CVS Caremark Corp. has signed a lease for a 15,130-square-foot “Digital Innovation Lab” in Boston. Brian Tilzer, the retailer’s chief digital officer, says it will open “this winter,” though the exact date has not been set.
The pharmacy and retail chain, No. 103 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, joins at least one other Top 500 merchant, Staples Inc. (No. 3), in placing a technology research center in Boston. The CVS office is located at 116 Huntington Ave. in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, which is home to upscale shops and apartment buildings as well as large office buildings.
“Boston is home to a thriving tech and startup community, and is also one of the world’s renowned health care cities,” Tilzer says. “We strategically chose this location since CVS Health is at the crossroads of health care, retail and technology, and this location in Boston is centrally located to the medical community in Longwood and the tech community in Cambridge. The Digital Innovation Lab in Boston, along with our new Digital Experience Center at our headquarters in Woonsocket, RI, will help us fuel digital innovations that will help to put people on their path to better health.”
Other retail chains also have opened technology centers where they develop web and mobile commerce projects. Those chains include Target Corp., No. 18 in the Top 500, which located its tech center in San Francisco. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., No. 4, put its e-commerce headquarters in the Silicon Valley corridor south of San Francisco, opening an office in San Bruno, CA. CVS competitor Walgreen Co., No. 43, in 2010 moved part of its e-commerce team to an office in downtown Chicago from the company’s suburban Chicago headquarters.
CVS plans to staff its new Boston office with some 100 employees, 90% of whom the chain expects to be new hires. Hiring those pros will present at least some challenge, Tilzer says. “Given the unbelievably aggressive and steep adoption rate of every digital technology you can imagine, every smart health care company or retailer is taking a look at their digital organization and many are hiring, so it is certainly a competitive marketplace,” he says.