Commerce Centre, the e-commerce community service provider in the Datacentrix Group, has announced the successful sign-off of the pilot phase of the electronic National Product Data Catalogue for the FMCG industry. The electronic catalogue will be the single product source of manufacturers and suppliers product data for FMCG retailers, endorsed by EAN South Africa. All participants will be expected to subscribe to the service and have published their products by 28 February 2002. According to Commerce Centre, the system will form the foundation of an electronic trading community servicing all players in the FMCG space.
During the testing phase seven retailers and five suppliers and distributors participated, including Clicks, Masstores, Metcash, National Brands, Nestle, OK Franchise Division, Pick `n Pay, Reckett Benckiser, Robertsons, Shoprite Checkers, TFD, Spar and Unilever.
Participating suppliers loaded a test catalogue with products, including barcodes, product descriptions and weights, all conforming to the standards of the International Numbering Association. Retailers subscribed to the system and received automatic downloads of information as well as being able to browse via the Internet and subscribe to products as required. Over a three-month test period more than 5 500 data exchanges were conducted between retailers and suppliers.
Commerce Centre director, Mike Lamb, says that the project is the first e-commerce community in South Africa that embraces an entire market sector. Participants will experience benefits almost immediately. "With one single distribution channel for product data, costs and cycle times are reduced, product-related back-door problems and credit notes are reduced, and payment systems are improved and streamlined. Businesses have a ready-made electronic business foundation and platform. Startup costs in the form of annual subscriptions are reasonable and the risk associated with e-business is minimised."
"The national product catalogue guarantees business interoperability, which extends globally," says EAN SA Chairman Ronnie Herzfeld.
"For suppliers the product catalogue is a non-threatening, low-risk e-commerce first-step for our industry," says Malcolm Leitch, director, customer development, Lever Pond`s (Pty) Ltd. "E-commerce can`t exist if there are no common standards, and no clean data is available to work off. Globally the industry is making an effort to raise standards, and the catalogue is just one initiative to standardise and improve the efficiencies of the global FMCG supply chain."
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