that will help the brands better control their campaigns and will allow them to gauge the success of their efforts.

The roll-out of the new features, which include an “account insights” tool that will allow marketers to track the performance of their ads in real-time using typical brand metrics such as impressions, reach, and engagement, will occur over the coming weeks and months, the photo-sharing giant said.

By Deena Coffman, IDT911 Consulting

Retailers working to improve their security posture have a new threat to consider: Backoff malware. Although its appearances have been traced back as early as October 2013, Backoff is still inflicting harm in the retail sector by actively targeting point-of-sale systems, and the United State is its favorite target, according to TrendMicro’s analysis.

Salisbury, N.C. -- Delhaize America banner Food Lion has unveiled a new shopping experience for customers in 31 stores in the greater Wilmington, North Carolina, market, and has announced plans to remodel 45 stores in Greenville as part of the grocery’s "Easy, Fresh and Affordable…You Can Count on Food Lion Every Day" strategy.

San Francisco -- Kenshoo, a provider of predictive media optimization technology, and RevTrak, a promotions platform that drives and measures in-store sales through digital coupons, announced the results of a partnership uniting offline conversions and paid search performance for omnichannel optimization for Staples Canada.

By Andrew Schneide, ZOG Digital

Plug and Play helps bring together retailers and startups who offer specific technology and expertise that can relieve their pain points. In each issue of our Customer Disruption e-newsletter, we will provide you a brief Q&A with the CEO of a Plug and Play startup, explaining how their company assists retailers in succeeding in today’s disruptive customer environment.

This week’s inaugural CEO Corner features three questions with Rich Wagner, CEO of Prevedere.

What does your company do?