Home Depot Requiring UCCnet Registration
By 2005, Home Depot will begin implementing the Uniform Code Council (UCC) registration and synchronization services. Therefore, the more than 1,500 stores located in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada and Mexico are eliminating all manual processing. This is part of its “Hardlines Industry” initiative to synchronize all item data it sells.
Home Depot is requiring all product suppliers to provide date through the UCCnet compliance format. Home Depot stated, “Becoming UCCnet compliant is extremely important to our relationship as we look forward to reducing our mutual supply chain data cost.”
Home Depot will register location data in the UCCnet GLOBALregistry, an industry-supported repository for standardized item, location and trading partner data. Once registered, UCCnet checks data for compliance to industry standards. Home Depot will then use UCCnet’s service to synchronize data with its suppliers, ensuring that all suppliers are using identical, up-to-date, standards-compliant data.
According to the UCC, “UCCnet’s services will enable suppliers and their retail partners to reduce costly administrative errors for invoice pricing, purchase orders, product delivery and scanning accuracy. In addition, companies will be able to increase the speed of getting new products to market and facilitate changes to existing item information.”
According to Oakdene Group, Inc., a company that specializes in offering business management services and software, recent results from an AMR research study predicted that “$2.1 billion will be squandered over the next five year on B2B initiatives unless manufacturers and retailers develop a platform to support data synchronization first.” Also, Oakdene Group revealed an A.T. Kearney study that showed:
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Correcting catalog errors costs $60-80 per error.
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30 percent of item data in catalogs is incorrect.
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Each SKU requires 25 minutes of manual cleansing per year.
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Every invoice error costs $40-400 to reconcile.
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60 percent of all invoices have errors and 43 percent of all invoices results in deductions.
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The average product roll-in takes six weeks.
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Sales lost to inaccurate data is 3-5 percent.
Because there are so many UCCnet Service Providers in the marketplace, Home Depot evaluated several top companies and chose five as the Home Depot Preferred Data Sync Partners. These vendors were selected based on their proven capabilities. Home Depot recommends the following vendors for UCCnet-related software and services: bTrade, Lansa, Transora, Sterling Commerce and the Electronic Commerce Council of Canada.
Only 1,000 of Home Depot’s 5,000+ suppliers are currently UCCnet compliant. “The Home Depot is determined to enhance our supply chain by synchronizing our business data,” Home Depot said. “We hope if you have not already started, that you follow the steps and get on board quickly. You are a valued supplier, and we look forward to you joining us on this item-synchronization journey.”
For more information, visit https://vendor.homedepot.com or www.UCCnet.org.