Driven by the rise in digitization in the global consumer goods industry, Messe Frankfurt Exhibition GmbH, the world’s biggest event organiser which is headquartered in Germany’s commercial hub, has been developing nextrade, a digital business-to-business (B2B) marketplace, in partnership with nmedia, the market leader in electronic data interchange (EDI) in Europe, according to Stephan Kurzawski, the firm’s senior vice president.
“We are always trying to serve well in our trade shows. This [nextrade] will allow buyers to spend most or all of their time on exhibitions. We need to help our clients jump into the digital world without forgetting participating in the old world of exhibitions,” Kurzawski said in an interview.
The firm has therefore invested in nmedia GmbH. Using the EDI Clearing Centre, nmedia is translating the language of suppliers’ and retailers’ IT systems, thus allowing the automated ordering of products and product lines. A fully automated process is now in place, generating orders in the retailer’s system and sending them to the supplier’s system. This makes it possible to save resources and costs while increasing the level of efficiency for both suppliers and retailers.
“All leading suppliers and retailers are already nmedia customers, making nmedia the ideal partner to develop a B2B marketplace for the entire consumer goods industry,” he said.
To set up nextrade, nmedia will move its entire portfolio of 1,000 retailers and 500 suppliers from the EDI platform to the new marketplace. As its sales partner, Messe Frankfurt will acquire new suppliers and retailers wanting to be part of the marketplace.
Each supplier enters their product details on the marketplace platform in a webshop of their own. Once a retailer has been activated by their supplier, they can use nextrade to place centralised, digital orders in each of the webshops, using a single channel, rather than placing orders manually with each supplier.
Detlef Braun, member of the executive board of Messe Frankfurt, said the firm would provide exhibitors and visitors to its consumer goods exhibitions with a further tool to give them a competitive edge in an increasingly tough market environment.
“Like our trade fairs, this tool will create a perfect match between supply and demand. Thanks to the nextrade marketplace, we are giving further proof of our partnership in digital transformation of the globalconsumer goods industry,” he said.
“This is an area where we can see a need for action as well as definite leverage for future success. We would like to give exhibitors and retailers some specific support through a new digital web-based ordering tool.”
The platform was inspired by digital business models that cause massive consolidation in the retail trade. In Germany alone, 100,000 retail outlets had to close down between 2000 and 2017. In addition to placing orders at the trade fair in the usual way, retailers can use the new platform for the digital ordering of products and product lines 365 days a year, he said.
