Retailers

For years, it looked to some like Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. was simply following in the footsteps of Bezos’ Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest e-commerce company. But when Amazon’s $13.7 billion bid for Whole Foods Market Inc. sent shockwaves across the retail industry, Ma looked prescient.

Connected devices, mobile and new processing standards require a larger technology upgrade than the quick updates of the past, according to Rajesh Venkatraman, director of worldwide payments at IBM.

Chatbots are the next big thing in payments. But a poor in-chat commerce strategy can turn off consumers and create bad user experiences.

Companies involved in content sharing or social media are seeing fraudsters try to create new accounts for their sites with fake credentials through bot attacks.