Alexandria, VA (October 6, 2003) – The WorldWide Retail
Exchange (WWRE) announced today the launch of a supplier accreditation program
for item synchronization.
The program, delivered through the WWRE’s WorldSync ‘Academy’ will
drive widespread adoption of standards-based practices and protocols among
suppliers seeking to electronically share their product data. WWRE created
the program to answer the needs of member retailers seeking to help their suppliers’ ramp-up
for data synchronization.
Major retailers around the world have encouraged suppliers to standardize
their product information for electronic trading. The Exchange’s accreditation
program was developed in response to the more than 26 major retail members
who intend to utilize the WWRE s WorldWide Item Management (WIM) solution for
this purpose. Accreditation includes training, on-site support and a step-by-step
process for suppliers who wish to exchange standards-based product data with
multiple trading partners. Additionally, it allows them to synchronize with
WWRE retailers as well as publish data to the UCCnet Registry for synchronization
with subscribers of UCCnet.
“Since our members will be using the WWRE as their preferred recipient
and source data pool in the emerging GDSN, they have asked us to create a common
process for qualifying their trading partners,” said Nick Parnaby, global
director of member development, WWRE, “We know that thousands of suppliers
need to be ready for data synchronization by 2004, and the Academy will get
them there. Whether they’re a multinational corporation or a ‘Mom & Pop’ business,
and whether they’re looking for a simple connection to the GDSN or for
a way to do item synchronization on extended data, we provide the training,
on-site support and step-by-step processes to help them quickly ramp-up.”
“We’ve already made our communication to much of our supplier
base, making it clear we plan to synchronize our data through the WWRE,” said
Ron Boire, EVP/GMM at Best Buy. “Although our requirement is to do this
by end of 2004, we expect most of our trading partners will be participating
with the WWRE well before this.
“While acknowledging UCCnet’s role as the global registry, CVS
and other major WWRE retail members have decided to utilize the WWRE platform
for data synchronization with our trading partners,” said Chris Bodine,
EVP of Merchandising and Marketing at CVS. “Over the coming months, we
will deliver a strong message to suppliers that they should get accredited
in WWRE’s program so that we can begin working together to establish
efficient online sharing of product information.”
The accreditation program will begin in North America, where there is an immediate
need for suppliers to use WWRE to publish item data to the global registry.
In Asia, Europe and Latin America, WWRE retailers are already implementing
WWRE’s data pool services and have communicated to their suppliers the
need to onboard data to the WWRE via their preferred local catalog provider.
For more information, visit the WWRE’s website
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
manufacturers, retailers and suppliers, the WWRE® currently consists of
64 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 $1 billion through the use of online negotiations, its
first product offering. For more information, visit the website at www.wwre.org or www.worldwideretailexchange.org.
WorldWide Retail Exchange, LLC. All rights reserved.