1. GDSN will overcome the national Data Synchronization standards and become the real global Datasync standard
Has this already happened in 2012? It depends on your view - for sure GDSN is not yet fully established in whole europe but the european communities are all working on this. In Germany industry and retail is working hard on migrating from SINFOS to GDSN (see here). Austria is starting a complete new initiative to launch GDSN (have a look here). GS1 Finland is preparing to switch from SINFOS to GDSN (see here). GS1 Denmark too. France, Italy and Spain are already on GDSN. Even GS1 UK is pushing hard for GDSN even though the major UK retailers are still not beyond pilot. So the majority of europe is at least working seriously to adopt GDSN.
For sure it will take some more time until whole europe will show reasonable adoption of the GDSN. In germany the official goal is to have the whole migration to GDSN finished by the end of 2013. I would not be surprised if it will take until mid or end 2014. But then it will be accomplished.
2. Master Data Management also gets implemented by European retailers
What are twelve month for such an important business decision? European retailers definitely have the awareness that there is a huge business need to introduce Master Data Management as a new business process ... At least that is my perception when I am talking to european retailers. To support my perception I just tried to find some publications on the internet on the topic - but looks quite difficult. There is not much published out there. What I found was some success stories like Heiler on EDEKA or Imperia on METRO, and a very old blog post from Gartner here. But some more general information or survey? Nothing right now ... So in 2013 I definitely have to collect some more information on that topic, help always welcome ;-)
3. Retailers build their own portals to gather item master data on top of GDSN to have a free solution for suppliers and to collect data beyond the standards – and this will burst the usage of GDSN
At least Casino, Edeka, Metro Group, Praktiker and REWE Group (not sure whether this is a complete list) are using the 1WorldSync service to offer their suppliers a free portal to provide their master data to them. Other retailers choose other solutions (eg. Tesco uses a service from Brandbank) and I am pretty sure that there are also other retailers out there who have build their own supplier portals offering options to let suppliers provide them their product information.
How this helps GDSN adoption? Retailers who are offering their suppliers a free channel to provide their item master data to them as an alternative to GDSN are able to rollout this to their suppliers very quickly and thereby they are getting their ROI for the electronic data sync process much quicker then if they would only rely on GDSN. And this is what counts.
4. E-Commerce in Europe becomes the driver for MDM and GDSN in retailers &
5. B2C item information will become integral part of GDSN
EU Food Information Regulation (1169/2011) obviously became in 2012 a driver for suppliers and retailers in grocery to think about how they can get this information into the online shops. A good impact analysis of this regulation can be found here. As this regulation will take effect in December 2014, industry and retail will be busy in 2013 and 2014 to solve the challenges.
GS1 is pushing here with their "B2B2C"-Initiative a lot to solve those challenges based on the current GDSN infrastructure. This approach from my perspective is very reasonable and gives retailers the benefit of only having to implement one interface (MDM at a retailer is then a prerequisite) and suppliers the freedom either to also implement MDM and GDSN or to just use a data capture service provider to fulfill the requirements of retailers.
The risk for this approach is that retailers really have to implement it now (in 2013). Otherwise they might be tempted in 2014 to take a shortcut and favor a model like in UK where retailers are mandating that B2C data has to be captured by Brandbank. This is a free service to retailers but has to be paid by industry. And retailers might be tempted even not to touch their IT infrastructure but simply feed that data only directly into their online-shop and not getting any other benefits out of this data.
6. Stationary retailers will learn from Amazon that the electronic supply-chain is key for success
Hmmm, any update on this? I do not know ... just a personal note - I learned that grocery online shopping is different from shopping other goods online. I never did grocery online shopping until REWE started their home delivery service here in cologne. Even though the online shop is not yet as good as you would expect it today (product information, images, search, ... - Amazon sets the bar quite high) the whole service is great! Why? It is home delivery! Since they started their service back in October 2012 I have never been again in a supermarket!
7. The GS1 system demands an integrated solution for supplier data, item master data and transactional data
I have not seen anything happing in that area. Did you?
8. Gepir will be abandoned
I have not seen anything happing in that area. Did you?
9. GDSN at the tipping point - Not for profit vs. commercial services
2012 was the tipping point - with the merger of 1SYNC and SA2 Worldsync there is only one real global data pool left and that is owned by GS1 US and GS1 Germany. Now most of the GDSN is controlled by a not for profit organisation. This should remove all the barriers and politics within the network and hopefully help to make data synchronisation a lot easier. Looking forward to 2013!
2013 will become again very interesting in the areas of MDM and GDSN!
Happy New Year!
