Formed in 2004, the company took over Columbus IT operations in several countries in July. It operates in Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Germany and Switzerland. Retail Lab is much more than a website with a lot of information, says Erik Hoiden, the company’s New York-based managing director. Retailers sign up for the lab and the VAR selects which ones it will pursue. The company then visits prospects and discusses “about 10 different areas” such as POS, the back office and social media. “We end up rating them in areas for each of these 10 subjects and produce a report for the customer,”  Hoiden says. The report, which is free, measures operations and compares companies against competitors. AlfaPeople also sells SharePoint and Microsoft’s business intelligence products. The company currently employs eight people in the United States.