Terry Jones, Founder of Travelocity.com and Chairman of Kayak.com, will deliver the keynote address at the National Retail Federation (NRF) 2011 IT Leadership Summit in Lake Tahoe. Additionally, Andy Laudato, CIO of Pier 1 Imports,will serve as the event’s official emcee.
Targeting senior-level IT executives, the conference is sponsored by Cisco, Oracle, salesforce.com among others and will feature turnkey insights delivered by executives from retail companies including: Abercombie & Fitch, Petco, Michael’s and Pizza Hut.
2011 NRFtech sessions will focus on IT retail topics, including:
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- Long-term Profitability
- Investing in the Cloud
- Exploiting Advances Optimization Capabilities
- Communicating with Stakeholders
Following are session overviews:
CIO’s Top Priority: Enabling Long-Term Profitability
With the rise in cost of goods and limited consumer confidence, retail organizations have felt the pressures of balancing profits and shareholder value. John Deane, SVP and CIO at Abercombie & Fitch along with Peter Haste, SFM of Profit Recovery at Wm Morrison Supermarkets will discuss approaches in creating a Profit Protection Hub with IT resources that convert an organizations data into actionable profit-maximizing insights.
Exploiting Advanced Optimization Capabilities In Core Retail Functions
The growing complexity of retail enables the effective use of analytics to achieve value faces significantly more challenging hurdles. STORE magazine editor Susan Reda will lead a discussion along with three leading CIOs on ways organizations are using analytics and optimization to drive business and improve results.
Main Street Vs. Wall Street: The Art Of Communicating With All Stakeholders
Retail analyst Brian Kilcourse and retail financial analyst Susan Anderson will offer their perspectives on where Main Street and Wall Street intersect and diverge. Additionally, the speakers will discuss IT’s role in guiding information assets and more.
Michael’s Transformational Journey To A World-Class Organization
In order to shift its business initiatives toward delivering inspiring and innovative merchandising, improving the customer experience, expanding store formats, and increasing profitability and improving sales, Michael’s chose to focus on seven key areas and utilize process changes as core drivers. In this session, Michael’s Stores’ VP of Profit and Process Improvement, Anu Gupta, will share insights on the ongoing transformation.
The New Geography Of Innovation
Combing speech, music and audience feedback, John Kao, Chairman of the Institute For Large Scale Innovation in Washington, DC, will touch on the importance of innovation, the process of innovation and how the future can be a design issue.
Pizza Hut’s Mobile Strategy ― A Practitioner’s Views And Experiences
Mobile technology has extended its outreach in the retail industry, through marketing and m-Commerce as well aspayments and operations. Pizza Hut CIO Baron Concors will discuss the company’s mobile strategy and how it has evolved since its inception. Concors also will talk about the restaurant chain’s efforts and success in driving customer engagement and satisfaction.
Successful Strategies for Unwarranted Patent Litigation
Although retailers are using cross-channel strategies, they often become victims of costly patent infringement litigation. Outlining these issues, Paul Reidy, SVP of Client Development for RPX Corporation, offers three strategies to that will helpto reduce the risks and associated costs.