French retail giant Carrefour looks back on the evolution of its supply chain 15 years after the implementation of the GDSN.
GS1 and Carrefour have collaborated on a new case study to explore how the organization is using the GS1 Global Data Synchronization Network to improve global communications with trading partners. The impact of the GDSN implementation can be seen in almost every aspect of day-to-day business, allowing Carrefour to meet consumers’ growing expectations for data.
French Carrefour was one of the first companies to realize the potential of GDSN. “The idea is to simplify the communication with our manufacturers,” explains Marina Guégan, IT Director of Master Data Tao Carrefour. Within a year, the organization’s food and non-food (near food entities) products from the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) catalogue The data has been integrated into the GDSN, while the rest still requires manual entry via Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.
GS1 GDSN enables business efficiencies across new products and partnerships with businesses of all sizes
Before implementing GDSN, at least Carrefour and its suppliers were required to execute a single product sheet – a process estimated to take 8 to 10 minutes per product. Multiplying thousands of unique products and suppliers took a lot of time and effort. Thanks to gs1gdsn, that number has dropped to near zero today.
Carrefour also improved the efficiency of the program. New attributes can be provided in advance for use in future product tables. This enables all trading partners to bring new products to market quickly and easily. GDSN also supports Carrefour, one of the world’s largest retailers, in its efforts to better organize product data and improve overall data quality.
“With GDSN, there is less human error. Even better, because of the volume of exchanges, it is difficult to trace the source of errors. Now, suppliers feel more responsible for the quality of the data they share,” Marina said.
gs1 gdsn enables online shopping platforms to provide consumers with reliable product information
Today, the utility of product data extends beyond the supply chain. Accurate information is not only relevant in the B2B environment, but information now flows all the way to the end consumer. With GS1 GDSN, product information moves seamlessly from manufacturer to retailer to consumer through local stores or e-commerce marketplaces.
GS1 GDSN makes this journey possible by helping to ensure that core product attributes (such as size, weight, composition, etc.) as well as digital content (such as product descriptions and images) are supported. This new range of attributes is used to help multinational companies such as Carrefour overcome new and changing challenges in today’s digital environment.
