COVID-19 thrusts e-commerce into the spotlight

In the wake of shelter-in-place mandates around the world, non-essential brick-and-mortar retailers are forced to shut their doors until social distancing measures ease. As a result, e-commerce demand is soaring. According to a new “Global Shopping Index” report published by Salesforce, the number of unique digital shoppers rose 40% year-over-year (YoY). Digital shoppers drove 20%…

6 ways to optimize your innovation spend

There’s a disconnect between IT priorities and spending — one that could jeopardize your organization’s long-term prospects. Digital transformation and innovation remain top priorities for CIOs, with the 2020 IT Trends Study from the Society for Information Management (SIM) finding digital transformation and innovation ranked No. 4 and No. 9 respectively among the most important…

Secrets of leading productive remote teams

As organizations around the world are adjusting to working from home, leaders want to know how they can look after their teams.  Ultimately the goal is to get to full productivity as soon as possible but that isn’t likely to happen without a plan.  My team has been operating 100% virtually for 15+ years.  I’ll…

Tableau joins effort to fight pandemic with data

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted nearly every aspect of life around the globe, and data analytics vendors are mobilizing to help individuals, scientists, governments, and businesses understand the shape and scope of the crisis. As its response, Tableau Software has created the COVID-19 Data Hub. The Data Hub is a resource for accessing and analyzing…

How AI is transforming retail

Before the coronavirus hit, consumer expectations were already changing and creating challenges in the retail industry. And CIOs, who historically had little to do with developing new customer experiences, were increasingly being tasked with driving innovation. To deliver Amazon-like here-and-now products and services and build brand loyalty, they are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to…

IT automation shakes up the entry-level career path

Workers entering IT have traditionally paid their dues by spending a year (or three) doing grunt work: manning customer service lines, resolving support tickets, provisioning hardware and performing manual data entry, among other tasks. But as automation takes over many of these menial IT tasks, CIOs and IT workers are having to rethink the traditional…