ARTS at NRF

By Bill Bittner, President, BWH Consulting

An update for the Association of Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) was given at NRF on January 14th. Over the past year, ARTS has worked on specifications for Comparison Shopping Engines, Product Content Management, Notification Event Architecture for Retail (NEAR) and POSlog 2.2. They developed a new RFP for Master Data Management which supports the foundation data needed for SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and successful Data Synchronization. The IXRetail effort is being renamed to ARTS XML to make its title more reflective of its purpose. Today, ARTS will announce upgrades to their POS materials, including the POS RFP and an RFP “how-to” that helps users get the most from the RFPs. Other efforts have focused on informing retailers of the ways they can exploit the benefits of new software technologies such as SOA.

The ARTS description of master data defines it as that data which describes the various business objects, such as items, locations and people that participate in the business processes and the objects that record business activity. Successful master data maintenance requires a coordinated set of software applications and business processes dedicated to “getting it right.” This includes feedback mechanisms and audit trails so that when mistakes are made, they can be detected quickly and corrected before a huge number of operating decisions are impacted. Because it lies at the root of all processes, master data is crucial to the accuracy of everything that is done.

Comparison Shopping Engines are here to stay. Consumers love being able to decide online where they can find a desired product. Channel Intelligence has been supporting the CSE providers by cleaning up the data from individual retailers and building the linkages that allow consumers to make selections. In essence, Channel Intelligence provides the services of a middleware vendor. Up until now, each retailer provided input in their own format. Now the ARTS standard presents a common format so the data can be directly interfaced.

SAP
and Oracle helped with the presentation on Service Oriented Architecture. (RetailWire
did a big discussion on SOA a couple years ago. See RetailWire 10/7/05 – Web
Services: Online Dating for Business Aps) SOA is just now beginning to take
shape. SOA can be internal or over the internet. In both cases, it means that
two software applications are communicating with one another using a common
standard. This means the technical barriers to using software applications
(services) written by different vendors have been eliminated.

Finally, the ARTS presentation discussed what they plan for the year 2007. Initial plans have been formulated, but they are also accepting suggestions. Key areas include data model enhancements to better align the various data references within the various ARTS documents, developing a Data Warehouse Model, and improving on the enumerations for code values for various existing attributes. They are working on an RFP for CRM and will be incorporating updates to the Work Force Management RFP with help from C-Core Consulting. Further work on ARTS XML will produce new schemas for Vendor and Scale Management and updates to current schemas. The goal is for all the ARTS metadata to share a common data dictionary. Efforts on SOA will be to continue retailer education and to begin documenting common retail services.

Discussion Questions: ARTS is looking for input on their choice of priorities for 2007 and suggestions from the retail community. What do you think of their current plans? Do you have any thoughts on where new standards could benefit retailers? Are there additional RFPs you would like to have?

ARTS is again on the forefront of defining retail technology requirements. I feel the SOA effort is their most ambitious. I just hope we don’t have the “cart before the horse.” One analogy for describing SOA is to think of the services as pieces of a puzzle. Two pictures of the same thing can be cut different ways to form two different puzzles, but you cannot mix half the pieces from each puzzle. Even though they used the same picture (the retail business), different software vendors may not cut their services into the same pieces. The only way to get a good fit for different software packages is to begin with a common view of the business processes they support and how the software services will provide the necessary functionality.

NRF, VICS, and GCI all have to work together to define the business processes. These organizations must decide who the “actors” are and what services they should provide, and then the technologists can develop the software. Until there is agreement on the business processes, retailers run the risk that technology vendors will continue to develop solutions that require middleware for integration.

The ARTS effort on a Data Warehouse model is important and needs to include tactical use of the inferences that can be derived from data warehouse metrics. Detection of shelf out of stocks because of demand exceeding expectations or sales unexpectedly dropping off are examples of the need for trend data within the operational applications.

The effort on the RFP for CRM seems timely because much of the NRF show this year was dedicated to CRM. This is a rapidly changing area and guidelines on data and how it can be used are needed. Significant effort must be spent guarding consumer privacy. Customers should be confident that retailers will do everything necessary to keep consumer facts confidential.

One effort I think would help in all these areas is to take an “objective approach” to the definition of the retail business processes. By that I mean retailers should define the various business objects that comprise the retail environment. Items become objects comprised of various UPC objects that represent different versions of the same item. There is a clear distinction between manufacturers, vendors, suppliers, and jobbers and the various roles each can play in the business processes. Location objects include both virtual and physical stores. People can be employees, suppliers, and consumers.

Whatever the final list, I am sure ARTS will continue to make an important contribution to the retail technical environment.