Sharing Data

InformationWeek has an article updating efforts by retailers to collaborate with their suppliers. Efforts have been underway for years with retailers and suppliers spending a tidy sum -- they've met with limited success however. The annual VICS conference usually bring renewed calls for more collaboration, with practitioners taking the podium to elucidate on their latest successes. So why aren't retailers and suppliers seamlessly sharing information yet? The article tries to answer that, and the usual sorry excuses for data synchronization project failures are the culprits. Namely: good clean data is hard to come by; changing processes to ensure clean data isn't always that easy; trust; and realizing the ROI.