Even with GDSN - retailers product master data is still crap!?

Just recently GS1 Belgium did  a "Mini Data Crunch Survey 2011" where they did a survey what the impact of bad data on the belgian grocery market is. This is a survey which stands in a line with what GS1 UK started with their "GS1 UK Datacrunch Report 2009".

I think GS1 Belgium really put together a very nice report - and the results are - I would like to say "as expected" - very bad. The data between suppliers and retailers is significantly out of sync. And there is a huge cost to the market for that.

What I liked most is that GS1 Belgium not only looked at suppliers and retailers who were not yet doing GDSN but also at suppliers and retailers who are heavy GDSN users. Surprisingly by looking at the figures they have measured regarding "missing data" and "mismatches supplier-retailer" you really cannot tell who is doing GDSN and who is not. The percentage of incorrect data ranges from 49% to 67% - and keep in mind they only researched the data of 4 suppliers at 4 retailers and even that with only 100 products:

I would have expected that the retailers who are using GDSN have significant better data then those who are not using GDSN at all.

If that is not the case, what are the reasons for those issues?

GS1 Belgium does not directly address this subject, but indirectly they are proposing an answer with their analysis what is happening behind the firewalls of suppliers and retailers.

Obviously suppliers and retailers still have to do a lot of manual work on both sides of the table even if they have implemented an automated GDS process.

From my perspective the two most important recommendations of GS1 Belgium are:

1. Use an automated exchange of data between suppliers and retailers. Here GS1 Belgium for a good reason refers to their GDSN datapool offering. But I think that is only the one part needed. The other part is that retailers have to implement internal automatic integration processes to really integrate the data into all their business applications.
   
   Just recently I found out at a major german retailer who is already doing GDSN for quite some time that they are not integrating the GDSN data into their purchasing system!? How do they expect to benefit from GDSN for their order and invoice processes???
   
2. Introduce a so called "data team" on suppliers and on retailers side to be the one and only team to maintain the data.
   

They are also proposing a lot of other very reasonable actions to be taken like establish data ownership, data quality dashboards, etc.

But I really think you have to establish a dedicated organisation and then you have to integrate the data into your business applications in an automated way. Actually straight forward, isn't it?

But my expierence is that suppliers and retailers are really struggeling at this point and typically do not implement this consequently ...

Let me repeat my mantra: Suppliers and Retailers simply have to implement a MDM program and make their GDSN initiative part of that MDM program. This is the only way to implement GDS successfully and gain the business benefits out of it.