Lately I received the question whether I could quickly summarize the Positives and Negatives of GDSN.
Guys, I can tell you - that is not an easy task! So I tried my very best and this is what I came up with:
Positives:
- GDSN is the only global infrastructure to exchange product information
- It is used by many global suppliers and retailers
- It has a lot flexibility build in with the extension concept and extensions like the AVP-Extension
- There is a channel for communicating back from retailers to suppliers (the Catalog Item Confirmation message CIC)
- -Full coverage for all B2B processes in the verticals of FMCG and Grocery
Negatives:
- Implementation is complex for suppliers and retailers
- Although GDSN defines a message standard, this is only mandatory to be used between data pools. The communication between data source/recipient and the data pool is not standardized at all. This means every MDM/PIM/tool provider has to build an extra interface for each and every data pool he wants to connect his tool to. Therefore there are right now not that many tools which have build in GDSN capability.
- Typically GDSN does not cover all the requirements a retailer has regarding data synchronization. Therefore retailers are often asking for additional product information from suppliers on different ways. Very obvious is that GDSN today does not yet cover B2C data. And the question is whether the current GSMP process really can master the challenges of B2C data (category specific attributes).
- GDSN Pricesync is very complex and there is only one community which has adopted it (australia) up until now.
- There is a huge reengineering of the message format under way (Modular Item / GDSN 3.0) to give GDSN even more flexibility. There is not yet any date for putting that into production (rumours are saying, maybe 2015!?). This will put a lot of burden on all data pools and probably also on customers using GDSN today.
What do you think? Is that a fair summary? Do you have any extra Positives or Negatives?
Looking forward to your comments!
Before GDSN (initially called UCCnet) development was undertaken by GS1 (UCC) there were several players in the market. They provided a lot of support to their clients and they had a financial motivation to develop the communities, being profit driven. As GS1 is not profit driven, we cannot expect the same level of aggressiveness and support, which explains the lack of success achieved. When you add to that the technical complexity of the solution that was chosen by GDSN, and the relatively low level of sophistication that the Retailer's IT systems had ( and some still do), you get the result we have today. This is not meant to be a negative criticism, just a fair evaluation of what has happened.
ReplyDeleteHi Guillermo, I have to admit that I have exactly the same experience here in europe. Here similar things have happened in the last few month. Also that Retailer's IT systems are often overstrained by data synchronization and esp. by GDSN is what I am seeing here.
ReplyDeleteQuestion is - who to overcome those issues? What can be a solution?
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ReplyDeletethe problem is, and has always been, that retailers do not have the motivation to really implement Data Synch. Manufacturers are eager to do it, because it cuts costs, mistakes, and improves their supply chain management. I started doing this back in 1995, in Europe, and the reason for failure is always the same. Retailers have not yet focused on improving their data flows to achieve higher productivity out of their OPERATIONS. They prefer to obtain higher profits out of their COMMERCIAL relationship with their suppliers instead. As they can get away with it, why bother to implement things such as GDSN ??? Manufacturers do not really have a choice and are weary of putting pressure on the retailers, for fear of being cut out of their ranges. It is a power game. The problem is that consumers end up paying for the inefficiencies of the FMCG and Grocery supply chains.
ReplyDeleteI absolutly can understand this argument - although I think retailers are changing. At least the retailers I am working for have become aware of the potential they would have with better master data - and this is mainly driven by the logistics department.
ReplyDeleteAnother driver from my perspective for change is ecommerce. Since Amazon has entered here in germany the market of grocery, every grocery retailer is becoming nervous and trying to push his own ecommerce initiative. But key for online-shops is good quality product information ...
Therefore I am pretty convinced that GDSN has to embrace the B2C product information. If it does not, there will be another solution which then will also cover the B2B master data aspect ...
In my opinion there is a single subjacent issue behind most of the drawbacks that Björn listed above: Basically, it's the standardization process behind it, which I would characterize as "design by committee". Look this term up at Wikipedia if you don't know exactly what I mean. GDSN suffers almost prototypically from all the symptoms that are characteristic for that sort of engineering process, i.e. needless complexity, internal inconsistency, logical flaws, banality, and lack of a unifying vision. And yet these things are at the very heart of the acceptance problem that the network is facing. The complexity leads to enormous entrance hurdles for the adopters, the inconsistencies and flaws make it extremely difficult to come up with implementations that are actually correct, and the lack of vision leads to a universal "let's wait and see" attitude. For other reasons, I'm in doubt that I should wish for it, but for the sake of true global standardization, the only solution that I could think of, would be a dictatorship by a single player in the market, ideally a huge retailer, somebody who's in the position to tell everybody else how it should be done.
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