Business Intelligence (BI)

By William F. Hauswirth, president of IntelliCorp

You review the resume, conduct the interview, pick the perfect candidate, and make a job offer. Now you have the person start immediately, right? Wrong. What you don’t know about a job applicant can hurt you. It’s not good business practice to hire just anyone who walks through your door. You need to know who they are, and their history. Don’t be a victim of deceit by simply looking at a resume or take someone’s word that they are honest and qualified.

Dallas -- Retalix announced Tuesday that grocery chain Tops Markets has selected Retalix’s StoreLine point-of-sale software application to lower the cost of ownership and increase the functionality of its front-end operations.

According to Tops, the chain was looking to upgrade its legacy POS software as part of a larger initiative to enhance customer service.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — MyBuys, a leader in cross-channel personalization for retailers, announced that Neil Patil has joined the company as SVP marketing.

New York City -- Finish Line has chosen Maxymiser, a global expert in conversion rate optimization solutions, to perform website testing and segmentation for finishline.com. Maxymiser will help Finish Line successfully implement website optimization to improve the online customer experience and achieve business goals.

New York City -- Sam’s Club has selected DemandTec’s Deal Management software service to enhance its eValues program.

Little reason to believe Sam’s Club won’t easily meet or possibly exceed second-quarter same-store guidance that calls for an increase of 3% to 5%, following reports this week from Costco and BJ’s Wholesale club. Sam’s results correlate closely to its warehouse club rivals, and they both reported solid gains even after excluding the distorting effect of higher year-over-year gas prices.

By Scott Zimmerman

The days of collecting customer feedback through an annual survey are over.  Today, retailers are utilizing online and mobile tools that not only serve as “real-time” feedback mechanisms, but also act as bustling hubs of customer conversations and activity online.

Reading, England -- Tesco has committed to the Microsoft platform in an eight year, world-wide agreement. The deal is designed to enable the U.K.-based retailer to improve productivity, decision-making, knowledge sharing and operational excellence across the 14 countries in which it currently operates.

The agreement will underpin Tesco’s strategic objectives of growing its international presence; expanding its non-food business; and offering a broad selection of retail services such as banking, online and mobile. 
 

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Winn-Dixie Stores announced that it expects to report net sales of approximately $6.9 billion compared with $7 billion for the prior fiscal year (which included an extra week), reflecting a 0.1% decrease in identical-store sales. Net loss from continuing operations is expected to be approximately $30 million or 54 cents per diluted share, compared with net income from continuing operations of $37 million or 67 cents per diluted share for fiscal 2010. 

San Francisco -- Survey results released by online customer experience management software provider Tealeaf and mobile feedback solution-provider OpinionLab found that the majority of e-business and customer experience professionals feel that the mobile experience is as important as that of a fixed website.