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Retail exchanges collaborate on standards

Survey of Data Pools confirms agreement to implement standards by 2003

The WorldWide Retail Exchange (WWRE) and GlobalNetXchange (GNX), two exchanges serving the retail industry, announced the findings of a jointly sponsored survey of retail industry data pools (local catalog providers) to determine their readiness to adopt Global Commerce Initiative (GCI) data standards. 

By sponsoring the survey, GNX and WWRE have taken a significant step towards building consensus around the implementation timeframe for adopting industry-approved standards. Survey findings indicate:

• Many data pools are already working toward providing clean, standardized data by complying with GCI standards, including the ability to host GCI data schema, the use of XML messaging and the adoption of GCI-defined publication and subscription capabilities 
• All respondents expect to adopt additional GCI data standards by the second quarter of 2002

The detailed results of the survey will be shared with the members of each exchange and GCI participants to help them prioritize which data pools they will work with in the future. 

"GNX recognizes that standards are an industry-wide issue, and that we need to work with all interested parties to drive adoption of a common solution. In jointly sponsoring this research, GNX is taking an active role in accelerating the deployment of global data standards for the retail industry," said Bharat Popat, vice president of product development for GNX. 

"At the WWRE, we are developing a roadmap for worldwide collaboration among trading partners," said Cindy Cruzado, director of exchange operations for the WWRE "Global standards are essential to this process, and now that we better understand market expectations, we can quickly facilitate development and adoption of these standards." 

Along with the survey, the two exchanges proposed a timetable for global data pools to migrate their infrastructure to the emerging global standards. All respondents indicated full compliance to the recommended phased implementation approach by the end of the second quarter of 2003. 

The data pool respondents (including content providers, B2B catalogues and local standards organizations) represent more than 12,000 global manufacturers and are available to more than 300 retailers worldwide. Essential to the implementation of data standards, the data pools maintain manufacturer item and party information from manufacturers for retailers to use in their internal systems.

 The data standards enable global data synchronization, the electronic exchange of item and party information between manufacturers and retailers. The benefits of data synchronization include: lower costs for organizations to create and maintain item catalogues, accelerated new item release throughout the supply chain and global access to item data through one single source, each of which ultimately benefits the consumer.

Source:World Wide Retail Exchange - Nov 2001

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