For retailers and merchants, January 1st, 2012 is the deadline after which all audits for PCI compliance need to be at the Data Security Standards 2.0. At Cisco we have invested in education content as well as architecture designs for PCI 2.0 to help retailers address compliance and secure credit card data.
Need to learn about the basics of PCI 2.0? Check out the following Fundamentals of PCI YouTube Video
For a little more deeper education about PCI including navigating the ins and outs of compliance, dig into design and implementation, and tips for a successful audit, check out the following Cisco Techwise TV episode titled “Everything You Wanted to Know About PCI But Were Afraid to Ask”
Was reading the National Retail Federation’s forecast for Holiday 2011.
One topic caught my eye: the expected level of seasonal store-level employment.
The NRF expects that the industry will hire between 480,000 and 500,000 seasonal workers this year, roughly equal to last year’s 495,000.
We can expect a majority of those individuals to be in the stores – hired at the store, for the store.
A big question for retailers in this omnichannel world: What’s guiding the hiring? Comp-store forecasts or the needs of the omnichannel shopper? If it’s store-level revenue, there’s a good chance of a critical mismatch between the needs of the brand and the level of onsite support.
Allow me to suggest a must-read volume for all retail technologists: How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer.
Good friend and UK colleague Lisa Fretwell tipped me off to this book, which explores – through entertaining narratives and occasional in-the-weeds psychology – the process by which we make decisions, and why certain decisions are made.
Obviously an important topic to those of us seeking to influence consumer behavior.
Two caveats: If you’re looking for a bullet-point guide on how to position your next in-store solution, this isn’t it. It also doesn’t (thankfully) boil down neatly into nifty PowerPoint slides.
I have been asking myself why this personal technology revolution is so hard for retailers.There are a number of pretty obvious answers on the surface.
The pace of innovation, for one. Given that the standard in-store technology refresh cycle is often measured in decades, it’s more than a bit frightening to think that today’s all-store devices might be old school in six months.
The fact that it’s about more than devices and apps, for another. Smart retailers know that the operational implication of the revolution is a single-brand, multi-touchpoint, flexible fulfillment future. Which will be millions and years in the making.
Which is enough to give any CIO – let alone CEO – pause.
I wonder, though, if there’s not another big reason. One that’s buried deep inside the financial fabric of retail.
When most people think about Payment Card Industry security, they think of architecture designs and security standards documents to help merchants protect cardholder data.
As the Cisco retail team worked on our Cisco solution for PCI DSS 2.0, we decided to combine the Science of Compliance (Cisco solution and the Validated Design Guide) with the Art of Compliance, a series of artistic work interpreting security in a new light.
Working with Adam Hagen, Cisco Global Integrated Marketing Communications Manager, Cisco worked with a series of artists in multiple disciplines including paint, digital, sculpture and video, and asked them to interpret security through their eyes.
The artwork will be on display at the Payment Card Industry Council North America Community meeting September 20-22 in Scottsdale Arizona as part of Cisco and our partners HyTrust, VCE and RSA sponsorship of the event.
To learn more about some of the artists and their interpretation, we filmed some of the artists with their creations while it was installed in the Cisco San Jose campus for a limited run.
