Reducing waste can help lower the environmental impact of any business, and Javad Nasiry believes that policy can help achieve this. The fashion industry is a major source of carbon emissions, and fast fashion retailers have made it worse with low-quality apparel designed to be worn only a few times. The Associate Professor of Operations Management argues that the fashion industry could be made greener by requiring the sustainable disposal of waste and taxing waste to make both manufacturers more waste conscious.

At a glance, the Couche-Tard in the Bronfman Building looks much like any other. But it is actually an innovative research facility that uses technology to improve our understanding consumer behaviour. Known as the Retail Innovation Lab, a partnership between McGill’s Bensadoun School of Retail Management and Alimentation Couche-Tard, it is the first frictionless store in Canada. At the Retail Innovation Lab, computer vision systems recognize grab-and-go items in real time, and payments are processed digitally, so customers can shop quickly.

Dynamic pricing algorithms set the prices we pay online—and few rules govern how they work. Even if an algorithm doesn’t ostensibly consider race at all, research shows that it can be biased and discriminatory on the basis of race, as well as gender, economic level, and other personal information openly gathered from consumers.

Poets&Quants has named Professor Maxime Cohen to its annual Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors of 2022 list. The influential business school news site annually recognizes professors under the age of 40 who are masters in the classroom, influence business and policy, are prolific researchers and have demonstrated meaningful impact on their fields.

Data can tell you a lot about the current state of business, and what the future holds. That’s information that companies can use to make strategic decisions, and it is multiplying quickly. Up to 90 per cent of all data was created in the past two years alone. To leverage, Prof. Maxime Cohen recommends executive education programs in data science as a way to understand the possibilities, and communicate effectively with data scientists.

Standing in a check-out line is the least pleasant part of the shopping experience – and it could become a thing of the past. New technology is allowing shoppers to make in-store purchases with their phones, and a variety of self-checkout pilot projects are already underway at stores in Montreal. Some are as simple as scanning a QR code, and confirming your credit card information.

During lockdowns, access to luxury services was severely limited. Fine dining establishments were reduced to haute cuisine in take-out containers, and spas forced to close altogether. But some shoppers have tried to fill that void with consumer goods. Everyone’s life was disrupted, but those who kept their jobs had some extra money in their pocket, and many of them spent it, says Charles de Brabant, Executive Director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management.