Business Intelligence (BI)

Oakland, Calif. - The Society for Research of Synergies (SRS) and its company members will place their supply network onto the GT Nexus platform to optimize global transportation costs representing $247.7 million per year. SRS is a global synergy organization representing the interests of 20 European retailer groups, including Groupe Auchan, Groupe ADEO, Pimkie, Orsay, Kiabi, Happychic, H.T.M., Mobivia, Ephigea and Tapis Saint Maclou.

Neuhausen, Switzerland -- Tyco Retail Solutions has released TrueVue 5.0, the latest version of its flagship retail software suite and an extension of its TrueVue Retail Platform. With this new release, customers can now receive mobile reports via iOS devices to monitor key store performance metrics anywhere, anytime.

Denver -- Consumers are increasingly frustrated with location search, with many losing trust in brands due to outdated and inaccurate data, and even turning to competitor businesses. According to a new research report from location data services provider Placeable, “Be Found: Location-Based Marketing Insights,” consumers are all too often given outdated and incorrect information from search engines, mobile apps, directories and even brand websites.

By Pat Dermody, president, Retale

This is not a lecture about embracing digital. Chances are you have already heard that, read that, maybe even repeated it to yourself. If not, you had better hurry up.

Boca Raton, Fla. – Office Depot Inc. has named Juliet Johansson as executive VP and chief strategy officer, effective immediately. Johansson is a member of Office Depot’s executive committee and reports to Roland Smith, chairman and CEO of Office Depot Inc.

Minneapolis - Kevin Davidson has joined merchandising intelligence solutions provider Quantum Retail Technology Inc. as its CFO. Davidson brings more than 20 years of financial management and corporate development experience to Quantum and will report to CEO Steve Buege.

Davidson joins Quantum after serving as CEO of Critical Perfusion from 2012 to 2014. Previously he held C-level positions with BioDrain Medical Inc., OrthoRehab Inc., and was a managing director at Arthur Andersen LLP.

At the recent Oracle Industry Connect Conference held in Boston, a number of speakers from prominent retailers including Kohl’s, Hot Topic, and C. Wonder extolled the virtues of “vanilla” implementations of enterprise systems. In this context, vanilla means implementing an enterprise platform with all or many of that vendor’s applications, minimizing customization or use of one-off “best of breed” solutions.

Washington, D.C. – U.S. retailers reportedly have $300 million in refunds with ocean freight vendors, yet they are unaware of this because of invoice errors by their ocean freight transportation providers. According to a report from ocean freight auditing service Ocean Audit, problems with infrastructure of ocean freight carriers are also part of the issue.