18-04-06 09:48
Age: 7 yrs

BY: GRAMLING, KATHRYN; BIGORNIA, ANTHONY; GILLIAM, TIG

IBM Business Consulting Services (BCS) would like to thank all of the participants of the EPC™ Forum. The survey and workshop discussion were invaluable to all members of the Auto-ID community. We would like to give special thanks to Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, Target and Johnson & Johnson for sponsoring this event. In addition, we would like to thank Diane Werling of P&G and Tracy Skeete of the Auto-ID Center who made the EPC™ Forum a clear success. EPC™ Forum Overview The purpose of this white paper is to report on the proceedings from the EPC™ Forum and on the results of a survey that was conducted both pre- and post-EPC™ Forum. The intent of the survey and this report is to give an early indication of the direction and priorities to the Auto-ID Center sponsor and non-sponsor community on high priority applications and anticipated EPC™ adoption hurdles. As part of this survey and during the course of the EPC™ Forum, IBM Business Consulting Services (BCS) captured both qualitative and quantitative information. This report will include the details from the survey as well as feedback from the breakout session where end users prioritized applications and discussed challenges ahead for EPC™ adoption. It is important to note that this report is not statistically significant for the purpose of any market sizing analysis. Rather, this report should be used to contrast and analyze individual company priorities against the views expressed by this subset of the larger CPG and Retail community. The survey results were summarized from over 200 responses, representing over 60 companies – making the results directionally correct not absolute. The Process The survey was administered through the web and data points were collected and analyzed by IBM BCS. These results were reported out to the EPC™ Forum participants and then the survey was re-administered at the end of the workshop to compare results adjusting for learning curve and normalization of education among the participants. The survey focused on the following topics: 1. Current company investment and experience in EPC™ solutions 2. Direction and relative priority of EPC™ applications 3. Expected overall investment and timing for EPC™ solution adoption This report presents the priorities of the end user community; the key challenges for adoption, and the expected benefit areas end users are driving towards. The paper concludes with some recommendations on critical next steps for the community.

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