WorldWide Retail Exchange to enable more 7,500 suppliers in global data synchronization
Alexandria, VA — July 6, 2004 — Five more retailers have chosen an item management solution from the WorldWide Retail Exchange as their Data Pool for the synchronization of product item master data from their suppliers, joining 170-plus retailers and manufacturers who have previously selected the WWRE as their source or recipient data pool provider.
The five retailers opting to use WWRE's WorldWide Item Management (WIM) solution include Ahold, Albertsons, Delhaize (including Food Lion) and Safeway.
Bob Bersani, chief global standards officer at Ahold, said that as a WWRE founder, his company has spent two years preparing for the major rollout of its data synchronization project with the exchange.
"You don't profit unless you pick a solution that can drive both the breadth and depth of data synchronization the WWRE can provide," Bersani said. "When our suppliers come to us after completing WWRE accreditation, we know that they are ready to synchronize, they can meet our data quality benchmarks, and have the ability to synchronize relationship-dependent data."
The WWRE said it offers a comprehensive service to its manufacturer and retailer users, and that it ensures that critical issues such data quality, connectivity to internal systems, and the ability to synchronize price, complex price and promotional data are enabled. The exchange positions its platform as a way for retailers to enjoy a single connection to their entire trading partner base. The WWRE currently provides interoperability with major data pools, such as Transora, UCCnet and, most recently, the electronic product code (EPC) network for radio frequency identification (RFID).
The exchange also said that retailers using the WWRE for global data synchronization (GDS) should benefit from commonality of supply base, direct connections to their suppliers and a development roadmap that enables advanced commerce synchronization services, such as direct store delivery, scan-based trading and EPC.
"Few data synchronization providers are addressing the key issues that drive ROI from data synchronization," said Nick Parnaby, chief marketing officer of the WWRE. "Over 3,000 companies have signed up for the Global Registry (formerly known as the UCCnet Registry), but very few have enabled their entire catalogs to synchronize a complete set of item data that drives an ROI. The WWRE provides organizations with one data pool, one connection, item sync delivered."
