Michael Grillo runs the marketing efforts at ACI Worldwide’s Merchant Solutions area. The fact that ACI Worldwide is so large is a well-known fact in loyalty marketing circles. What may be less well-known is the extent to which they power the backbone of the entire payments ecosystem. They are, quite literally, everywhere.
I met Michael at the recent NRF Big Show event in New York City. As you’ll see, he is an affable and very smart individual with a lot on his plate. Our conversation at NRF was wide-ranging and touched some very interesting developments in our space – one of which is the challenges associated with the emerging BOPIS trend and the technologies needed to effectively pull it off at scale.
(For the uninitiated, BOPIS is a recently-coined acronym that stands for "Buy-Online-Pickup-In-Store". It's ok – I had to ask too.)
Think about it for a moment. It takes a lot more data coordination to merge an online & offline transaction – and do so in real time – than it does to process a purchase in either channel alone. And then there’s the fraud consideration.
Michael and I talked about those challenges and some of the technological wizardry that ACI has developed to stem BOPIS fraud before it becomes a trend in itself.
Mike Giambattista is Editor in Chief at The Wise Marketer and is a Certified Loyalty Marketing Professional (CLMP).
