Smart manufacturers switch to electronic trading systems

The growth of smart phone technology that enables shoppers to scan barcodes for product information often inaccurately scanned by web crawlers has also fed the need for more accurate data sharing between suppliers and retailers, said Steve Keifer, vice president of industry and product marketing at GXS.

"Particularly right now, it is important to ensure retailers have the latest cost data from their suppliers and those are the things that global data synchronisation does very well,"​ said Keifer.

Future focus on price​

He added: "The biggest trend we are seeing is around ASNs."​ While in the past, the information shared mainly dealt with physical attributes such as the size, weight and colour of products, in future the focus will be around price and cost of deal management, he said.

Suppliers were aiming to win competitive advantage through their e-commerce, said Keifer.

Retail promotions, however, remained a challenge, he admitted. "It's very difficult for anyone to tell exactly what the price of any particular item is at any point in time,"​ said Keifer.

"The pricing and promotional aspects [of GDS] remain a little bit elusive; basically because of the complexity associated with it and trying to capture all those different deals and promotions,"​ he added. "That part of GDS is not quite so far along."​

Automation further up the supply chain​

GXS has also been working with management consultancy Accenture to develop e-commerce further up the ingredients and packaging supply chain an area of interest to blue chip players such as Nestlé, Procter & Gamble and Kraft. "Those supply chain processes are not nearly as automated as one might think,"​ he said.

According to independent standards body GS1 UK, a further £300M can be saved in the UK grocery market by better exchange of data, said Keifer.

GXS acquired e-commerce provider Inovis in 2010 and plans to migrate users of both systems on to a new platform from 2012.