Data & Analytics

The nation’s largest department store has increased its deployment of renewable energy.    Macy's Inc. said it installed 21 solar energy systems during the past year at Macy's and Bloomingdale's locations in seven states, totaling 15 meg-awatts. The deployments were done in partnership with SunPower. Elec-tricity generated by the new solar power systems will ultimately be sold to others.  

99 Cents Only Stores turned in a strong sales performance for its fourth quarter, even as its net loss grew amid rising expenses.   The retailer reported a net loss of $20.9 million for the quarter, versus a net loss of $18.4 million in the year ago period.   Net sales increased 6.7% to $552.5 million, while same-store sales rose 6.4%. Average ticket gained 4.4% and customer traffic increased 1.9%. Operating loss was $6.5 million versus $2.7 million in the period a year prior.  

The user experience is critical to e-commerce success, a factor that makes snafus in Web performance unacceptable.    Performance is so critical that even a 100-millisecond delay in website load time can hurt conversion rates by 7%. Meanwhile, a two-second delay in Web page load time increase bounce rates by 103%, according to the “State of Online Retail Performance,” a report from Akamai Technologies.   

VF Corp. is getting a new technology leader.   Martin Schneider, the company’s VP and CIO will retire at the end of 2017. Sandra Harris, VP, global business technology, will succeed Schneider as VP and CIO, effective Jan. 1, 2018. Harris also has been appointed to VF’s senior leadership team.  

Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank are not just enhancing customer experiences across their websites — they are personalizing them.   

Target Corp. is losing a senior digital executive.   Casey Carl, chief innovation and strategy officer, is leaving the retailer, effective May 5. His departure, first reported by The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, comes as the chain has been reducing some of its innovation initiatives, including a store of the future with robots, to focus on efforts that have a faster payback.   

UPS is taking steps to improve order accuracy.   A new program called Preload Smart Scan notifies workers if they have placed an item in the wrong delivery vehicle. Historically, these snafus forced drivers to travel miles out of their way to correct the mistakes.  

Senior executives must be ready to tackle the legal and business risks associated with cyberthreats — even before they happen.   This means companies must establish enterprise-wide tactics to identify risks, appraise response metrics and apply company-specific risk mitigation strategies, according to the “2017 Data Security Incident Response Report,” from BakerHostetler. The study analyzed more than 450 cyber incidents that the firm handled last year.