FMI echoes price-sensitivity concerns: real-time data exchange promoted at FMI seminar - Food Marketing Institute - Brief Article

DSN Retailing Today, May 20, 2002 by Mike Duff

CHICAGO -- Developing a new technological relationship between suppliers and vendors was a prime topic of the show and, therefore, got full billing at the seminar entitled "Next Generation Logistics." The consensus of the participants was that advances in data interchange are propelling the marketplace and represent virtually the only pure competitive advantage available to companies competing in the core of the slow-growth food industry.

The Uniform Code Council, a group affiliated with FMI, has developed standards and structures that have helped move the food industry toward solidifying global standards for retailing. With these in place, initiating a real-time data exchange program is possible today and experimenting on a limited basis would be the minimum participation for companies that wish to remain competitive, said Edwin Gropp, executive vp and cio of Ahold.

UCCnet, an Internet-based trading community that links trade exchanges, also provides compliance verification and synchronization of product information, as well as registry and lifecycle management of synchronized products, user locations and user trade capabilities between business-to-business trading partners.