Year in Review - 2010 - GS1 Australia

LETTER FROM
THE GS1 GLOBAL
VICE CHAIRMAN AND
ACTING CHAIRMAN
In February every year, hundreds of team members from the global GS1 community
gather together at the annual event we call our Global Forum. This past year’s Forum
was held under the theme of “From vision to action, united for new opportunities”.
Actions and opportunities
That theme is an excellent description of the fine work
that has been accomplished at GS1 these last 12 months.
In a challenging economic context, GS1 continues to
transform its vision into concrete actions that benefit
businesses and improve peoples’ lives; and continues
to find new opportunities to allow information to move
efficiently and securely across the supply chain.
Making a difference
When I looked at the accomplishments of the year, I
quickly realised that there were far too many success
stories to be able to list them all. GS1 has made a real
difference in many industries. The teams that work with
the retail & consumer goods sector, for instance, made
great advances with food traceability, standards-based
identification for fresh food, electronic article surveillance
and extended packaging. Our ongoing efforts with the
global healthcare sector have led to the development
of AIDC Application Standards suitable for 90 per cent
of all healthcare products, as well as to the addition
of healthcare attributes enabling data synchronisation.
Our Global Data Synchronisation Network is being used in
more than 80 different countries, and now has 4.8 million
GTINs and over 23,000 GLNs in its Global Registry.
Furthermore, we’re seeing good progress with data
quality programs. The historical core of our other product,
Bar Codes and Identification, continues to be extremely
strong; and this year we saw real results in the alignment
of bar code and RFID specifications and standards. Our
eCom standards continue to have increased adoption.
EPCglobal also had a productive year of concrete actions,
requirement and a number of live implementations of
removable RFID tags for electronic article surveillance.
One million visits
In another sure sign of our success, the GS1 global
website at www.gs1.org had over 1 million visits in
2009. This figure is an increase over 20 per cent
compared to 2008. Visitors also spent more time
on the site than before.
Strategic alliances
Our collaborative work could not be as useful
without the joint efforts we make with other industry
associations and groups. In the past year, we have
strengthened our working relationships with many
such organisations, including The Consumer Goods
Forum, the GSMA, ISO, and the ITU, among others.
Transforming the vision
Many companies and organisations have a vision
statement; I am honoured to serve as Vice Chairman
to an organisation like GS1 that has taken its vision
and transformed it again and again into actions and
opportunities. I congratulate all GS1 teams around the
world on the fine year, and I look forward to seeing
the work they will accomplish in the year ahead.
JOSÉ LOPEZ
Executive Vice President Operations &
Globe Nestlé S.A. and Vice Chairman
and Acting Chairman GS1
Year In Review
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