ERI eXchange Awards: Extended Retail Industry Awards Winners Announced
Retail Systems Alert Group (RSAG), organizers of ERI eXchange, The Conference & Expo for the Extended Retail Industry, announced recently the winners of the 2007 Extended Retail Industry Awards.
ERI eXchange incorporates the annual Retail Systems Conference & Exposition while extending its reach beyond technology to the key business issues facing the extended retail industry today. The event was held June 4-7, 2007 at the new Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC) in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Extended Retail Industry Awards, sponsored by CITTIO and Torex Retail, honored retail winners that are outstanding examples of behavioral and technological applications resulting in more effective customer service and improved business processes. These awards recognize individuals and companies whose efforts have created best-in-class firms and raised standards throughout the industry. They celebrate retail and consumer products companies who execute with precision and who use technology to improve top-line performance. The Awards were presented at a ceremony and reception on June 5, 2007 at ERI eXchange.
2007 Extended Retail Industry Winners include:
Best in Multi-Channel or Online Retailing
AutoZone, Inc. for the company's "Z-Net," a Web-delivered tool with parts information delivering seamless extended look up at other AutoZone stores, Special Order and Salvage, and giving part features and functionality, differences between good, better, and best products, and step-by-step repair information at every staff member's fingertips.
Excellence in Integration
Giant Eagle, Inc. for creating an open, standards-based IT infrastructure to handle all of its SOA processes, and for its strategic technology investments that have reduced point-to-point integration interfaces and significantly decreased the amount of time required to bring applications online and allowing the supermarket chain to be better prepared for any new bends in the road that the future may present.
Best in Technology Innovation
Boekhandels Groep Nederland (BGN) - selexyz bookstores for its RFID-based inventory identification and tracking at the item level, which allows customers and associates real-time insight into product availability and location within the store via natural language query kiosks, helps eliminate physical inspection at the store stock room, and allows transaction, store-level inventory, and replenishment process integration with appropriate stock position and zero human intervention.
Best in Product Innovation
First Act Inc. for the musical instrument manufacturer/retailer's forward thinking development of the First Act GarageMaster guitar, which plays through a car's audio system, and its collaboration with similarly brand-conscious Volkswagen, so that each 2006 new purchase or lease of a VW Jetta, GLI, GTI, Rabbit, New Beetle, and New Beetle Convertible was accompanied by a complimentary custom-designed GarageMaster guitar.
Best in Customer Experience
El Dorado Furniture Corporation for the many customer-oriented services offered by the affordable furniture retailer, including same day delivery (offered for 7 years now), personal calls to purchasers after receipt of delivery, delivery driver and third-party logistics provider commission structures based on customer ratings, everyday low prices, and a unique, "kid-friendly" store concept, all creating a sense of trust that engenders repeat business and customer loyalty.
Extended Retail Industry Career Achievement Award
The winner of the Extended Retail Industry Career Achievement Award is Scott Friend, Venture Partner, Bain Capital Ventures.
Scott Friend has been a pioneer and key driver in changing the way Wall Street and the investment community assesses the value of retail technology. Today, most savvy investors understand the important role technology plays in driving retailing success through top-line and gross margin improvements.
Along with his overarching efforts in support of technology, Scott helped completely change a very basic part of retail: the process of taking markdowns. Markdown optimization, which takes much of the guesswork out of how much and when to take markdowns, went from leading-edge to mainstream in just five years.
Prior to joining Bain Capital Ventures, a leading Boston-based venture capital firm, as a Venture Partner in 2006, Scott served as Chairman of the Executive Advisory Board and VP of Marketing & Science for Oracle Retail. Scott was the President and co-founder of ProfitLogic, a leading provider of profit optimization solutions and a Bain Capital portfolio company that was acquired by Oracle in 2005. Scott also held positions at Learning Sciences Corporation, The Parthenon Group and IBM.
In 2005, Scott was named a winner of the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year Award" in New England. He received an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School and a BA, magna cum laude, in Electrical Engineering and Economics from Brown University.
For more information, visit www.ERI-eXchange.com/Awards
ABOUT ERI eXchange
ERI eXchange is produced by RSAG. For over 20 years, RSAG has been covering the extended retail industry through its conferences, print, and online channels. Offering market-driven original industry research combined with the media channels to distribute it, RSAG is the only integrated media & research company run by retailers and focused exclusively on the extended retail industry. With over 85 years of combined experience in the extended retail industry, RSAG thought leaders have organized a conference faculty for 2007 which is bursting with recognized retailers, analysts, and thought leaders from across the industry.
SOURCE: ERI eXchange