POS Software Point of Sale Software Hardware GPS Security Camera
Bar Code


Industry News - December 5th, 2008

 

RETAIL AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS


AMR Analyst Fontanella Dies 

John Fontanella, vice president of research at AMR Research and a respected analyst of the retail and supply chain industries, died this past Sunday. He was 60.

Fontanella, who initially joined Boston-based AMR in 1998 and after a brief hiatus returned in 2006 as vice president of research, was responsible for studying radio frequency identification technology and applications, the wholesale distribution industry, global trade, supply chain visibility, supply chain security, and supply chain event management. During his time with AMR, he authored or co-authored hundreds of analytic reports on a vast breadth of industry topics.

From 2004 to 2006, Fontanella served as a senior vice president of research services at Aberdeen Group, and vice president of supply chain services at Yankee Group.

Prior to joining AMR in 1998, Fontanella's lengthy career included serving as director of worldwide logistics for Microsoft and 15 years with Digital Equipment in a variety of operations and marketing positions, including U.S. distribution manager and head of the firm's supply chain consulting practice.

Fontanella is survived by his son Steve, American Shipper's East Coast sales manager; daughter Jessie; and his partner Martha Hunter.

Condolences, cards and/or flowers can be sent to the Fontanella Family, 51 Rockledge Dr., North Falmouth, MA 02556.


 

Sephora Goes Live with Warehouse Management System

Sephora goes live with warehouse management from RedPrairie at its Salt Lake City, Utah distribution center. The system will support Sephora's multi-channel business, directing shipments to both retail outlets, as well as customers purchasing on Sephora.com by mid-2009.

Sephora chose to partner with RedPrairie for its software's advanced service-oriented architecture (SOA), experience in high-transaction environments and Workforce Management application. RedPrairie also supports Sephora's Maryland distribution center, servicing 115 stores. The two distribution centers together will service 100% of Sephora's North American output.

"When Sephora first selected RedPrairie, we were looking for a supply chain partner who could support both retail and direct-to-consumer operations in a single facility," says Janet Hanson, CIO, Sephora. "The two shipping processes are very different, so the application had to be very adaptable, and flexible. RedPrairie had the retail expertise we were looking for, with a product we could deploy on our own technology platform."


 

Phillips Van Heusen Streamlines Product Lifecycle Management

Phillips Van Heusen enhances its supply chain management capabilities with a product lifecycle management (PLM) system from ecVision. The retailer deploys XpressCommerce, a Web-based, role-based application server as a common platform to consolidate pre-production tracking data, standardize product costing and provide a means of collaboration across the globally distributed network.

ecVision's system rovides the retailer with a supplier management process that helps ensure that brand quality, competitive pricing and better product delivery dates are achieved.

"We believe this technology will tightly mesh our supplier and sourcing operations around the world while delivering greater value chain benefits to our customers," says Don Grant, group vice president IT, Phillips Van Heusen. "We are impressed with ecVision's agility to work with our internal teams at multiple levels to implement a solution that will enhance our sourcing operations."


 

American Greetings Selects Capgemini to Support Technology Implementation

American Greetings selects Capgemini as its systems integrator for a multi-year technology implementation initiative. American Greetings selects Capgemini for this project to help the company implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite and standardize many areas of operations.

Capgemini will work with American Greetings to implement a technology platform designed to provide more comprehensive and real-time information to make the business more efficient. The technology platform will be based on the latest version of SAP for Retail; a single global ERP system that provides American Greetings with access to real-time data to make operations more efficient.

Capgemini will combine technology and consulting services with retail and consumer products industry insight to help American Greetings focus on its core business and evolve the business model for current and future market conditions. Capgemini also will utilize its Rapid Design and Visualization application development accelerator which helps American Greetings visualize prototypes of applications before a single line of code is written.


 

QuantiSense Launches "Developing Your Playbook"

QuantiSense announces a new technology and management consulting offering, "Developing Your Playbook," designed to help retailers implement Business Intelligence (BI) best practices throughout their organization and fully leverage their BI software.

Developing Your Playbook was created to help retailers maximize the value of their BI investments and to remove their frustration with inadequate reporting. It uses many of the techniques employed in the QuantiSense packaged BI application and QuantiSense Playbooks, a collection of role-based scenarios or "plays" and situation analysis - such as allocating the right merchandise to the right stores to prevent costly out-of-stocks and overstocks, or identifying when orders should be cancelled or accelerated.

Developing Your Playbook pinpoints business challenges and opportunities and guides users down the path of action. As part of the offering, QuantiSense:

- Tracks the retailer's specific responsibilities for buyers, planners, allocators, store management, executives and other retail roles, then maps this to the QuantiSense model

- Surveys users to determine critical information and common problems for each role

- Develops a unique set of plays - the retailer's "game plan" for daily business - pulling the most appropriate and valuable plays from the full range contained within the QuantiSense Playbook

- Evaluates the retailer's current data warehouse and BI infrastructure, and creates a strategy for enhancing it to support the newly developed "plays"

- Works with retailers on how to obtain "quick strike" results with BI and how best to implement the Playbooks - through in-house IT resources, third-party consultants or by QuantiSense Professional Services.


 

DemandTec Launches Price-to-Win Recession Package

DemandTec releases DemandTec Price-to-Win Recession Package, a bundled offering for retail grocers to address specific pricing challenges given the current economic environment.

The DemandTec Price-to-Win Recession Package provides grocery retailers with a bundle of services to help understand changing consumer behavior and optimize pricing for key categories directly impacted by current economic trends.

The DemandTec Price-to-Win Recession Package includes:

-Recommended (but configurable) strategies for 10 key categories

- Price optimization software access for unlimited users

- Software-as-a-Service simplicity - no server to buy or IT maintenance required; only a
Web browser required

- Flexible term subscription plans

- Consulting, training and implementation services to deliver optimized prices to stores within 90 days

- Measurement to understand project ROI and rapidly respond to changing economic conditions


 

More Technology News
 

 


News Archives

[ [ Home ] . [ POS Hardware ] . [ POS Software ]. [ Security & ID]. . [ News ]. [ About Us ] . [ Clients ] . ]