DALLAS -- The merger of UCCnet and Transora, announced last month, is expected to become final by late August, according to Bob Noe, chief executive officer of Chicago-based Transora, who will become CEO of the new organization.
"We're in due diligence now, with our 53 [Transora] investors to vote in another month. Later this summer we should be pretty well done with this," Noe said during a packed session on the merger at the U Connect conference here at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center June 7 to 9. The boards of both companies also need to approve the merger.
U Connect was sponsored by UCCnet's parent, GS1 US (formerly the Uniform Code Council), Lawrenceville, N.J. UCCnet and Transora represent two of the largest U.S. data pool organizations that serve as go-betweens in the data synchronization process for retailers and manufacturers. The merged organization will be a non-profit division of GS1 US.
As a data pool, Transora has been known primarily for serving large consumer packaged goods companies, though lately it has attracted such distributors as Kroger, Publix Super Markets and Schnuck Markets and Wakefern Food. UCCnet, a catalyst for data synchronization in the United States, has a large number of smaller suppliers as well as major retailer users such as Wal-Mart Stores, Wegmans Food Markets and Supervalu.
Driving greater adoption of data synchronization within the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN) remains the goal of the merger, said Michael Di Yeso, president of GS1 US, who participated in the session with Noe. "The point is not to move incrementally but to radically accelerate data synchronization in the U.S. and globally," Di Yeso said.
Di Yeso said the merged UCCnet-Transora organization will be able to speed up adoption of data synchronization by "clarifying the marketplace" for retailers and suppliers, and by bringing together a "talented resource base with the best implementation support and processes."
Noe and Di Yeso also see synergies between the data synchronization services offered by the new company and EPCglobal US, a subsidiary of GS1 US focused on the commercialization of the electronic product code (EPC) and radio frequency identification (RFID).
Retailers who have used data synchronization to reduce invoice errors and improve new-item introduction were generally supportive of the merger (see, SN, May 23, 2005, Page 1).
Miguel Lopera, CEO of GS1 (formerly EAN International) and GS1 US, who also participated in the U Connect session, denied that the UCCnet-Transora merger announcement was related to the announcement, made just a few weeks earlier, that GNX and the WorldWide Retail Exchange planned to merge. "Users have requested us to consolidate for a number of years," he said.
Asked how the two companies would integrate their different cultures, Di Yeso responded that both organizations would learn from each other. "UCCnet is standards-compliant while Transora works ahead of standards," he said, referring to Transora's ability to synchronize non-standard price and promotion information.
In the combined organization, Di Yeso noted, "UCCnet will gain the capability and desire to get out in front of standards to meet the future, while Transora will learn about standards, the Global Registry and EPCglobal." The combined organization will continue to support price and promotion synchronization, though "the end goal is to move into standards," Di Yeso said. An effort is under way to standardize price and promotion synchronization (see "Pursuing the Dream," Page 48).
Di Yeso said that current contracts with Transora and UCCnet will be "honored completely, with no fee change." But the make-up of the data pool for the merged company would be different, taking "the best of both" existing data pools.
Lopera denied that the new UCCnet-Transora data pool would have any advantage over other data pools by being a division of GS1 US, the largest of the GS1 organizations. "The GS1 board has people at high levels from other data pools who will never allow advantages for UCCnet-Transora," he said.
