There is no doubt that 2009 will prove challenging for retailers. Most retail CIOs and their teams will be forced to work with budget constraints - making small incremental projects more popular. However, this should not serve as an excuse to relegate IT to a "quiet" year. In my many interactions with retailers, I have seen small IT projects that have been perceived as big successes by users. Though these projects were relatively small in size compared to large efforts (such as implementing a core merchandising system), they were big on perceived value - earning the IT department "good will" points with users. Many of these small initiatives sit in the business intelligence area. For example:

- Use advanced visualization capabilities such as map-based interfaces to spice up online reports and dashboards.

- Provide more advanced users the powerful, yet simple-to-use, new analytical capabilities found in in-memory, columnar and other next generation BI tools

- Merge unstructured consumer data found in reviews, blogs and social networks into reports - imagine being able to see sales trending alongside average customer review scores.

- Create the ability to send key reports and metrics to your managers' smart phones.

If you haven't done any of these, now is the time to consider them. There are other projects like this in different areas. The idea is to think of small projects that deliver big perceived value to users. It's a little bit like giving someone an iPod Nano for Christmas instead of an expensive home theatre system - both are appreciated, but one costs a lot less.

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