Business Intelligence (BI)

Bentonville, Ark. -- Walmart announced a new search engine for Walmart.com. The new engine, named Polaris, was developed by a small team within @Wamart Labs,  the research and technology hub for innovation at Walmart. It uses semantic search technology to anticipate the intent of a shopper's search to deliver highly relevant results for them.  

TORONTO — Supervalu has agreed to use LoyaltyOne's Precima customer-centric analytics solution, to develop a multi-dimensional customer segmentation, LoyaltyOne announced.

Precima's multi-dimensional segmentation analysis will use customer data to help Supervalue better understand its customers and classify them in a way that translates into actionable insights, the company said. Those insights drive improvements with a goal of being more responsive to customer needs.

By Jim Hogan, [email protected]

The retail industry is a bellwether for U.S financial health given that consumer spending is roughly 60%-70% of the economy. While the economy has sent mixed signals of late -- consumer confidence down, unemployment up -- consumer credit has swung up decidedly and leading companies in a wide swath of retail segments can point to positive year-over-year same store sales. This is prompting some retailers -- particularly discount stores--to begin opening new stores.

Armonk, N.Y. -- IBM has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Kenexa, a provider of human resources software and consulting services for approximately $1.3 billion in cash.

The acquisition helps make the Armonk, N.Y., company more competitive with database maker Oracle Corp. and German business software maker SAP AG, said Rick Sherlund of Nomura Equity Research, Kenexa’s software is intended to help companies recruit and manage talent through online social networking, collaboration and consulting tools.

Walmart.com still has a lot of ground to make up on Amazon.com, but July was a step in the right direction as the company added more unique visitors and grew at a faster pace than Amazon.com.

The number of unique visitors to Walmart.com increased 16.8% I to 45.2 million and placed the company 23 on a top 50 Web properties report compiled monthly by the online measurement firm comScore Media Metrix. During July of 2011, Walmart.com ranked 25^{th with 38.7 million unique visitors.}

Waterloo, Ontario -- Axonify Inc. said Thursday that Toys ”R” Us Canada has selected Axonify’s next generation eLearning platform to deliver training content to its employees.

Axonify said it will assist Toys “R” Us Canada in integrating learning into the daily activities of its more than 5,000 associates, while providing a personalized experience that addresses a variety of generations, knowledge levels and learning styles.

By Taqi Mohiuddin, [email protected]

The stakes are rising in retailing. 

STERLING, Va. — Former Walmart executive David Hoodis has joined the corporate advisory board of Natural Insight, a private retail technology company engaged in workforce management.

“We feel privileged to have access to David’s respected experience in workforce innovation. His success with numerous leading retailers brings us an added perspective that enables us to stay even further ahead of market need,” stated Stefan Midford, president and CEO of Natural Insight in making the announcement.