 A smooth flow of goods is only possible when retailers and manufacturers are able to transfer and process information quickly and accurately. This is why electronic data transfer is gaining in importance. The METRO Group uses the data pool MMS-CAT in order to ensure the efficient exchange of product data with its supplier. |
What Benefits Does MMS-CAT Offer?
Data processing with the help of MMS-CAT and on the basis of international standards brings significant advantages to the METRO Group and its suppliers. The supply of information is easier, faster and more transparent for both sides. The respective staff members no longer have to exchange data per fax, post or disk and verify this data manually. This increases the quality and availability of data and assortment processing becomes more efficient. Verified product data is always kept up to date in order to avoid such instances as price discrepancies.
Keeping a Firm Grip on the Entire Assortment
Thanks to MMS-CAT, the METRO Group is able to shorten the entire process of assortment creation. The exchange of product data between the group and its suppliers is conducted over one media. This way the data is quickly available for processing and updating. The administration of master data requires much time than it did in the past. An additional bonus: when MMS-CAT works transnationally in the future, the system of the METRO Group will make an overview available of the complete assortment that is currently being offered – worldwide. This will lead to more transparency in the assortments of all sales divisions and international service companies.
The Best in Data Supply
Data transfer and administration also becomes much easier for the supplier. Suppliers can easily transfer the latest product data to the METRO Group over the external master data pool SA2 Worldsync (
www.sa2.com) or over the Internet. The information only has to be provided once. Product additions or changes easily flow into the merchandise management system of the METRO Group. Inversely, data is transferred quickly from the purchasing departments of the group to the business partner. With MMS-CAT, manufacturers are provided with a state-of-the-art application – this eliminates the expensive and cumbersome management of disks, fax and mail. The system pre-requisites of the suppliers only include the following components: a computer with Internet access, an e-mail address, an Acrobat Reader for reading PDF files and a suitable Internet browser.
