EAN South Africa, the local co-ordinating body for international identification standards, and Datacentrix company Commerce Centre have formalised their alliance to provide and host the sole industry-approved national product data catalogue for the FMCG industry in South Africa.
This follows comprehensive testing and evaluation of the catalogue, which has been enhanced and tailored to meet the needs of the South African FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) market.
The alliance represents the completion of the first phase of the project and means that the national roll-out of the catalogue (EAN.PDC) to all suppliers and retailers in the South African FMCG market can now go ahead.
"The catalogue is pivotal for the South African FMCG industry if we are to realise the potential represented by the various objectives of the Efficient Customer Response (ECR) initiative," says Malcolm Leitch, vice chairman of EAN South Africa and a director of Unilever. "It will provide suppliers and retailers with the ability to implement ECR practices and put South Africa firmly on track as a leader in the ECR arena."
The ECR board has set 28 February 2002 as the end date by which suppliers must publish their products on the EAN.PDC as a Condition of Trade for the South African FMCG industry. For suppliers, this means they should start capturing and publishing product data on the catalogue now!
Key retailers and suppliers have already subscribed to the catalogue, with many suppliers already actively publishing products and making product detail available to retailers for backward integration into their systems. Commerce Centre has conducted regional briefings for suppliers and is actively assisting suppliers to subscribe and publish their products on the catalogue. Retailers are completing the necessary systems modifications to integrate product data into their internal systems.
"Industry benefits include significant reductions in inefficiencies such as back door refusals, returns, logistics costs and administrative overheads", says Mike Lamb, director of Commerce Centre. He forecasts a dramatic increase in electronic data interchange (EDI) and e-commerce take-up, stalled in the past due to product data differences between suppliers and retailers.
"The data alignment resulting from synchronisation and harmonisation of product data between suppliers and retailers will lead to a sharp upturn in EDI and e-commerce in the industry."
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