By Evan Schuman At a recent industry conference, Whole Foods Co-CEO John Mackey was talking about the challenges of retail competition when he made an intriguing point. Amazon.com is positioned, he said, to subsidize its partner pricing indefinitely, thereby harming competitors by forcing them to sell at lower-than-sustainable prices. To be fair, his broader point…
Category: IDG Contributor Network
IDG Contributor Network
IDG Contributor Network: Think in-store is dying? Check out Ulta Beauty
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By Evan Schuman What has Ulta Beauty figured out that still eludes so many brick-and-mortar retailers? That in-store is about the experience and that brick-and-mortars need to deliver services and goods in a way that e-tailers cannot. By their very nature, e-tailers have the advantage on price, convenience and inventory range — and same-day delivery…
IDG Contributor Network: The retail EMV quagmire
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By Evan Schuman Retailers have this love-hate relationship with EMV, in that they love to hate EMV. It’s slow, cumbersome, alienates customers and until a store fully deploys it, the liability shift is expensive. There’s also a reasonable argument that the liability shift is not fair to merchants, since they are being punished for something…
IDG Contributor Network: Walmart went nuclear and banned Visa from Canada
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By Evan Schuman Sometimes, a bold strategic move can be both surprising and long overdue. Walmart’s decision this week to ban Visa from its Canadian stores is one of those instances. Walmart and Visa have been blood enemies for as long as anyone can remember. And Walmart holds grudges; it’s part of its corporate culture.…
IDG Contributor Network: How to build a thriving information security function despite the talent shortage
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By Robert C. Covington It seems that the industry has reached a nearly unanimous conclusion about a key essential for tight information security — people. You don’t have to look at online job postings for long to recognize that most of the posted IT jobs relate to information security, with employers attempting to fill many…
IDG Contributor Network: Don’t make poets become programmers
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By Kris Hammond Computers are now part of everything we do. Resultantly, there is a growing assumption that everyone is going to have to master programming in addition to their other skills. Just as there was a push towards “data literacy,” we are seeing a similar push towards “code literacy.” The industry’s current approach to…
IDG Contributor Network: Three reasons you should care about technology asset management
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By Robert C. Covington I am a frequent visitor to the busy outlet of Jason’s Deli (in my mind, one of the best-managed chains in the food business). A few months ago, I came in at lunch and tried to use the automated kiosk to order the salad bar. The kiosk software was not running,…
IDG Contributor Network: 5 steps to simple role-based access control
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By Robert C. Covington Source:: IT Management
IDG Contributor Network: Audits: pain or gain?
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By Norm Brien Source:: IT Management
IDG Contributor Network: Digital business ecosystems and platforms: 5 new rules for innovators
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By Nicholas D. Evans Source:: IT Management