Mary Freeman

Back to school (BTS) 2017 is officially in the books, and retailers are getting ready for the upcoming holiday season. Now is the time to reflect on key lessons learned for retailers. This year’s back-to-school sales were projected to be the most successful in the last five years, with total combine…

You’ve probably been hearing a lot about blockchain in recent months. The technology offers new opportunities for better security for retailers, but so far it does not have a clearly defined roadmap or protocols. As of September 19, Cisco has co-founded the Trusted IoT Alliance, a consortium of 17 c…

On the heels of last month’s WannaCry cyberattack, a new ransomware attack shut down systems across Europe this week. The main focus of the attack appears to be in the Ukraine (including banks, telecom, electrical systems, the main city metros, and the airport), but it has now appeared in 65 countri…

These are certainly not easy times to be a retailer. Recently, our colleagues in Europe started to think about how to address many of today’s issues with “programmable retail,” the ability to write intentions and read the status of your business from the network. The weather, what a celebrity wore,…

Today we hear about “transforming the customer experience,” but for developers and IT staffers, what does this really mean? Join us in Las Vegas at Cisco Live on June 25-29, where you’ll learn how your store, hotel, and entertainment operation can use today’s digital technologies to deepen customer…

In my last blog post, we discussed how the Cisco SAFE methodology can help you to implement a reliable security solution for your store. This approach can help you define and address each threat to the retail branch with corresponding security capabilities, architectures, and designs – guiding you t…

Thousands of companies around the globe were affected this week by a major ransomware attack called WannaCry. Ransomware is a type of cyberattack that encrypts data until the user pays a specified fee, and is one of the industry’s top evolving cyberthreats. As these and other threats continue…

Retail has one of the highest turnover rates in any industry. The Hay Group reports a median turnover rate of 67 percent for part-time retail employees.[1] I doubt any of us would be too challenged to list the problems driving this high turnover: Retail jobs are considered boring and repetitive, wi…

A few weeks ago at NRF 2017, we spoke with a number of retailers looking to improve the customer experience in their stores. Challenged by today’s online competitors, brick-and-mortar retailers are doing their best to reimagine their stores with new services and technology. However, we also found th…