With mass store closures by Sears, Toys “R” Us and other major brands, conventional wisdom says brick-and-mortar retail has one foot in the grave. Wrong. Online sales make up just nine percent of all retail sales, according to a new Deloitte study. The study also found that brick-and-mortar sales are actually growing — to the…

A few years ago, regional and midsized financial institutions raced to deploy customer-facing mobile apps, afraid of being left behind. When the dust settled, managers at many banks took a look around and realized that their apps were near copies of their competitors’. This was because most financial institutions launched their apps through their core…

Digital transformation is about digitizing manual and analog business tools and practices so organizations work better, such as operate more efficiently, be more responsive to customers or make smarter, more informed decisions. Many businesses — large and small — use radio frequency identification (RFID) technology as a key component of their digital transformation strategies. Here…

Many businesses know some portions of their data are extremely valuable, while others have no value. The problem is, they often don’t know how to identify, much less take advantage of, data that can make a difference. The Internet of Things exacerbates this dilemma by giving organizations even more data to store and sift through….

Retail really is all about the customer experience. For years, some observers have been saying that retail stores are on their way out, that they can’t keep up with online retailers who can sell customers the items they want at a lower cost, since they don’t have to maintain stores or pay a sales staff….

When I learned that one of my favorite stores had introduced the purchase option to buy online and pick up in the store (BOPIS), I was delighted. Then I tried it. I expected to be able to pick up my purchase quickly, bypassing the checkout lines. Instead, I was directed to the back of the…