As many in the industry have observed, "retail is detail." Appropriately, retailers have turned to technology to help them overcome the complexity of managing an incredible number of products, customers, transactions, suppliers, employees, and stores on a daily basis.

In areas such as supply chain management, marketing, and merchandise planning, retailers are making significant investments in technology to drive top- and bottom-line improvements. It should then come as no surprise that IT is an increasingly large component of retailers' costs.

However, many retailers do not achieve desired returns on IT investments. Where do they go wrong? In many cases, retailers do not successfully link technology decisions to their business strategies or do not adequately follow-up to ensure the value is captured; other times, they fail to build a solid technology platform for growth, for instance, by neglecting to define clear standards and build the appropriate IT skills.