I was recently in a fast-food drive through – a rare indulgence I would have avoided altogether were it not for ravenous hunger and a late hour.  I won’t say which restaurant it was, protecting the McInnocent and all – but the driver of the car in front of me ordered a combo meal and said, “super size, please.”  Having watched the movie Super Size Me and hearing about the fallout, I knew this offering no longer appeared on the menu, but I guess, not unlike everyone’s favorite corner coffee monopoly, experienced users know they can ask for things not on the menu.

This episode got me thinking about product information – please remember it’s a lifelong obsession with me.  Two key things came to mind: 1) both retail trading partners and consumers are asking suppliers to “super size” their product records, and 2) many of them also want things not on the menu.

Elaborate, you say?  Thank you for asking, I will!  One of the key challenges I have seen over the last several years with data synchronization is that suppliers are being asked for more, and more, and MORE information.  Their customers and end consumers want so much data – logistics information , installation information, usage information , features and benefits, regulatory compliance information, etc., etc., etc. (be sure to read this last line with your Yul Brynner The King and I voice).  Really, the list does go on, I’ve just begun to scratch the surface.  I was recently at a conference where a very large retailer gave a presentation on their efforts to begin gathering data about sustainability (the new buzzword for environmental friendliness).  It was fascinating actually, but made me wonder how suppliers will collect such information, let alone communicate it to their trading partners.  Just add it to the ever-growing – SUPER SIZE – list, I suppose.

The other thing that seems to be daunting is that every trading partner is asking for something different.  Retailers need to maintain differentiation, so they don’t always put all of their requirements out in the public domain.  They choose to use proprietary portals or closed community concepts to gather data that only they are interested in, and of course they don’t want their competitors to know what they’re asking for, so suppliers are plugging in to multiple locations to satisfy each important customer.  The irony is, that when a group sits down together across an industry and starts honestly assessing these “individual needs,” they discover that 90%+ of the requested attributes are the same across different partners – the names may be a little different, and the formats – one uses a code list and one uses a free text attribute, etc., etc., etc.  But the end goal is the same – give me everything I need to know (and the consumer needs to know as well) so I can setup this item, purchase it, and market it.

It’s not that these new requests and requirements are unrealistic – there are business purposes for the information and as I have highlighted in the past, consumers are hungry for it as well – the Internet is, after all, the greatest place to comparison shop.  The quandary is how a supplier can meet and exceed the expectations of everyone downstream in the supply chain and still remain profitable and productive.  The good news is that there are a lot of people (besides me) that are constantly working on ways to provide answers to the tough questions about B2B data aggregation, management and dissemination.  And it’s a good thing, because suppliers need a break today!