Business Intelligence (BI)

Armonk, N.Y. -- IBM announced that S&S Worldwide grew recommendation sales 75% in just three months with IBM Smarter Commerce software in the cloud.  S&S is a national distributor of sporting goods products for recreation, health care, and education professionals and is using IBM software to drive personalized product recommendation sales via its Web sites.

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.