StORES Magazine - September 2007 - (Page 118) CONSIDER THIS / ARTS UPDATE Global Standards Propel Retail BY RICHARD MADER Technology has dramatically changed how retailers conduct their business. Today, via the Internet, you can buy and sell anything, anywhere. Of course, retailers must still apply the same golden rules that were required for retail success long before there was a personal computer: The customer is always right. ther enabling retailers to provide the right Stock the right merchandise at the right merchandise at lower prices. time and the right price. The Internet also is a standards-based It’s just that, properly applied, technology network: everyone follows the same rules enables retailers to better live according to under the guidelines of the W3C standards these golden rules. organization. Successful retailers have exIn the 1970s, retailers used computers pripanded beyond their four walls to embrace marily to process accounting records and multiple sales channels; e-commerce conproduce reports. Early uses were accounts tinues to increase at a rate of 20 percent payable, receivables, stock ledgers and annually, with some analysts predicting that sales reporting at the summary level. POS it will account for 25 percent of all retail terminals were mostly off-line devices until sales by 2010. the late ’70s and early ’80s. The dramatic increase in the impact of Then the Uniform Code Council (now GS1technology on retail due to these and other US) introduced unique product identification B2B global technology standards has had numbers in bar-code formats and launched the unintended consequence of increasing Richard Mader is the retail technology revolution. Bar codes IT costs. These costs are due less to new executive director of ARTS. were a standard, and all manufacturers equipment than they are to the agreed to the same code structure so that need to integrate an explosion of all POS scanners at all stores could read new applications that must share Successful retailers the codes and identify the products. data. have expanded beyond The speed and accuracy of scanning barcoded tickets allowed retailers to monitor Future developments their four walls to embrace and maintain product-level inventories, thus On the horizon are new stanmultiple sales channels ensuring the right merchandise was on dards and standards-based hand for the customer through automatic retechnologies for A2A, or applicaplenishment. Other applications soon foltion-to-application integration, lowed: improved returns processing; price management; such as XML, SOA and ARTS standards, that you will need and detailed sale analysis via a new function — data wareto understand in order to continue to leverage technology housing. to increase revenues and reduce costs. XML, SOA and ARTS are standards that will play a role in your successful future much as EAN, EDI and the Internet Origins of EDI do currently. They will enable you to employ common It is fair to add that the availability of ever-faster computpoint-of-service policies and processes across all sales ers at ever-lower prices enabled the widespread adoption channels, consolidate customer information into a single of bar-coded product identification. Similar advances in view and extend your investment in existing applications – communication networks led to electronic data interchange all the while allowing rapid deployment of new business (EDI), the automated processing of purchase orders, refunctions. ceipts and invoices. Learn more about ARTS XML standards to support POS, EDI is another standard; retailers agreed to send come-commerce, CRM, gift cards, inventory management, mon data that manufacturers, in turn, agreed to receive WFM and other critical business functions by visiting and process. By automating the process, the retailer’s cost www.nrf-arts.org or contacting me at maderr@nrf.com. of processing merchandise was dramatically reduced, fur118 STORES / SEPTEMBER 2007 WWW.STORES.ORG http://www.nrf-arts.org http://WWW.STORES.ORG
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