IDG Contributor Network: Target's war on suppliers could be averted through more creative IT

When Reuters last week reported that Target "is asking many suppliers to take on up to an extra 3-5 percent of the cost of promotions and price cuts after slow sales so far this year," it revealed some serious weaknesses within Target as well as a huge opportunity to prove the monumental ROI of better analytics and crowdsourcing.

First, let me be explicit that Target is trying to get away with bullying tactics that no supplier should have to deal with. In its story, Reuters quoted one supplier making this point: "We have budgets to stick to. We cannot just keep giving them discounts on (product) volumes they are not able to sell — we have to make money when doing business with Target."

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