Last week RIS had the honor of handing out the first annual Retail CIO of the Year Awards to five talented executives for helping guide their organizations through one of the toughest business environments in decades. During these challenging times it was the retail CIO’s job to help organizations stay productive, profitable and relevant to shoppers. Here are the five elite winners for 2011.

If you listen closely, shoppers will tell you exactly what they need. We polled 2,427 shoppers in the U.S. and Canada to listen and learn. Then we linked their likes and dislikes to specific strategies retailers can deploy to align with shopper sentiment to improve sales and satisfaction. Here are major findings and a-ha moments

The number of in-store mobile devices is currently four and projected to rise to 16 within a few years. Is the boom due to mobile devices becoming more friendly to retailers or to retailers becoming more friendly to mobile devices? A little of both, but mostly the latter. Stores are under attack and retailers are fighting back by adding mobile devices to level the playing field. The result? Stores will never be the same.