As the FEDA Data Portal project reaches its next stage, it’s the perfect time to look at how the relationship between distributors, manufacturers and their data has changed over the years and how those experiences shaped the creation and priorities of the FEDA Data Portal.
This year marks a major leap forward for the project. With a team of exceptional technology partners in place, distributors and manufacturers will soon benefit from new integrations and more detailed analytics that are needed to make possible future innovations. Breakthroughs such as supply chain planning that responds to real-time market conditions or customer product recommendations aided by artificial intelligence (AI) can only move from imagination to reality when companies have the reliable access to the standardized product data that the FEDA Data Portal provides. As the FEDA Data Portal project reaches this pivotal stage, it’s the perfect time to look at how the relationship between distributors, manufacturers and their data has changed over the years and how those experiences shaped the creation and priorities of the FEDA Data Portal.
Developing the FEDA Data Portal When digital business technologies began to crop
up about 50 years ago, some of the first software solutions were designed to support the sale of complex products in the manufacturing, telecommunications and information technology industries. The foodservice equipment and supplies industry was a natural fit for this kind of solution, as software could help make sense of the breadth of equipment specifications and unique operator requirements that dealers needed to work out in every sales call. It’s no surprise, then, that dealers were among the industry’s earliest technology adopters and were at the forefront of driving technology companies to develop software designed specifically for the foodservice equipment and supplies industry.
18 FEDA News & Views
Those initial efforts eventually led to the creation of what became two essential and intertwined industry solutions: a quoting tool called Configure, Price and Quote (CPQ) and an aligned equipment and supplies database filled with manufacturer product information — both of which grew into cornerstone technologies for the industry and are still in use today. But in response to interest from members for another option for CPQ technology, and in particular a solution that provided dealers and manufacturers greater control over their data, FEDA embarked in 2021 on a project to establish the FEDA Data Portal. In addition to having more control over their data, dealers and suppliers were also looking for technology that would allow them to use their data to create their own analytics or link it to new solutions being offered by other partners. And, because members rely on affordable access to uniform product data to operate their businesses, FEDA took the lead on the project and began making financial investments to develop a product database that better served the needs of dealers and suppliers.
In building this new database, FEDA spearheaded the development of a solution that would allow dealers and suppliers to own their data, control who could access it and determine how it can be used. The FEDA- driven solution provides dealers and suppliers with the flexibility they need, but the quality of data is equally important. For it to be effective, the product information in the database needed to adhere to a common format that could be reliably integrated into business systems. To that end, FEDA established the Data Governance and Standards Committee. This group, consisting of
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