METRO Group

Germany's METRO Group, Europe's third-largest retailing company, uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to track merchandise throughout its supply chain. In an effort to relay more timely and accurate information to its suppliers, METRO Group opened a full-service data portal. Now the company and its vendors can access the data gleaned from RFID devices and housed in METRO Group's Teradata Warehouse to verify current inventory, track orders, manage product recalls and analyze customer response to advertising campaigns.

"In the past, suppliers would do analysis and our people would do analysis on, for example, such things as category sales, data overviews or delivery data," explains Dr. Gerd Wolfram, Managing Director for Advanced Technologies at METRO Group. "Now, they all have the same data."