Think about communication this way: I speak French and you speak English. Very often, we do business this way in different languages. Global Data Synchronization is all about creating a common language. GDS is critical for manufacturers and retailers to eliminate errors in product dimensions. One of the things that we are now focusing on is data accuracy. We measure and pass on the dimensions of our products to retailers who need accurate information to do their planograms. If we had a standard process by which we passed on this information and retailers implemented it, we could save a lot of money for the industry. It is the same thing with prices. When you think about price changes, there are a lot of different processes we do with each customer and it takes a while to actually reflect those prices on the shelf. Everybody has a different process to communicate price changes between organizations and within an organization. GDS is the way to create a pipeline for faster, more accurate information that can be implemented quickly.

This initiative to go “green” is becoming more important. Kraft is committed to energy reduction, and we are making a lot of progress in reducing our carbon footprint. For example, we have done a lot of work in transportation. We’ve been working with our suppliers and customers to eliminate “empty miles” that occur when we have empty trucks on the road. We are one of the co-founders of the Transportation Alliance to support a move to 96,000-pound trucks with six axles, which would allow us to haul more goods in each truck in a safe and more effective way.

The simple answer is that retail chains need to collaborate with Kraft Foods. We can provide a menu of solutions to help them be more efficient in their supply chains needs. We can benchmark them against a number of metrics to show where they stand from our vantage point. We usually tackle the areas where they are the weakest because that is where the biggest leverage points are. So, whether it is cash, working capital or costs, we work with them to find savings and efficiencies. For example, we can work with retail chains on how to reduce transportation costs, unsaleables and waste. We also can work with them on how to improve processes for replenishment all the way to the store.