On a recent visit to a boutique bath shop, one of us became so overwhelmed by the intensity of the scent circulating through the store that he was forced to flee within seconds.

Doug Rauch, the former president of Trader Joe's, visited my Service Operations class at MIT last week. When he mentioned that Trader Joe's invests in its employees a lot more than its competitors do, he was challenged by one of my students: "Isn't it a bad idea to invest in employees in settings like yours where shopping is transactional and can easily be done online?"

Last week, Target did the once unthinkable. In addition to matching prices of local brick and mortar stores, it announced this holiday season it would also match prices of any product sold by major Internet retailers including Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, Walmart.com, and Toysrus.com.

Realizzare il giusto assortimento di prodotti non è facile, ma è assolutamente cruciale per il successo nel retail. Diversamente dalla gestione delle scorte e dal pricing, dove i retailer hanno montagne di dati e di strumenti analitici per guidarne i processi decisionali, l’ottimizzazione degli assortimenti è tuttora più un’arte che una scienza. E fare la scelta sbagliata può essere un disastro.

My colleague Chris Trimble and I have polled hundreds of managers, asking them to define innovation. Usually, managers equate innovation with creativity. But innovation is not creativity. Creativity is about coming up with the big idea. Innovation is about executing the idea — converting the idea into a successful business.