Archive for February, 2007
Credit Card Insecurity
The PCI Security Standards Council, the consortium including Visa, Mastercard, Discover, JCB, and American Express, mandated that Tier 1, 2, and 3 merchants (those that handle more than 6 million transactions per year, those with 150K to 6 million transactions a year, and those with 20K to 150K transactions a year, respectively) should be in [...]
Taking Your Company’s Operational Pulse
Bob Betke, vice president of F. Curtis Barry & Company, talks about F. Curtis Barry & Company’s innovative Benchmarking ShareGroups, celebrating their eleventh anniversary this year. ShareGroups cover a range of topics, including warehousing/pick, pack and ship, retail replenishment, forecasting and inventory management, and call center/customer contact center.
To learn more visit the “Continue Reading” link [...]
Crutchfield Chooses JunctionMCR
A major direct marketer of consumer electronics products, the Crutchfield Corporation, has decided to use Junction Solutions’ JunctionMCR solution to supply merchandising information to its Web applications, call center applications, and POS locations. Lincolnshire, IL-based Junction Solutions is a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner offering industry-specific functionality built on the latest standard technologies from Microsoft. JunctionMCR [...]
Business Intelligence Firm Gets Investment Boost
On-demand business intelligence software OCO, Inc., has received $10 million in a Series C financing from investment funds managed by Highfields Capital Management LP, based in Boston, MA. The investment positions OCO to consolidate its first-to-market position in on-demand business intelligence.
OCO’s on-demand data integration and analysis software can dramatically reduce the time, cost, and risk [...]
New Sales VP at Sigma Micro
Multichannel retail solutions provider Sigma Micro LLC has announced that John Roth has joined the company as vice president, sales. Roth has over ten years of previous experience with software, retail, sales, and business development at companies such as Voxware Incorporated, Mincron Software, Manhattan Associates LLC, and EDS. Sigma Micro president Joe Swern says Roth’s [...]
Deal on Wheels
Tire Factory, the Portland, OR-based tire retail chain made up of independent dealers in the West, has decided on a new, integrated point-of-sale and ERP system. Tire Factory’s choice is JunctionISS from Junction Solutions, headquartered in Lincolnshire, IL. Junction ISS will be integrated to Microsoft Dynamics AX to provide a comprehensive enterprise resource planning system.
JunctionISS [...]
Year-end Pt. II: Traffic Jam
We just finished the merchandising review for the holiday season with a major gift and home catalog. In this four-drop season, the first two drops (dated 08/30/06, and 09/27/06) did +9.5% and +2.2% above plan, respectively.
However, the later two drops were far below plan, even though there were no major differences in the circulation make-up [...]
Victoria’s Secret Opts for On-demand E-commerce Solutions
It’s a sure sign of changing times when a $1.3 billion direct-to-customer, multichannel business decides to switch to a software-as-a-service platform. Victoria’s Secret has announced that it intends to do just that by the end of 2007, using a platform developed by n2N Commerce, the e-commerce group spun off from Limited Brands (not coincidentally, the [...]
Year-end Pt. 1: Frustration for Catalogers
Postal reform is definitely a good thing, and maybe a little more wouldn’t hurt. We are hearing from clients that the last two drops of the year were below plan. For example, a Chicago catalog and e-commerce marketing manager wrote us in mid-January:
Thought you would find it interesting that I received eleven 2006 holiday catalogs [...]
It’s Not Really Magic – Warehouse Benchmarking
What may seem like a rabbit out of the hat is usually the result of experience, and that applies to good advice in operations consulting as well as to magic. For instance, in a current interview Ken McKinney, director of distribution for Urban Outfitters, mentions F. Curtis Barry & Company in connection with his “welcome [...]
