In 1998, I wrote a report called Information Technology in the Retail Sector: The Integration Imperative, for Aberdeen Group out of Boston, Massachusetts.

The Internet and information technology were becoming the new way to do business in the late 1990s. We were figuring out how to mesh the old analog systems together with the new technology, in every industry, in every sector, in every way (and wondering if it would all crash at the turn of the millennium). As a market research analyst, I analyzed a means to integrate the whole supply chain, plus the financial sector, within the retail industry.

When The Integration Imperative was published, Aberdeen’s vice president said it was the best report he had ever read.