25 November, 2004 —Global eXchange Services (GXS) has been selected by ECR as one of its preferred suppliers of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) services to improve the speed, quality and price of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) for Russia’s 140 million consumers. ECR-Rus initiated the project on behalf of its members, who include domestic and multinational retail outlets and FMCG companies, to trade electronically irrespective of each trading partner’s size, resource, location, hardware or software.

ECR-Rus’s members are accountable for over 4,500 product lines, 350 retail outlets, 30 production facilities and over $4 billion in yearly turnover but to date, the resulting hundreds of thousands of transactions between these trading partners are processed through manual entry. GXS’ Trading Grid will automate the delivery of electronic messages, such as orders, invoices, shipping notices and delivery confirmations, between retailers, suppliers and manufacturers. By using open standards such as HTTP, XML, FTP, SNTP and AS2 in Russia, Trading Grid will remove the existing boundaries of trading partners only being able to deal with those using complementary standards.

A spokesperson for ECR-Rus said: “Electronic Data Interchange between trading partners is an emerging concept in Russia and as a result, there is little access to local expertise. In our quest to find the highest level of EDI partners, we evaluated over 30 organisations against three strict criteria – the company, the architecture and the cost. GXS delivered in all areas and as a result, were one of the obvious choices to join our group of preferred suppliers to build, strengthen, deliver and manage our e-commerce infrastructure. We’re confident that Trading Grid will enable us to meet our aim of channelling over 40 per cent of all Russian retail transactions electronically within the next three years.”

Bobby Patrick, senior vice president at GXS, said: “ECR-Rus has taken the absolutely right approach in allowing GXS to contribute to creating the e-commerce infrastructure from the beginning for an open market using interoperability standards, security, integrity, traceability and the ability to audit.”

About ECR-Rus
ECR is a joint trade and industry body, launched in 1994 in Europe to make the grocery sector as a whole more responsive to consumer demand and promote the removal of unnecessary costs from the supply chain. ECR-Rus is launched in September 2003, and was founded by 10 companies (Auchan; Clorox; Gillette; Lenta; Metro; Nestle; Procter & Gamble; Ramenka; RusBrand; UNISCAN). ECR-Rus has 4 working committees (Supply, Demand, Enabling Technologies and Education), with no service providers. ECR-Rus Co-Chairs are: Daniela Riccardi (P&G), Oleg Jerebtsov (Lenta), Georgi Petrov Honorary Co-Chair (Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Russian Federation).

About GXS Trading Grid
Global eXchange Services Trading GridSM is a globally-accessible, real-time platform for business process networking. Trading Grid helps customers automate global trading communities by shielding complexity from rapidly-changing standards, eliminating manual and duplicative efforts, and enabling a new level of process integration and business intelligence. Through direct integration with GXS’ Trading Grid, both large and small customers can extend existing ERP investments and cost-effectively achieve new levels of collaboration and business success. For more information on Trading Grid, visit www.gxs.com/TradingGrid/.

GXS is a leading global provider of B2B e-commerce solutions that simplify and enhance business process integration and collaboration. Organizations worldwide, including 75 percent of the Fortune 500, leverage the GXS Trading Grid to achieve the perfect balance of supply and demand. Active in the global standards arena, GXS solutions enable customers both large and small, to connect with global partners, synchronies product information, optimize inventory levels and demand forecasts, and accelerate the execution of supply chains.

Headquartered in Gaithersburg, MD., GXS provides sales and support to businesses and their partners worldwide. For more information visit our Web site at www.gxs.com.