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NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION NEWS RELEASE THE VOICE OF RETAIL WORLDWIDE Liberty Place, 325 7th Street, NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20004 Phone: 202.783.7971 Fax: 202.737.2849 |
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For Immediate Release
Contact: Scott Krugman or Kathy Grannis (202) 783-7971
NRF Announces New RFP Promotion
Washington D.C., January 10, 2006 - The National Retail Federation (NRF) is pleased to announce the formation of the RFP Promotion Program to support development and maintenance of their standard request for proposal (RFP) and maximize the benefits to both retailers and their software vendors. The RFP Promotion Program, managed by the Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS), creates a partnership with consulting companies who agree to encourage use of NRF-ARTS RFPs and to continually provide comments and updates to the standard RFPs so they remain state-of-the-art. NRF and ARTS will list members of the RFP Promotion Program on the RFP website so retailers seeking assistance in RFP projects can select companies familiar with the standard RFPs. “This Program is essential to maximizing the benefits of standard RFPs,” said Richard Mader, Executive Director of ARTS. “It will increase use of the standard RFPs, enabling vendors to respond quickly and accurately to retailer requests. Through continual feedback, ARTS-NRF can regularly update the RFPs, keeping them current with the ever-changing software applications.” Consulting companies that join the RFP Promotional Program will be invited to participate in RFP educational sessions that ARTS is planning for 2006 and are expected to serve on the RFP Committee to develop additional RFPs. C-CORE Consulting Group is the first company to join the RFP Promotional Program. “We are delighted to participate in this program to assist ARTS as they expand and strengthen their standards’ library,” said Frank Urbaniak, Consulting Principle of C-CORE. “Standard RFPs coordinated with our POS RAPID Project Toolkit help retailers through the entire project start-up process; Scope and Requirements, Vendor Evaluation and Selection and Project Management Startup.” The RFP Promotion Program will increase use of the RFPs and enable retailers who wish consulting assistance to identify and prioritize their requirements, define the scope of the project being planned, understand the potential changes to business processes to enable purchase of the right applications, to select consultants that provide a head start by using standard RFPs. “The RFP program has been a great success,” said Jesus Colao, IS Development Director of El Corte Ingles. “Retailers save time and cost, while producing a more complete RFP that vendors can answer accurately.” The initial RFP educational session, “All you wanted to know about RFPs but were afraid to ask,” will be held on Sunday, January 15 at 10 a.m. in room E1516 of the Jacob Javits Convention Center during NRF’s 95th Annual Convention and EXPO. C-CORE Consulting Group, Inc. serves the retail community with new and streamlined approaches to challenges in process and technology improvements. The principals have in excess of 50 years retail experience in Store Operations, Retail Technology, Project and Program Management, and Business Process Management. The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) of the National Retail Federation (NRF) is an international membership organization dedicated to reducing the costs of technology through standards. Since 1993, ARTS has been delivering application standards exclusively to the retail industry. ARTS has four standards: The Standard Relational Data Model, UnifiedPOS, IXRetail, and the Standard RFPs. Membership is open to all members of the international technology community-retailers from all industry segments, application developers and hardware companies. The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants, drug stores and grocery stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.4 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 23 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2004 sales of $4.1 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations. www.nrf.com. ###
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