CATCHING UP WITH WAL-MART

Michael Garry

While many retailers have invested in intranets and portals meant to deliver information to employees and managers at store level, few have developed external portals giving their suppliers real-time, Web-based access to company data.

The most famous example of an external portal supporting suppliers is Wal-Mart Stores' Retail Link. Other food distributors known to be developing external/internal portals include Unified Western Grocers and Hannaford Bros.

In addition, some third-party companies, such as IRI, Chicago, and Retail Solutions, Lincoln, R.I., have established portals for CPG manufacturers and retailers. IRI's CPGNetwork delivers sales and marketing information via reports, alerts and key performance indicators.

Hannaford, Scarborough, Maine, has set up its portal to allow vendors to send a wide range of information, including basic item data, prices, deals, promotions and some new item information, said Bill Homa, Hannaford's chief information officer. The portal can also be used for invoicing and delivery scheduling.

Unified's Memberlink portal for suppliers and retailers supports key functions like new product introductions, inventory management and marketing information management, according to Gary Herman, chief information officer, Unified, Commerce, Calif. The portal is especially designed to improve speed-to-shelf for new items, a competitive strategy increasingly being used by food distributors.

At Hy-Vee, West Des Moines, Iowa, a sophisticated internal portal, from Plumtree Software, San Francisco, serves the company's 46,000 employees. Thus far, the chain is using it externally only to connect to key partners like Catalina Marketing, St. Petersburg, Fla., with which it collaborates on launching promotions, said Marissa Lee, a Plumtree spokeswoman.

Retail Solutions recently announced it intends to leverage its portal infrastructure to design hosted portals for food retailers, some of whom may already be contributing point-of-sale and inventory data to supplier clients. "Many retailers told us it would be nice if they had a platform to share information with suppliers like Retail Link," said Ramesh Murthy, chief operating officer, Retail Solutions. "So we're trying to leverage retailers' internal investments to go external to suppliers, who can use demand data to drive the business."