Retail Industry

The Retail Industry is one of the most dynamic and diverse of all trading environments around the world. Suppliers and retailers are constantly reviewing their categories and product range, making the task of maintaining product data extremely resource intensive. As such, achieving seamless product catalogue synchronisation is crucial to any retail operation that is striving to extract cost savings along its supply chain.  Internally, the processes of merchandising and marketing, sales analysis, forecast & planning, shelf management and warehousing logistics can be improved significantly with accurate and relevant product data.

Within the packaged goods industry all across the world, retailers are insisting on having their product data synchronised through data pools such GS1net and 1SYNC. Using these industry developed synchronisation platforms have the advantage of ensuring that information being delivered to retailers from suppliers/manufactures has been cleansed, and adheres to global standards (GDSN).

However for retailers, the challenge is then how to receive, integrate, and further manage internally these high volume data streams. On the supplier/manufacturer side, the ability to aggregate, format and cleanse 100’s of data attributes is a project within itself, and often leads to major business process changes.

Innovit iICE® retail solutions have been developed to assist retailers and also suppliers/manufactures to perform Global Data Synchronisation (GDS). For copies of our retail industry solutions brochure, or customer case studies, please visit our Knowledge Centre.

Distribution Industry

The Distribution Industry, being one of the most price-competitive sectors, has seen a relatively slower adoption of electronic trading.  Because distributors conduct business almost exclusively on a B2B basis with their suppliers and customers, the exchange of product catalogues can be a daunting process.

Diversity in data formats and standards across both the supply base and customer base creates a level of complexity for catalogue synchronisation that is unparalleled by other industries.  With the emergence of e-commerce, the expectation of trading partners for high quality product information has been raised.  This further exacerbates the problem.  Before electronic transactions can take place, enormous amounts of human resources can be consumed in collecting product data from suppliers, and then tailoring it for distribution to business customers.  However, this is also an area of great opportunity for cost reduction.

To learn more about our Innovit can assist your organisation to implement a more efficient method of managing your product information, visit our Knowledge Centre to download our distribution industry solutions brochure, or customer case studies.

Manufacturing Industry

Increasing pressure is being placed upon manufacturing suppliers to introduce new and innovative products to their retail partners to meet changing consumer demands.

Suppliers are also being encouraged to become more efficient and reduce supply chain costs that result in more competitive pricing for retail customers and ultimately the consumer.  Over the last 15-20 years, Supply Chain Management and B2B eCommerce initiatives in the retail industry have seen a remarkable change in the methodologies employed by suppliers to trade with their retail partners.

The introductions of Global Data Synchronisation (GDS) strategies such as GS1net and 1SYNC have also encouraged the electronic exchange of product information to replace manual, paper-based buying forms. The emergence of global cataloguing standards coupled with industry-driven data pools, has resulted in manufacturers and suppliers being forced to take more ownership of their product data, and its delivery to distributors.

Quickly organisations begin to understand that just a single publication of product information falls well short of both customers, and also industry requirements for data synchronisation. The continuous and automated exchange of product information is critical to the ongoing success.

To understand how Innovit’s iICE solutions can assist your organisation to manage product information, and comply with your industry's data synchronisation requirements, please visit our Knowledge Centre to download our manufacturing industry solutions brochure, or customer case studies.