Global Retailers and Manufacturers Collaborate to Advance Data Synchronization Projects
Auchan, Casino, Delhaize Group, El Corte Ingles, Royal Ahold, Tesco and the
WorldWide Retail Exchange (WWRE) Hold a Landmark Meeting in Europe
Paris, France (June 18, 2004) - Auchan, Casino, Delhaize Group, El Corte Ingles, Royal Ahold and Tesco announce today their plans to work with the WWRE’s WIM solution to make Global Data Synchronization (GDS) a working reality. The above retailers and the WorldWide Retail Exchange held a meeting in Brussels on June 17th for 16 of their key suppliers to collaborate on plans to advance Global Data Synchronization. This meeting followed the recent ECR conference in Belgium where WWRE members publicly announced their plans to use the WWRE as their home data pool.
Pierre-Olivier Beckers, President and Chief Executive Officer of Delhaize Group said, “Delhaize has selected the WWRE’s Worldwide Item Management (WIM) solution as our global data pool, therefore the entry point of all information concerning the items sold in our stores. WIM will interconnect with all data pools containing the item information of our suppliers, both global and local. We believe that this approach will simplify and accelerate the rollout of Data Synchronization as it will avoid our global suppliers to deliver the item information directly in each country where we operate.” Pierre-Olivier went on to mention their future goals and direction, “We are firmly convinced that an integrated Supply Chain approach is key to performance. Delhaize is convinced that RFID will strongly contribute to the implementation of the GCI value pyramid, which the company closely follows. We must complete the implementation of Data Synchronization so that Delhaize will have the ability for a large scale roll-out of RFID.”
At the meeting, the WWRE members echoed Pierre-Olivier’s thoughts as they discussed their GDS plans, timelines, and expectations with their suppliers. Although retailer readiness for GDS has historically been an issue with suppliers, today’s attendees got a positive feeling for retailer readiness and the seriousness in their desire to move forward with GDS projects in 2004.
“Casino is on the way to achieve a major step in its Data Synch strategy, by introducing the WWRE as a single entry point to its internal systems.” stated Casino General Manager, Jacques-Edouard Charret. “As a result, all data product files proposed by our suppliers will be synchronized through the WWRE, whether the supplier is a WWRE customer, or is using a Catalog Provider like Catalogic, Equadis, or Vertical wine. The WWRE will improve data quality within the industry and assist suppliers in this new way of working together. Furthermore, we believe the WWRE is a major influence for enhancing data model and synchronization standards worldwide.”
“The WWRE continues to be the most comprehensive and cost effective solution available for suppliers to meet the requirements of our retailers,” commented Jerome Kuehn, European Director for the WWRE. “Because of our continued focus on implementing the most up-to-date standards, provisioning of best practices, and shared industry knowledge, the WWRE WIM solution will act as the single point of entry to the Global Data Synchronization Network for many of its retail members. The WWRE enables companies to adopt GDS faster, helping to overcome the inevitable challenges of implementation and therefore drive critical mass in the marketplace.”
About the WWRE®
The WWRE® is the premier Internet-based business-to-business exchange for retailers and suppliers. Designed to facilitate and simplify trading between manufacturers, retailers and suppliers, the WWRE® currently consists of members from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America with combined sales of more than U.S. $900 billion. For more information, visit the website at www.wwre.org or www.worldwideretailexchange.org
For more information:
Jane Wilson
703.234.5208
jwilson@wwre.org
emailto:jwilson@wwre.org
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