This Week in IDEA | March 1, 2012

IDEA’s New “Industry Inspired. Industry Wired.” Webinar Series: Register Today

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IDEA is launching a new educational Webinar Series in 2012 to help you leverage the latest industry-inspired eBusiness solutions and resources to see real business results at your company. The webinars will be hosted by a mix of IDEA employees, our partners and customers so that you get a well-rounded perspective from the people who know your industry and understand your eBusiness challenges. Register for the first webinar “The Digital You: Building a Strong Web Presence” today!­

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Webinar: The Digital You: Building a Strong Web Presence
Date: March 21, 2012
Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm ET
Speakers: Mary Shaw, Standards Director, IDEA and Denise Keating, President, DATAgility­

"I need more marketing content now!" This is a common demand made by customers, but is much easier said than done. During this webinar, we'll help you determine ways to prioritize efforts so that you can build a strong web presence and create a consistent brand experience. We'll examine some of the industry-inspired solutions that manufacturers and distributors use to get results, such as leveraging the industry's Electrical Attribute Schema and integrating marketing content from the Industry Data Warehouse (IDW) with eCatalogs and web storefronts. ­Find out more and register now!

Visit the IDEA Webinar page for a sneak peek at more webinars that will be coming soon. Please comment on this post or (Don’t forget to ­mention us @IDEAeSolutions and start using the #IDEAwebinars hashtag)!

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Last Call for 2012 Forum Speakers: Submissions Due March 5th

Are you looking for an opportunity to engage trading partners and build meaningful relationships in 2012? Share your experiences and take the next step to move eBusiness initiatives forward in the electrical industry-- submit the IDEA E-Biz Forum Speaker Form by this Monday, March 5th.

What are topics to consider speaking about?­
Where can I find more information about the Forum?­ ­ ­
Who attends the Forum?   ­­Download the 2011 Attendee List.­

Here are some of the top-rated break-out sessions from the 2011 E-Biz Forum. See more on and .

Manage Your Catalog Content by Managing Your Priorities

Jason Archbold and Todd Kadry, Border States Electric

So little time, so many products. Does this sound familiar to you? Just when you think you’re making progress with your current product data, along comes the new attribute schema, new products, quality expectations, and new requirements.. How do you meet the increasing demand for your catalog content and make it part of your data exchange? In this session, we will discuss how your goals can be accomplished, even with limited resources. Creating metrics, clarifying priorities, and tracking your outcome will deliver the short term results you need for long term success.  

Clean Up -- It’s a Dirty Job But Somebody Has to Do It!

Lorraine Mott and Samer Shehadeh, Cooper Industries

How do you know if your data is dirty? Do you get a lot of errors on inbound purchase orders? Is your paycheck late because your Finance Department is spending too much time chasing debits? It’s time to clean house. During this session, we will discuss the pain points, how to get your business side involved through education and buy-in, the help that is available to you, and the lessons we’ve learned through our data cleanup work

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Seize the Opportunity with the Industry’s Electrical Attribute Schema and E-Commerce Standards

Mary Shaw, IDEA; Brenda Maxwell, Acuity; Joe Wallace, Van Meter Industrial

By facilitating automation, standards help companies all over the globe increase productivity and cut costs by reducing waste of valuable resources. With the launch of the latest IDEA Electrical Attribute Schema standard, the industry-approved template for standardized product marketing attributes, manufacturers now have new opportunities to bolster their IDW presence with clearly-defined product descriptors that will help both manufacturers and distributors sell more products. Distributors demand this information to fine tune their sales, marketing and support processes to leverage eCommerce and web search technology. Find out what eCommerce standards are available to you, why you need to use them, and how you can be a part of the team that develops standards for the electrical supply chain. Let your company’s voice be heard by participating in the industry’s efforts to improve business processes and provide clean, consistent data.

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New Standards Resource for the Industry

Help spread the word about the IDEA Industry Standards Committee (ISC) and all the standards resources they publish such as the industry’s Electrical Attribute Schema, EDIPro Standards and Net Price Synchronization methods. Download the latest Standards Product Brief for a concise summary of the advantages businesses can achieve by implementing IDEA standards, including:

The Electrical Attribute Schema

• Provides standardized structure for building intuitive, user-friendly web storefronts
• Promote products accurately and consistently to improve search rankings 
• Integrate UNSPSC® codes and their related attributes into business processes to conduct spend analyses and gather market intelligence 
• Increase the speed and precision of your product promotions
  

EDIPro Standards

• Integrate electronic processes with business systems, such as Epicor, Infor, Mincron, SAP, and Oracle
• Reduce cost and implementation time – create one EDI map for multiple trading partners 
• Import/export product information to IDEA’s Industry Data Warehouse (IDW) 
• Automate more business processes with more trading partners – EDIPro is widely adopted in the electrical channel, and adoption is growing in PHCP, PVF, Industrial, and HVAC verticals
  

Net Price Synchronization

• Streamline the invoice-to-payment process
• Make smart business decisions based on accurate inventory value 
• Speed up the rebate payment process by reducing manual efforts
  

Download the Standards Product Brief> ­
­View and download more product briefs in the Resource Center>

Many of the Standards Resources are free and accessible to the public. IDEA customers can access even more information by logging in through the IDEA Customer Portal and navigating to the "Standards" tab.

Find out more about Standards Resources>­

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New Synchronization Customers

As a 1SYNC Data Pool On-Board Solution (OBS) partner, IDEA implements suppliers that subscribe to the 1SYNC data pool using the IRD CERICOMX® Data Synchronization Platform. IDEA was recently assigned 15 suppliers:

• Real Foods Pty Ltd
• Norcom, Inc. 
• Eko Brands, LLC
  
• Redman & Associates
  
• Transparent Container Co., Inc.
  
• La Canasta Mexican Food Products, Inc.
  
• BH Toys, LLC
• Tricklestar, LLC
  
• Phillips Fastener Products, Inc.
  
• Design House LA
  
• Hunter Safety System HSS
  
• HealthSmart Foods, Inc.
  
• Luis Garraton, Inc.
  
• Dragon Claw, Inc.
  
• SCO Koladen
  

These companies will be trained to use IRD CERICOMX®, an online catalog that suppliers use to register product data with the GS1 Registry® and GDSN via the 1SYNC Data Pool. Suppliers also use this solution to publish product data to demand partners including retailers such as Lowe’s and Walmart.

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