Information Technology for Retail is a concise yet comprehensive book for students pursuing post- and under-graduate courses in retail management. The book elaborates functions and sub functions of retailing. These form the main part of retail operations and are being facilitated by IT these days. Beginning with the basics of information technology and information systems, the book goes on to elaborate on the hardware and software of e-point of sales, automatic identification and data capture, database management systems, network and telecommunication. It discusses retail servicescape and types of retailers, modern electronic payment systems, enterprise resource planning systems and their functions and features in the retail context. It also covers applications of supply chain management and customer relationship management, electronic commerce--e-tailing, emerging technologies like mobile computing, m-commerce, global positioning systems, and also various retail IT products and vendors. The book illustrates the theories with practical retail scenario examples. This book will be useful for retail students and also for professionals working in retail businesses.

This book gathers together research from three key application themes of modelling in operational research - modelling to support evaluation and change in organisations; modelling within the development and use of organisational information systems; and the use of modelling approaches to support, enable and enhance decision support in organisational contexts. The issues raised provide valuable insight into the range of ways in which operational research techniques and practices are being successfully applied in today's information-centred business world. Modelling for Added Value provides a window onto current research and practise in modelling techniques and highlights their rising importance across the business, industrial and commercial sectors. The book contains contributions from a mix of academics and practitioners and covers a range of complex and diverse modelling issues, highlighting the broad appeal of this increasingly important subject area.

The modern retail system has worked to dazzling effect. From the 19th century, store owners emerged from small beginnings to set in train an industry that has seen some operators become nationally, even globally, dominant. Along the way, they turned retailing into an art, and then a science. Now retailers in emerging markets appear to be repeating the story all over again, except on a scale and at a speed beyond anything we have seen before. Given all of this, it can be hard for those who work in retailing to accept that the industry as we know it is living on borrowed time, on the brink of transformation. There is now an urgency with which conventional store-based retailers must now act and the extent of the challenges this change represents in strategic, organizational, and above all, technological terms. Reshaping Retail sets out the driving causes, current trends and consequences of a transformation in retail triggered by technology. The changes go far beyond making items available for sale on the internet. Starting by briefly setting the historical and business system contexts for retail and describe the role that technology has played in the creation of modern retail it then explains the underlying technological drivers behind the current revolution – radical changes in the capacity of both hardware and software, mobile telecommunications changes and the advances of the Internet. Ultimately, success will hinge on more than competence; it will come down to a way of thinking. Customer-centricity will need to be valued not just by the store owner, as in the past, but also by all employees in the organization. It will need to become embedded in their daily tasks. The same applies to technology, which must be at the center of the organization and recognized as such by everyone. With a combination of extensive desk and field research, interviews with leading retailers and technologists, together with the real world experience of practitioners in this area, Reshaping Retail will inspire and help store retailers to make the necessary transformation now to win in the new consumer driven world.

Retailing today is one of the largest, most buoyant and most competitive market sectors. The large, medium and small retailers, providers of systems are the major players in this market. The exploitation of information technology and the use of quantitative corporate models are emerging as key factors in determining the strength and effectiveness of marketing plans and support logistics. Many major retailers have developed considerable in-house expertise in this area and many hard ware manufacturers and systems houses have created special divisions to provide turn-key installations, products and services in order to exploit these opportunities. However, in the research leading up to the seminar on which this book is based, a number of important gaps in retailer useage of systems were noted. While many retailers, including the large multiples, had very sophisticated electronic point of sales devices, the information that was available was not being used to plan effective marketing and selling strategies, nor yet to plan for growth. In the medium and smaller companies there was still concern whether electronic point of sales were cost effective for them or whether being without such aids put them at a grave disadvantage vis-a-vis their larger competitors.

The Association of Retail Technology Standards is an organization of retailers and vendors who have come together to create an extensive set of standards to reduce the cost and time for upgrading existing applications or adding new capabilities. To understand the depth of support that ARTS offers, consider that the granddaddy of ARTS standards, the ARTS Data Model, has more than seven hundred tables and seven thousand attributes. In this new guide, author Richard Halter reveals how ARTS standards can help your business turn more consumers into customers and maximize profits. You can learn how to communicate better with potential customers; harness the power of social retailing; boost the success of promotions and discounts; and organize your store to maximize sales. Written in a language that everyone can understand, this guidebook explains how ARTS works together to help retailers and vendors. Take your business to a higher performing level and put more money in your pocket with ARTS for Retail.

In this edited volume the editors highlight the relative importance of European actors in the globalization of technological change by documenting developments in France, Germany, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. Developments in Europe sit side by side with those in Mexico and the USA.