Food Lion Adopts New IBM Solution for Item Management and UCCnet Item Data Synchronization

Business Wire, Oct 18, 2002

Business Editors

ARMONK, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 18, 2002

IBM:

Grocery Retailer To Use Powerful Enterprise Collaboration Solution

from IBM to Transform Supply Chain, Better Integrate

with Suppliers and Speed Products to Market

IBM announced today that Food Lion, a leading every- day low-price grocery retailer in 11 U.S. states, has adopted IBM WebSphere Business Integration for Retail Distribution -- IBM's new item management solution that leverages the industry standards of UCCnet and the power of e-business enterprise collaboration technology to help retailers like Food Lion integrate with suppliers and speed products to market.

The new IBM solution and UCCnet's item registry and data synchronization services will enable Food Lion and its trading partners to significantly improve accuracy, efficiency and profit throughout their supply chain. UCCnet services provide an open repository for item, location and trading partner capabilities and enable retailers and suppliers to communicate new or changed product data -- ensuring that all trading partners are using identical, accurate and standardized item information.

Food Lion will thus be able to considerably reduce errant purchase orders, returned shipments, reductions, logistics systems errors and associated costs throughout the supply chain.

"The grocery business is very competitive, particularly in the current economic environment. Our customers look to us for the freshest, finest food items at the lowest possible price," said Scott Harrison, vice president, Merchandising Services, Food Lion. "With the advent of very sophisticated e-business supply chain technologies, we will be using Web-based collaboration technology to make sure that we are getting the right products from the right suppliers into the stores at the right time and the best price. Since IBM works with retailers all over the world, they understand the retail business and how to build and leverage these powerful e-business technologies."

"Information is vital when it comes to running our business and serving our customers. As we implement WebSphere Business Integration for Retail Distribution, we will be better able to access and transform data into information we can use to better serve our customers. With these systems, the data also is more timely, accurate, secure, and reliable," said Carolyn Hager, manager, e-Business, Food Lion. "Working with IBM and UCCnet, we are building workflow processes to be adaptable and flexible to support our changing business needs. This is a fundamental evolution of our supply chain operations."

"Food Lion is a leader in a trend where retailers are beginning to leverage powerful e-business technologies to allow for inter-enterprise collaboration with their suppliers. Driven by the imperative to accelerate their time to market and reduce costs, retailers see the compelling advantages of such end-to-end enterprise collaboration," said David Petiford, vice president, Global Retail Industry, IBM. "Better information and collaboration with suppliers means that retailers can squeeze out costs and inefficiencies in their supply chains. The focus of retailers is changing from buying pieces of technology to creating business process enhancements across the entire enterprise."

In its recent Collaboration Baseline Study, the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA) reports that 67% of the responding membership has some sort of collaborative initiative under way, and the remaining 33% are moving in that direction. Most of these respondents consider themselves beyond initial pilot, and are beginning to invest in broad scale rollout. AMR Research recently reported that 4% of retailers and 6% of consumer packaged goods manufacturers supported some real time collaborative data flows in 2001. These numbers are expected to grow to 45% of retailers and 47% of manufacturers by the end of 2003

To address this need for enterprise collaboration, IBM offers retailers and consumer packaged goods companies a clearly defined item synchronization solution that leverages the item network of UCCnet. WebSphere Business Integration for Retail allows customers who participate in UCCnet to manage their businesses more efficiently and optimize sales activities by accessing more accurate and timely data when making key business decisions.

The IBM WebSphere Business Integration for Retail Distribution offering:

- Enables "real-time" changes to item information infrastructures;

- Provides a consolidated view of item attributes from multiple enterprise systems;

- Protects existing investments by acting as a bridge between a company's existing systems and those of its key external trading partners, and

- Facilitates synchronized collaboration between retailers and suppliers.

About Food Lion

Food Lion LLC is a subsidiary of Delhaize America, the U.S. division of Brussels-based Delhaize Group (NYSE: DEG). Food Lion operates more than 1,220 stores and employs 86,000 associates, delivering Extra Low Prices and service to its customers, in 11 Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states. Food Lion stores offer more than 24,000 different products.