Business Intelligence (BI)

Woonsocket, R.I. -- A report on Friday by the Wall Street Journal said that CVS Caremark CIO Stuart McGuigan has left the drugstore retailer, and will be holding the same position at Johnson & Johnson.

According to the report, originally published in CIO Journal, McGuigan will begin work later this month at J&J.

McGuigan joined CVS Caremark in 2008, and oversaw the post-merger IT integration of CVS and Caremark following their deal, which was completed in early 2007.
 

Fort Worth, Texas -- Rug Doctor said that it has chosen customer analytics firm Buxton to assist with the company’s customer relationship management strategy.

By Tony Burton, [email protected]

Tax season is upon us and retailers are aiming to get all of their ducks in a row. Yet, there are a number of complicated tax issues that are difficult for retailers to manage and many will be worrying about audits and penalties after they have filed. During an audit, numerous U.S. retailers discover that inaccurate or outdated geolocational data has led them to take too much or too little tax on customer payments or employee withholdings.

PHILADELPHIA — Pep Boys sales were up in the fourth quarter, but were earnings were down on merger costs and other expenses. The company reported that sales for the thirteen weeks ended Jan. 28 increased by $27.9 million, or 5.9%, to $505.3 million from $477.4 million for the thirteen weeks ended Jan. 29, 2011. Comparable sales increased slightly (0.8%) and consisted of a decrease of 0.1% in comparable service revenue and an increase of 1% in comparable merchandise sales.

Seattle -- ExtraHop Networks, a provider of network-based application performance management (APM) solutions, announced that it has won four new customers in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region, including Axstores, a retail group in the Nordic region with more than 390 beauty, fashion, home furnishing, and department stores.

NEW YORK — Saks Inc. has selected Oracle's retail merchandising, planning and optimization applications and the Oracle e-business suite 12.1 to help integrate business operations and improve margins and profitability across all channels.

The implementation is part of a business-wide initiative by Saks to establish a modern, flexible and scalable IT platform that will provide finance, human resources, merchandising, commerce and store operations teams with real-time, mobile access to sales, inventory and performance data they require.

By Christine Wheeler, [email protected]

Thanks to wireless technology, carts with on-board power supplies are opening up new frontiers of efficiency, productivity, and profitability in retail stores and distribution centers. These mobile powered workstations (MPWs) carry computers, barcode scanners, and printers of all kinds, reducing foot travel and paperwork wherever they go.

New York -- Saks Inc. has selected Oracle's retail merchandising, planning and optimization applications and the Oracle e-business suite 12.1 to help integrate business operations and improve margins and profitability across all channels.

The implementation is part of a business-wide initiative by Saks to establish a modern, flexible and scalable IT platform that will provide finance, human resources, merchandising, commerce and store operations teams with real-time, mobile access to sales, inventory and performance data they require.

Columbia, Md. -- Micros Systems  announced that Bertucci’s Italian Restaurant has expanded its partnership with Micros through the deployment of Micros webOrdering, a fully integrated online ordering program, and the cloud-based back-office platform, mymicros.net.

NEW YORK — The Consumer Confidence Index from the Conference Board fall slightly in March to 70.2 from 71.6 in February. 

"Consumer Confidence pulled back slightly in March, after rising sharply in February,” said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center. “The moderate decline was due solely to a less favorable short-term outlook, while consumers’ assessment of current conditions, on the other hand, continued to improve.”