Every year-ending holiday season reminds us of the importance of consumer spending and the retail sector for the United States (US) and global economies. Many economists and pundits are then awaiting with trepidation the Black Friday sales outcome and reported consumer sentiment or Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) as bellwethers of the economy in the New Year.

While this past holiday season seems to have gone quite well for most retailers (especially in terms of their online business growth) according to a recent National Retail Federation (NRF) announcement, hardly any retailer can now relax and breathe a sigh of relief. Retailers are in a tough business and are constantly seeking tools to enable them to delicately balance their sales, inventory, and profit figures.

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Part 1 of this blog series talked about my attendance of the JDA FOCUS 2010 conference on the heels of the recent merger between JDA Software (NASDAQ: JDAS) and i2 Technologies. The article first discussed the different geneses and cultures of the two merging parties.

One major outcome of the conference was JDA’s unveiled plan to converge most of its existing and acquired product sets. To that end, JDA pledged several key commitments to its customers, starting with that the company would continue to support all of its products. 

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