Hamburg, 29 May 2019. Yesterday, the five travel retailers Gebr. Heinemann, Dufry, DFS, Lagardère and Kappé held the second global Strategy Meeting of the Travel Retail Data Innovation Group (TRDIG) in Hamburg to evolve the global exchange of master data in the Duty Free industry. Representatives of more than 90 suppliers from all product categories, of data pool service providers and of the global standardisation organisation GS1 Global Office attended the event.
From commitment to a community
The first TRDIG Strategy Meeting had been held in Hamburg in June 2018 with around 100 participants from 35 suppliers. At the end of the meeting, decision-makers, master data experts and IT managers added their signatures to a large “commitment wall”. With this symbolic gesture they highlighted their joint commitment to connect to the TRDIG data pool by 2019 and to use it for master data exchange.
The aim of this year’s Strategy Meeting was to take this commitment to the next level by engaging all parties to shape and promote the standard together as a community. “The data pool is now live. Numerous suppliers from across all categories are connected and contribute their master data into the data pool. Some suppliers are already exchanging master data exclusively via the data pool,” states Inken Callsen, Director Fulfilment at Gebr. Heinemann. “Our target is to integrate more than 80% of our Perfume & Cosmetics (P&C) and of our Liquor, Tobacco, Confectionery and Fine Food (LTCF) assortment, as well as the first suppliers in the categories Fashion & Accessories and Watches & Jewellery (FAWJ) to the data pool by the end of the year.”
Sophie Boasson, Supply Chain Director at Lagardère Travel Retail, adds: “Lagardère is, by now, in the process of establishing the data exchange via the pool with eight suppliers. When we first heard about the project from Gebr. Heinemann, we immediately identified a huge potential, both for the brandsand the retailers, as we had a similar project launched at that time.”
Working groups are paving the way
On stage of the TRDIG Strategy Meeting 2019, key players of the travel retail sector as well as industry representatives explained their current project status and emphasised the great advantages that result from the data pool. Small working groups subsequently kicked off the development of initial solution approaches for pending topics such as pricing, non-sellable materials and digital assets, among others. “We are looking forward to transform these topics into specific measures during workshops that we and the other retailers will host in the upcoming months. This builds a solid foundation for the digital future of the entire travel retail industry,” states Alessia Poveromo, Global Head of Master Data at Dufry.
Outlook: Ambitious goals for the future
In the course of 2020, the TRDIG expects all suppliers for whom the automated master data exchange is appropriate, to exclusively use a data pool. Inken Callsen is excited to see the dedication and the commitment expressed by the participants: “Our joint project continues to gain momentum and everyone is really keen to get involved. We will continue to promote our vision for the standardised and automated exchange of master data across the industry. Our common goal is to prove that we in travel retail have a different mindset to all other industries because we understand that collaboration in this aspect of the business is not a competition but a real advantage for the whole market. After all, the more partners we have in the global data pool, the better!”
Press Contact:
Julia Knors
Corporate Communications
+49 40 3010 21 86
j_knors@gebr-heinemann.de
About TRDIGTRDIG stands for the “Travel Retail Data Innovation Group”. The group is made up of suppliers, retailers, various IT service providers and the global standardisation organisation GS1 Global Office. The latter is currently developing international standards for the automated exchange of product master data between the industry and travel retailers. The aim of TRDIG is to create a central and global data pool with standards for digitised and automated data exchange that can be used by all stakeholders in the travel retail sector (both suppliers and retailers). To do so, suppliers share their product master data with connected retailers in the cloud. The digital and automated exchange of data with only one global interface increases data quality and reduces processing costs simultaneously. The pooling of high-quality master data furthermore ensures compliance with legal requirements like customs regulations in the respective markets.
The data pool is realized with a “many to one – one to many” cloud solution. In the national consumer goods market, the usage of such a pool for data exchange is an established practice for around 15 years. Expanding the usage of data pools to the international Duty Free market – and therefore to the whole world – is a ground-breaking step that lays the foundations for travel retail to quickly and efficiently compete with other channels.
