Data & Analytics

Groupon has named Tamer Tamar as SVP of international operations and Sri Subramaniam as VP of engineering for smart deals.

“We’re thrilled to have Tamer and Sri join Groupon and bring their incredible talent to our expanding bench of senior executives,” said CEO Eric Lefkofsky. “Tamer and Sri will accelerate Groupon’s plans to grow our international operations and deliver more and more relevant deals to our customers throughout the world.”

J.C. Penney provided an ambiguous update on its holiday season performance, indicating it showed continued progress in its turnaround efforts and was “pleased” with its performance.

The company released a brief and vague statement Wednesday morning in which it noted, “customers responded well to the company’s offerings this holiday season, both in stores and online.”

The Container Store posted a better than expected profit performance during its first quarter as a public company but offered a full year outlook analysts found underwhelming.

Soft sales at leading home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond led to a puny comp increase of 1.3%, lower than expected third quarter profits and a downward revision to fourth quarter expectations.

While the vulnerabilities of Target's data systems were exposed during a recent data breach the company’s data centers were being hailed as a model of energy efficiency by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program.

Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing on Wednesday unveiled the ECRM Data website, ECRMData.com. ECRM Data is an industry solution that offers turnkey solutions for promotional tracking and analysis functions.

Leading specialty store retailer The Limited is working with analytics firm First Insight and had good things to say about how the tech company is impacting business at it 262 stores.

“By using First Insight to identify more winning products and price them correctly, our business will continue to increase its speed to market with the right styles at the right price”, said Diane Ellis, CEO of The Limited.  “The accuracy and scalability of the First Insight platform will drive our expanded approach to value delivery, including pricing and promotion.”

As the clicks and bricks went head-to-head in retail’s all-important holiday season, the “clicks” had already won the 2013 race to build new warehouse and distribution facilities. Winning the overall retail race is quickly becoming about being first from dock to doorstep and satiating customer’s hunger for insta-delivery. This means having the right infrastructure, particularly supporting facilities, in place.