The GDSN has grown rapidly over the past five years since its inception. However, certain markets and data pool providers have enjoyed faster growth than others. In this post, I will explore which provider has the largest data pool and which one is growing the fastest. Unlike the debate about who has the largest B2B integration network market, the largest data pool is easy to determine. In fact, GS1 publishes monthly statistics about data pool utilization on their web site. The statistics below are based upon the August 6th, 2010 report.
There are several different ways to compare the size of data pools such as:
- Revenue generated
- Items registered
- Retailers registered
- Suppliers registered
Industry experts I work with generally use the number of registered items as the metric to compare data pools sizes. Unfortunately, most of the GS1 organizations do not publish financial results publicly. Therefore a revenue analysis is not feasible at this point. Both the number of retailers and number of suppliers registered are readily available from GS1. However, the number of companies registered is not necessarily indicative of activity. In the GDSN world, the key metric to track is items, which are referred to as GTINs or Global Trade Identification Number. A GTIN is similar to a SKU, part number or catalog number. If you have ever stopped to review the barcodes labels on any consumer product you will notice there is a number listed along with the series of black and white lines. The number in the barcode is the GTIN.
Examples of GTINs
1SYNC has the Largest Data Pool
1SYNC has the largest data pool regardless of what metric you use for comparison. According to GS1’s August 6th Registry Statistics, 1SYNC has 4.3M registered GTINs from over 200 retailers and over 8,000 suppliers. 1SYNC, which is owned by GS1 US, was formed through the merger of Transora and UCCnet. Transora was originally an electronic marketplace formed by a consortium of leading food and consumer packaged goods providers in the late 1990s. UCCnet was a commercial service of the Uniform Code Council (UCC) developed with the help of technology partners such as Commerce One and Digex. Several large US retailers (Wal-Mart, Wegmans, SuperVALU, Lowes) and suppliers (Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola Company, Kraft Foods) have been instrumental in driving adoption with 1SYNC.
SA2 ranks Second
The second largest data pool is SA2 (not to be confused with the network protocol AS2), which also recently completed a merger to expand its operations in multiple countries. SA2 Worldwide is the product of a merger between SINFOS (Germany GS1) and Agentrics’ (formerly the Worldwide Retail Exchange) GenSync unit. With almost 400K GTINs registered from 40+ retailers and 2000+ suppliers, SA2 is a distant second compared to 1SYNC. However, SA2 has significant market influence with most of the original SINFOS and WWRE customers (e.g. Walgreens, Best Buy, Metro and Bayer Healthcare) remaining active in the data pool.
A close third is Big Hammer (owned by Edgenet), which historically enjoyed strengths in the US Do-It-Yourself and Hardlines community. Big Hammer is relatively unique, in that, it is not affiliated with a GS1 member organization or industry marketplace. Commport (formerly known as PAINT), which is the eighth largest provider, is the only other technology vendor pure play among the top 15 data pools.
The fourth largest data pool is GS1net Australiasia, which services both its Australia and New Zealand. Operated by GS1 Australia, the data pool has over 250K GTINs registered by 20+ retailers and 1700+ suppliers. Australia has been a pioneer in the data synchronization market with several innovative projects underway. For example, Australia has piloted price synchronization. Additionally, the local GS1 has also developed an extensive National Product Catalog for pharmaceuticals and medical devices sold in country.
Latin America Adoption Outpaces Western Europe
Surprisingly, Latin America makes a strong showing in the top 10 data pools. Syncfonia, operated by GS1 Mexico, is the fifth largest data pool with 166K GTINs, but all from suppliers. CABASNet, which is operated by GS1 Columbia, ranks sixth with 162K GTINs registered from 4 retailers and almost 5000 suppliers. GS1 Argentina ranks ninth with 74K GTINs from 11 retailers and 500+ suppliers. Spain, which retains strong political and economic relations with many of the Latin American countries, also placed in the top 10 at number 7. Spain’s AECOC data pool hosts 78K GTINs from 14 retailers and 300+ suppliers.
While SA2’s data pool boasts some impressive numbers, primarily from Germany and the US, many of the other Western European countries such as the UK and France lag in adoption as compared to Latin America. For example, GS1 France’s data pool, known as Parangon, only hosts roughly 7,000 registered GTINs from approximately 100 suppliers and 17 retailers. GS1 UK is has slightly fewer items than France with 6,700 GTINs, but more suppliers (500+) suppliers.
Emerging Markets Lag
Despite the fact that a high percentage of consumer products are sourced from Greater China, the data pools from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Mainland each are in the early stages of adoption. The GS1 Hong Kong, GS1 Taiwan and ANCCNET (Mainland China) data pools each have only a few retailers and a few hundred suppliers registered thus far. Many Chinese companies are still wrestling with implementing ERP and supply chain execution applications, which are necessary pre-requisites to realizing the benefits of GSDN. Long term, I believe that GS1 Hong Kong has the greatest potential for growth as data pool. The Hong Kong GS1 sells not only in the Special Administrative Region (SAR) but also in the Pan-Pearl River Delta region of Shenzhen and Guanzhou.
Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East are still early in the process of building adoption. Croatia has the largest of the Eastern European data pools with 2500+ GTINs. Slovakia and Hungary also have started to build data pools, but are in the early stages of adoption. GS1 Malta, which operates the MEMA data pool covering 9 different countries, is in a similar position with only a few early adopters.
Beyond Retail and Consumer Products
Perhaps, most interesting amongst the data pools is the fast growing service of GHX (formerly known as Global Health Exchange). GHX’s Health ConneXion data pool launched only a year ago, but already has 500 GTINs registered from early adopters such as Baxter, Novation and Johnson & Johnson. GHX has extensive reach into the manufacturers and distributors of medical-surgical and medical device products. Additionally, GHX has connectivity into much of the “buy side” of the US and Canadian health care markets including Group Purchasing Organizations and hospital centers.
The Fine Print
There are a few important clarifications to be provided about the GDSN statistics to be aware of:
Although the GDSN was formally created in 2004, there were numerous pre-existing data synchronization initiatives in specific countries. 1SYNC’s UCCnet dates back to 1999. GS1 Australia, Canada, Spain and the UK for example each had active local country data pools before formally joining the GDSN. Many of the pre-existing retailers and suppliers were migrated to the new GDSN data pools. Hence adoption in certain countries has occurred over a longer time period than 2005 to the present.
There is a “GXS Data Pool” with a 2 registered GTIN tracked on the official statistics, which is not representative of the GXS footprint in GDSN. GXS offers a cloud-based Data Pool Manager Service that other GS1 organizations and technology vendors rebrand, market and sell to their end-user community. For example, GXS provides the technology behind the GS1 UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, Hong Kong, Taiwan and MEMA data pools.
