Oracle Retail GM Jill Puleri, on how retailers are using stores to redefine the shopping experience

A conversation with Gordmans CIO Richard Heyman.

...To superpower its innovation capabilities Kohl's selected Oracle Commerce to power its e-commerce engine. The Digital Center worked with Oracle to customize the solution to fit the retailer's specifications and ensure that the platform was prepared not only for today's requirements, but tomorrow's challenges.

...To superpower its innovation capabilities Kohl's selected Oracle Commerce to power its e-commerce engine. The Digital Center worked with Oracle to customize the solution to fit the retailer's specifications and ensure that the platform was prepared not only for today's requirements, but tomorrow's challenges.

BJ's recently went through a major upgrade of its XBR system when it served as Oracle's beta site for XBRi, a cloud-based version that uses a front-end analytics and reporting tool called Ingenium. "The new tool has several components that have helped us," says assistant VP of asset protection Brendan Fitzgerald. "It comes with a series of canned reports that we have been able to modify to meet the needs of our business. One thing we're doing is creating subscriptions for our regional asset protection managers to review weekly, which gives them a look at their region and their clubs. We've also been able to use the available functionality of those reports to send a weekly set of reports to our clubs that they can use to investigate activity and identify cases."

As retailers enter new markets, improve the online shopping experience, or expand a product category, underlying technologies can determine the success, speed to market and profitability of each venture. In his annual list of strategic issues for the CIO, tech blogger and Oracle Chief Communications Officer Bob Evans estimates that CIOs will fulfill multiple roles and tackle some key business priorities as they work alongside their peers to effect business change and growth.

The ever-accelerating pace of change in retail puts pressure on everyone within the retail enterprise, but perhaps no one feels it more acutely than the CIO.

"Retailers looking for agility, performance, and cost predictability are increasingly considering the cloud," said Jill Puleri, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail. "The new Oracle Retail Cloud Services help eliminate the time and cost constraints that too often hamper retailers' ability to respond to new opportunities for growth. Just as important, Oracle Retail Cloud Services allow retailers to focus on their business and work on strategic projects that add value to the business."

Internet Retailer - Technology/E-commerce Platforms - Oracle Announces Oracle Retail Cloud Services

technologies

The six new Oracle Retail cloud services are aimed at providing retailers with fast access to enterprise-grade applications for managing critical e-commerce, customer engagement, order management, order fulfillment, loss prevention, and brand compliance operations.

New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway makes a strong case that pure-play retailers, whether just brick-and-mortar or just e-commerce, are doomed. He predicts that Amazon will stumble as stores beef up their e-commerce and especially their fulfillment options. Others don't buy that, saying that Amazon is in many ways as special as Jeff Bezos seems to think it is. "I disagree," writes Oracle's David Dorf in his Commerce Anywhere blog of Galloway's assertions. "Not because the logic is flawed, but rather because Amazon is not a typical retailer. I believe they could be profitable if they wanted to but instead choose to continue investing in widening their competitive moat. Not only is their retail business state-of-the-art, but their investments in AWS, tablets, payments, IoT, etc. are complementary, and help to diversify the business (yes, they can do both). Amazon is not your typical pure-play."

Larry Havlik, VP of IT and Systems at Lids Sports Group: "This is a significant step toward driving growth, by expanding the items we offer and giving customers the full benefit of our locations, in-store service and e-Commerce site."

As part of a technology upgrade that includes a migration to Oracle's MICROS Xstore (now Oracle Retail Xstore), Lids rolled out Oracle's MICROS Retail Locate (now Oracle Retail Order Broker Cloud Service), enabling the retailer to nearly double the number of product SKUs available for sale online by exposing inventory in all Lids stores as well as throughout its supply chain. The specialty retailer's omnichannel inventory increases available SKUs while helping customers and associates easily find team-specific items online and in-store.

Internet Retailer - Technology/Order Management - Lids Sports Group Opens Up Inventory Across Channels With Oracle Retail Solutions

US retailer Lids Sports Group is rolling out Oracle solutions as it looks to make its entire inventory of team-specific sports apparel and memorabilia available in-store, online, or via mobile. As part of a technology upgrade that includes a migration to Oracle's MICROS Xstore (now Oracle Retail Xstore), Lids rolled out MICROS Retail Locate (now Oracle Retail Order Broker Cloud Service), enabling it to nearly double the number of product SKUs available for sale online by exposing inventory in all Lids stores as well as throughout its supply chain.

Lids Sports Group is upgrading to a new Oracle Retail POS solution that will simplify administration and the user experience for the more than 50 different POS screen and receipt configurations for the retailer's partner brands.

"By rolling the new Oracle Retail solutions out in conjunction with the Canada expansion, we are able to fully evaluate and understand the new features and functionality before impacting our remaining store operations," said Bill Tucker, VP of Technology at Nordstrom. "As we put the Oracle solutions in place across the business, we are positioned to take immediate advantage of new features, performance, and functionality enhancements in Oracle Retail 14.1."

As part of a technology upgrade that includes a migration to Oracle's MICROS Xstore (now Oracle Retail Xstore), Lids rolled out Oracle's MICROS Retail Locate (now Oracle Retail Order Broker Cloud Service), enabling the retailer to nearly double the number of product SKUs available for sale online by exposing inventory in all Lids stores as well as throughout its supply chain.

Specialty retailer uses Oracle to help increase available inventory while helping customers and associates easily find items online and at over 1,300 locations nationwide.

News coverage of the Oracle Retail Cloud news release. The article states that the new cloud services are focus on helping retailers track their business-wide activity. The reporter notes in the Author's view section that, "by building out its Retail Cloud offering, Oracle appears to be making a strong play for the retail sector, across both online and physical stores. It is likely a push into vertical markets is a bid by Oracle to gain a competitive edge against rivals in the cloud market, such as SAP, IBM and Salesforce."