By moving its ecommerce operations to Oracle Commerce, online health supplements retailer PureFormulas will take advantage of Oracle's multi-site architecture to support expansion, while significantly enhancing its customer experience and personalization capabilities

"We evaluated a large number of site search solutions, but kept coming back to Oracle Endeca," said Chris Brown, senior merchandise manager of e-commerce at Tilly's.

On their recent earnings (second quarter) call with analysts, Coldwater Creek CEO Jill Brown Dean and CFO/COO James Bell talked technology, specifically discussing the results of the company's implementation of the new Oracle-based inventory planning system.

Today's analytics enable retailers to understand what's happening across channels, from inventory availability to what and how customers are buying

In its October Issue, STORES Magazine features retailer Stein Mart's success with Oracle Retail Returns Management. "We feel this system fits our culture and heritage. We're servicing our good customers and chasing out the bad guys," says CIO Black.

Tilly's expects Oracle Endeca will help increase site visits and improve search engine rankings by making it easier for consumers to encounter the brand as they go online to seek information and products related to the West Coast inspired lifestyle and the sought-after brand rooted in action sports, music, art and fashion

As online demand flourishes, scalability and personalization help to define customer experience, sales and return visits. By moving its ecommerce operations to Oracle Commerce, health supplements leader and Internet Retailer Top 500 organization PureFormulas will take advantage of Oracle's multi-site architecture to support expansion, while significantly enhancing its customer experience and personalization capabilities.

Tesco CIO and CMO speak from main stage at Oracle OpenWorld. Central comments are captured here.

Cross-channel experiences are vital to customer experience. Recent customer experience studies of retail executives - by Oracle Corp. and Tata Consultancy Services - show that to 50% and 47% of respondents, respectively, cross-channel experiences are vital to providing overall customer experience.

At tech giant Oracle, Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail, says the biggest challenge facing retailers is breaking down existing siloed processes and data stores, as in information that is stored but not used day-to-day. "Customers look at online, mobile and in-store as essentially one thing - the brand they are interacting with," Webster says. "Retailers must align their business to meet this reality. Successful analytics initiatives require data from every part of the business that affects the customer experience. So it is not only online, mobile and in-store, but also supply chain and promotions."

CEO Jill Brown Dean: "What this system really gives us is the precision to plan floor set by floor set, week by week to ensure that each of our big businesses and each of our key categories is appropriately positioned in the preplanning phase and then appropriately reacted to, whether it is promotions, slowing down inventory in the supply chain, moving up inventory, the whole read-and-react thing. So it's giving us a precision around these big top 30 styles, which, as you said, really when we're successful, they're half our business. And it's just giving us a tremendous level of insight and visibility that we have not had." CFO and COO James Bell: "As an organization, we have worked diligently to develop many inventory management disciplines in recent years, but we're lacking adequate tools to fully maximize our inventory investment. This past March, we completed the implementation of a new Oracle-based inventory planning system. The capabilities of this new system are significantly more robust than anything we've used in the past, providing a level of transparency that represents a meaningful opportunity for us to drive more consistent sales and margin improvement over time as we become more proficient with this new capability."...

In addition to moving to a new e-commerce platform, Kohl's is also taking several other steps to make it easier for consumers to shop both in its stores and online, Mansell said

To help improve customer experience and increase inventory sell-through, Oracle has launched a new release of Oracle Retail Allocation that enables retailers to deliver the best assortment of products for each location using real-time inventory levels along with sales and planning information. "Smarter allocation is the last mile to improving customer experience and protecting margins," said Mike Webster, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Oracle Retail. "The latest update to Oracle Retail Allocation delivers deep retail functionality, actionable insight, and a user interface that makes sense for today's users."

"As consumers frequent online sites more than ever, they expect to engage with companies' customer service representatives while they are there," explained Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail.

Today, Hurd oversees the corporate direction and strategy for Oracle's global field operations, including marketing, sales, consulting, alliances and channels, and support. He focuses on strategy, leadership, innovation and customers. Susan Reda, editor of STORES Media, had the opportunity to chat with Hurd at Oracle's recent CrossTalk event.

At the Oracle Retail CrossTalk conference in June, key retail executives gathered in downtown Chicago seemed to agree on one thing: omnichannel gets all the buzz these days, and e-commerce is hot, hot, hot - but the brick-and-mortar store remains as important as ever.

The CIO has seen their role shift dramatically from an "IT guy" to someone who needs to understand business goals and issues and enable technology to address these needs. At Oracle's CrossTalk this year, I was able to speak with and listen to several CIOs and CTOs talk about their changing roles in retail...