Awareness, and more recently participation, in GS1-driven global standards initiatives is steadily increasing. More companies are contributing to industry working groups and the number of products assigned GTINs is growing rapidly. What once seemed like nirvana championed by a few large, well-heeled visionaries is within reach to even the smallest organizations.

Synchronized data has always been the backbone of ITN’s Collaborative Supply Chain Platform, enabling customers to improve order accuracy, decrease procurement administration costs, improve food safety and enhance compliance.

ITN is an expert in master data management and has supported the development of industry standards, actively participating in various GS1 member organizations’ committees and working groups.

The 5,500+ suppliers on ITN’s platform today maintain detailed information for 1,100,000+ food industry products, including GTIN, Global Product Classification, nutritional and allergen information, related documentation and pictures. ITN is enhancing its data synchronization capabilities by providing suppliers and trading partners a quick and easy method to leverage their existing ITN connection to share and view GS1 standards-compliant product information globally with trading partners in GS1’s Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN).

ITN is focused on being the food industry’s data pool, encompassing products as varied as CPG, produce and floral to alcohol, disposables and office supplies:

• Buyers have a centralized view into all of their catalogs, including suppliers who are not yet GS1 standards-compliant or participating in the GDSN.
• Suppliers and buyers can publish and view information about all of their products regardless of whether or not the product is transacted on ITN’s Collaborative Supply Chain Platform.
• Buyers and suppliers can leverage the platform on which they collaborate with trading partners on a daily basis to publish and view product information.
• Buyers can link to their custom product attributes such as identifiers indicating a warehouse slot, shelf placement or category, and have a complete view into all information about a particular product.

See how ITN is delivering the GDSN and the unique benefits we can provide by clicking on the image below.

Even with supplier’s adopting GS1 standards and making their catalogs readily-available, buyers still have internal catalogs they spend a significant amount of time keeping accurate, complete and up-to-date.

Catalog Exchange, which is incorporated in the latest release of ITN’s Data Synchronization solution, takes all of the effort out of maintaining even the most detailed internal product information. Buyers are notified as information about a product is changed by the supplier regardless of whether or not the product is already in linked across their catalogs. When products have been linked across buyer and seller catalogs, Catalog Exchange can automatically update the buyer’s product information based upon the supplier’s, providing a simple method of keeping information, including GTINs, manufacturer product codes or even nutritional information, accurate and up-to-date. Both suppliers and buyers save time and ensure their customers have the product information they need. When coupled with ITN’s GDSN module, buyers have a comprehensive, “real-time” and nearly effortless solution to their global catalog maintenance challenges.