This Week in IDEA | February 14, 2007

New IRD/CERICOMX® Customer

IDEA, a 1SYNC Data Pool On-Board Solution (OBS) partner, implements suppliers that subscribe to the 1SYNC data pool using IDEA's IRD CERICOMX application. IDEA was recently assigned the following supplier:

- Marbo, Inc.

This company will be trained to use IRD CERICOMX®, an IDEA branded product for supporting and uploading supplier product information into the GS1 Registry® and GDSN via the 1SYNC Data Pool.

If you would like to learn more about the CERICOMX® product, please contact John Etrie, IDEA IRD Product Manager, here or at (703) 562-4624; or Tony Gaffney, IDEA CERICOMX® Implementation Manager, here or at (508) 386-0261.

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IDEA Customers Sign Up for Additional Solutions

The following IDEA customers recently signed up to use the Industry Data Warehouse (IDW2) to obtain their suppliers' product and pricing information:

- R&R Supply Co.
- Lloyd Graves Electric Supply
- Southeastern Electrical Distributors
- Chancellor Electric Supply

The following IDEA customer recently signed up to use the Industry Data Exchange (IDX2) and take advantage of its cost saving features and reliability:

- Lloyd Graves Electric Supply

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Gene Randall to Moderate General Session at Electro E-Biz Forum 2007

Electro E-Biz Forum 2007
General Session: Industry Panel, Moderator: Gene Randall
Date: September 19, 2007
Time: 9:15a.m.

Gene Randall, award winning journalist, will be moderating an industry panel during the Opening Session at the Electro E-Biz Forum 2007.

Randall's award winning journalism career can be measured by the major stories he covered, both in the United States and abroad.

Randall's professional broadcast journalism career can be measured by the major stories he covered; among them: the Solidarity strikes in Poland in 1980, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, and daily coverage of three U.S. Presidential Campaigns: 1988, 1992 and 1996. As Moscow Bureau Chief for NBC News in the early eighties, Randall chronicled the beginning of the end of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. At CNN, he turned his focus to domestic politics. In 1992, Variety named him "Best Floor Reporter" at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In the 2000 Campaign, Gene hosted CNN's celebrated "This Week In Politics, "a favorite with campaign insiders. With a broadcasting career that spanned four decades and much of the world, Gene Randall's speeches combine historic moments he has witnessed, the offbeat incidents that never made the evening news, the current political scene, and the effects of September 11, 2001 on our political fabric.

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Bob Hirschfeld to Entertain During General Session on Second Day

Electro E-Biz Forum 2007
General Session:Bob Hirschfeld, Cybersatirist
Date: September 20, 2007
Time: 8:00a.m.

Join us on September Electro E-Biz Forum 2007 and hear Bob Hirschfeld, cybersatirist, provide a satirical look at the business world.
Bob Hirschfeld, has been called, “one of the top satirists in the country,” by Jay Leno. He’ll maximize his front end while keeping an eye out for his back end while putting the “point” in Powerpoint.

As the world’s first (self-proclaimed) “Cybersatirist,” Bob initially made his mark online with a popular web site that was named a PC magazine Top 100, followed by his success at high-profile business events. He’s performed for Fortune 500 CEO’s at invitation-only conferences and international audiences of leading financial managers, and followed Microsoft President Steve Ballmer after he unveiled Windows XP.

Bob Hirschfeld has been profiled in USA Today and The Wall Street Journal as well as been featured in Newsweek and Fast Company. His humor has appeared in the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today.

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New Research Captures Data Synchronization Benefits for Small- to Mid-Size Business (SMB) Suppliers

Consumer Goods Technology Magazine (CGT) conducted a data synchronization survey on small to mid-size business (SMB) suppliers with revenues under $500. 1SYNC recently shared the results and benefits highlighted in the survery report, which was published in January 2007. The article presents the unexpected benefits of data synchronization today with big plans for the future.

The survey confirms, that there is indeed, synchronization activity among SMB suppliers and that 62% of the respondents engaged in data synchronization are either accomplishing this activity on a manual process or with a technology partner.

More importantly, the report recommends that suppliers using manual processes should utilize a less manual intensive method, which will start to lay the foundation for them to exchange more valuable information, such as price data. The survey results also showed that 81% of the respondents would recommend data synchronization, which shows potential in this sector.

Internal system alignment was an unexpected benefit as the function that realized the most benefit (33%) from data synchronization. More typical internal benefits were order management improvement (22%) and sales force productivity (19%). Overall, improvement in employee efficiency has enabled other internal functions to spend more time on valued added activities.

IDEA’s IRD CERICOMX® solution provides this market segment with a completely developed and proven application that provides data synchronization via a hosted, machine-to-machine or behind the firewall application (over 300 suppliers are using the application today). The application provides a migration path for companies using a completely manual process or spreadsheets to a fully automated behind the firewall solution. As a 1SYNC On Board Support (OBS) partner, IDEA can provide a complete turnkey solution to meet all the customers’ data synchronization requirements. As the article points out, once retailers require synchronization of the product data and once price and promotion attributes are part of the standard synchronization process, companies using manual processes will need to migrate to more automated processes to meet these requirements.

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