AMR Research recently added Andy Sanfilippo and Dawn O'Brien to its Retail Strategies practice area. As a research director, Andy covers processes and technologies in merchandising. This includes merchandise and assortment planning, allocation, lifecycle pricing, and cross-channel merchandising. Dawn O'Brien, a program director, leads AMR Research's retail peer forum network, including the newly minted Retail IT Leaders Peer Forum.

"We are taking our own advice and becoming demand-driven,” explains Rob Garf, vice president and general manager of retail strategies. “Our retail clients told us that they wanted an industry-specific platform to network with peers, and we’ve created the Retail IT Leaders Forum. And we are broadening our consumer-centric merchandising coverage in reaction to heavy market demand. I am pleased that we found two industry veterans to lead these areas and help our clients align business strategy with technology initiatives.

Andy Sanfilippo brings more than a decade of industry experience to his role as a research director. Prior to joining AMR Research, Andy held several positions at Oracle Retail. Andy worked most recently in product management, where he was responsible for the acquired ProfitLogic assortment planning and allocation products, and future Oracle Retail planning and optimization strategy. He also collaborated on market analysis, product rationalization, and product roadmaps while driving client implementations.

Prior to Oracle Retail, Andy worked as an application architect at Williams-Sonoma. Andy also architected the enterprise applications for wine.com and led the design and implementation of systems for consumer product, direct-to-consumer, and transportation companies while at Manhattan Associates and Qiva. He graduated cum laude from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering.

Dawn O'Brien brings over 10 years of professional retail experience to AMR Research. Prior to joining AMR Research, Dawn held roles as the senior director of retail merchandising systems for the National Retail Federation; director of merchandising systems with Duty Free Americas; manager of systems integration at Crown Books; and point-of-sale project manager with the Target Corporation. She graduated cum laude from Boston University's College of Communication.

Dawn launched AMR Research’s Retail IT Leaders Peer Forum in May 2007, which already boasts 21 member organizations representing various segments of retail, including 7-Eleven, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Hallmark. The forum provides the most efficient and structured vehicle for senior retail technology executives to educate themselves and their teams and influence the industry. The first two members-only teleconferences focused on retail business intelligence and assortment planning, and the forum’s executive summit on Monday, November 12, 2007 will target customer intelligence and loyalty, cross-channel operations, and advanced POS and in-store technologies.

“I am thrilled to be working with a group of dynamic IT leaders who value a peer network that is structured to efficiently use an executive’s time, extended to direct reports, and augmented by AMR Research’s strong retail research agenda,” Dawn explains.

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