National and international Network

In the ECR sector GS1 Germany works in an international network

The ECR-Initiative Deutschland

Leading German companies from the fields of trade, the consumer and durable goods industries and associated industrial sectors have joined forces in the ECR-Initiative in order to orientate their cross-company business processes according to uniform standards and application recommendations through a joint voluntary commitment. The German ECR-Initiative was established in May 1995 and shortly afterwards integrated into GS1 Germany. The purpose is to cooperate in order to fulfil consumer wishes quicker, more efficiently and more cost-effectively.

The ECR-Initiative Deutschland is open to all companies which wish to cooperate, irrespective of their size and location. This also includes prior vendors, who are also involved in the value-adding capacity, and service companies from the fields of logistics and information technology.

International

Expanding globalisation makes it necessary to harmonise the ECR application recommendations. Consequently all national results are always coordinated in the European or international committees.

ECR Europe

In an environment which is made extremely competitive by increasing internationalisation and rapid technical developments, ECR Europe has, since 1994, offered all the parties involved the opportunity to share the benefits of a comprehensive concept for enhancing the value chain. In addition to ECR Process Management, numerous corporate representatives of ECR-Initiative Deutschland, from the ECR Board and the project teams participate in international project groups.

GCI

Since October 1999 the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI), a user group which was established on a voluntary basis by organisations involved in trade and industry, has worked to develop and implement global standards and business process recommendations in the consumer goods sector in order to make the global process chains more efficient.

GCI is not an organisation that develops standards on its own; it works together with member companies and existing institutions which are responsible for putting global standards into practice around the world (standard bodies). The declared objective here is to promote the introduction of optimum, voluntary standards and the implementation of business process recommendations by commercial users.

Over 300 company representatives from the worldwide consumer goods sector are involved directly in the project work. They define the process requirements in the form of process descriptions, data contents and implementation recommendations.

ECR-D-A-CH

In mid-2000 ECR Deutschland (D) joined forces with the ECR initiatives in Austria (A) and Switzerland (CH) to form ECR-D-A-CH. The work of ECR-D-A-CH is embodied in the international activities of ECR Europe and the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI).

At the heart of this work lie the utilisation of synergies through joint projects, the exchange of best practice recommendations, pilot projects and reports on experience, joint marketing, promoting implementation by means of education and training and, ultimately, presenting joint concerns to ECR Europe, the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI) and other organisations.