OPERATIONS / SUPPLY CHAIN

Phoenix -- PetSmart Inc. announced changes to its management team in conjunction with the retirement of its president and COO, Joseph O’Leary.

PetSmart CEO, David Lenhardt, will assume the title of president and CEO when O’Leary steps down. The company will not replace the COO position. Instead it will realign the responsibilities among four newly created executive VP positions, with Lenhardt assuming the title of president and CEO, with the changes effective April 4, 2014.   

New York -- SAP AG  announced the launch of SAP Shopper Experience a personalized and engaging retail mobile app that transforms the entire consumer shopping experience with social media sharing, loyalty programs and a self-payment system for shoppers.

SAP also released the latest version of the SAP Retail Store Ops Associate mobile app, which allows store associates to execute core merchandising, inventory and customer service functions directly from the shop floor without leaving a consumer’s side.

New York -- Following news that luxury giant Neiman Marcus experienced network breaches over the holiday shopping season, similar to those of Target Corp., unidentified sources told Reuters that at least three other attacks on well-known merchants could be revealed in the coming weeks.

Irvine, Calif. -- Statistics released by The Retail Equation, gathered during the seven days after Christmas, revealed that the Midwest states had the highest rate of returns, when comparing total dollars purchased to total dollars returned and exchanged.

Dallas – A majority of consumers find point-of-sale (POS) prompts, such as discount alerts on their mobile devices an invasion of their privacy. According to a recent website poll from CompuCom, respondents were asked, “Do you find point-of-sale technology prompts, such as a customized alert for discounts upon entering a store”: 63% said it is Big Brother-ish/intrusive while 37% said it is helpful and cool.

The poll collected 307 responses from IT professionals across multiple industries from Nov. 16, 2013 through Dec. 17, 2013.

New York – There were increases in total time to live agent, a metric that measures how long it takes o reach a human customer service representative, including time spent navigating interactive voice response systems (IVRs), during the initial aftermath of the December 2013 Target data breach.

New York -- Sam Martin, president and CEO of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., has left the company, Produce News reported.

Naples, Fla. - Retail and consumer products industry veterans Vince Burke, Jim Gillis and Rich Juliano have founded of the Burke Gillis Juliano Group, a global consultancy focused on the supermarket, mass retail, convenience, drug and specialty retail trade channels. Burke Gillis Juliano Group offers executive management, market strategy, mergers & acquisitions, private equity, business development, product marketing, trade relations and related services to retailers, suppliers and vendors in the U.S. and globally.