Retail EDI

Retail spending is still not what it could be…  Yes, consumers are spending, but taking more time to make decisions and shopping more to find better deals.  This means Retailers have to work harder to a.) Attract/keep customers and b.) Maintain margin.  There are many ways this could be achieved: including RFID (Radio Frequency Identification).  For many in the industry, maintaining margin means finding efficiencies everywhere and anywhere.  Attracting new and existing customers is another issue – and very much related depending on the process efficiencies Retailers look to for relief. 

The inherent nature of today’s supply chain requires a rethinking of the supporting technical architecture 

In a whitepaper entitled ‘One-to-Many – Establishing a common platform to address multiple supply chain applications’  Trevor Miles writes about multi-enterprise supply chains.

Outsourcing has created new challenges. One of these is visibility and retaining accountability when companies do not have access to the right information. As Trevor states in his paper, much of the data required to make informed decisions is residing in Excel spreadsheets. 

Companies that do not outsource are also faced with distributed supply chains where inventory may be managed by a 3rd party or product is manufactured in different locations of the organization without the ability to synchronize demand and supply across multiple systems.