Morrisons’ announcement marks turning point in supplier data collaboration
You may have seen the announcement last week that Morrisons is making its MSD data portal (msd.morrisons.co.uk) free to all its suppliers.
Morrisons wrote to all its suppliers “…we want to work together with our suppliers to serve our customers better. To help us do this, it’s important we have the tools to make sure the right products are in the right place at the right time. To do this we share key information with you through the Morrisons Supplier Database (MSD). MSD is an on-line information data exchange, sharing key sales, ranging and scanning, depot Inventory and stock cover, purchase orders, delivery and service level information.”
“We believe sharing this information, both current and historical, is important in simplifying and speeding up how we work together… the great news is that from the 1st February 2017 we will be offering free access to this tool.”
Since launching our Morrisons version of SKUtrak® (www.skutrak.com) 12 months ago we have spoken with hundreds of existing MSD subscribers on how to get the best out of their Morrisons data; signing up more than a hundred to SKUtrak in the first 6 months alone.
In this time we also encountered an even larger number of suppliers who wanted to work with Morrisons’ data to understand their performance and ultimately improve their sales and service levels, but whom were unwilling to pay the MSD fee.
Last week’s announcement marks a turning point; it means that for the first time every grocery supplier can access their raw daily data for all the top 4 retailers without additional fees. The challenge for suppliers now is how to turn all this raw information into the clear picture of trading performance which enables the collaborative benefits retailers like Morrisons demand.
If you supply Sainsbury’s and Morrisons and already have a Horizon or MSD account then you can already go to www.skutrak.com and get one or both of our free retailer services.
If you don’t yet have a Morrisons MSD then you will need to “…contact the MSD team by emailing msd@morrisonsplc.co.uk with your Supplier name and ideally your Morrisons Supplier number.”
We believe this is another step in the larger story of retailers and suppliers benefiting from more collaborative use of retailer data. If you want to use all your retailer data more effectively get in touch with us on info@atheon.co.uk.