| WORLDWIDE
RETAIL EXCHANGE, UDEX PARTNER TO BRING
NEW BUYERS AND SUPPLIERS INTO UK MARKET
Connection to link WWRE members with
new trading partners using UDEX
Alexandria, VA (October 14, 2003) – The
WorldWide Retail Exchange (WWRE), the premier Internet-based business-to-business
exchange for retailers and suppliers announced today a collaborative
initiative with UDEX, a global provider of data normalization services,
to enable the sharing of product information between WWRE members
and UDEX’s extensive list of supply side trading partners.
This connectivity will make the WWRE the first international source
and recipient data pool to provide retailers with access to UDEX
supplier data on behalf of its members.
“Partnering with the WWRE connects our organization with
some of the most prominent retailers and suppliers in the world,” said
Robin Howe, CEO of UDEX. “The partnership will deliver to
UDEX customers the immediate value of new potential trading partners
as well as offering an easy ‘on-ramp’ to more advanced
future collaboration.”
"This relationship is an important milestone in furthering
the WWRE's strategy to become a single point of entry into the
Global Data Synchronization Network. As we continue to develop
additional connections to local catalog providers this year and
into 2004, WWRE members will have access to trading partner data
in multiple locales across EMEIA, Asia/Pacific and the Americas," commented
Pete Plotas, director of strategic alliances at the WWRE.
UDEX, a WWRE alliance partner, provides on-line tools and services
that allow suppliers to normalize the content of their product
data and share this data with their retail and food service trading
partners in a consistent manner. Because both the supplier and
their trading partners have access to the same data, errors caused
by re-keying or confusion are greatly reduced, speeding up processes
and reducing wastage for both parties. Importantly, retailers and
suppliers can then incorporate this normalized data into more advanced
business processes like ERP and VICS-CPFR®. Therefore the WWRE-UDEX
connection, initially focused on establishing data transfer in
conjunction with the WWRE’s item management solution, will
ultimately pay dividends to other collaborative solutions offered
by the WWRE such as Collaborative Planner.
This partnership marks the WWRE’s fifth official linkage
with local catalog providers and partners that provide value added
services such as data management and normalization services in
Europe, following similar agreements with SINFOS (Germany), Equadis
(France) and EAN Belgium.Luxembourg (Belgium) and EAN.DAS (the
Netherlands).
About UDEX®
UDEX (Universal Descriptor Exchange) assists supply and demand
side partners and their intermediaries by facilitating the creation
and distribution of high quality product data. UDEX’s data
management services provide consistent and accurate product information
that adds value to the process of data synchronization throughout
the supply and demand chain in compliance with the Global Standards
Management Process (GSMP) and the Global Data Synchronization (GDS)
network, as well as the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI). This
service is called Normalisation. UDEX are also preferred alliance
partners of UCCnet and support GLOBALregistry, and support the
Global Data Dictionary (GDD) standards.
UDEX is the preferred supplier to Safeway, Sainsbury’s,
Tesco and the Big Food Group (Iceland and Booker) and six major
food service operators, which means that ‘Normalised’ data
can be shared by almost half of the £100 billion grocery
market in the United Kingdom, as well as by suppliers globally.
For more information, visit the website at www.udex.com
About the WWRE®
The WWRE is the premier Internet-based business-to-business exchange for retailers
and suppliers. Designed to facilitate and simplify trading between retailers,
suppliers, partners and distributors, the WWRE currently consists of 62 members
from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America with combined sales
of approximately U.S. $900 billion. To date, the WWRE has saved its members
over $900 million through the use of online negotiations, its first product
offering. For more information, visit the website at www.wwre.org or www.worldwideretailexchange.org.
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