July 28, 2011 – IDEA, a business-to-business technology service provider owned by the electrical industry, has launched the Attribute Fulfillment Service (AFS), which it claims gives manufacturers the opportunity to outsource some or all of the work involved in populating standardized product marketing content into the Industry Data Warehouse (IDW).

According to IDEA, the IDW is the data synchronization platform of the electrical industry, and provides a centralized location for manufacturers to synchronize product information electronically with their trading partners. “Previous case histories have shown that the AFS outsourcing option helps manufacturers populate the IDW with marketing content in half the time and one-third the price compared to using internal resources,” it added.

“We listen to manufacturers and distributors daily, and through these conversations, we recognized a need in the channel,” said Robert Gaylord, president and CEO of IDEA. “Most manufacturers understand the value and ROI associated with providing marketing content to distributors, but they can’t just push a button and it’s done; there is a lot of work involved behind the scenes, and many just haven’t had the time or resources to dedicate to the project. As the electrical-industry data experts, it’s our job to help them make it happen.”

According to IDEA, the AFS includes populating the industry-approved attributes defined in the Electrical Attribute Schema. With the launch of the Schema 2.0, manufacturers have new opportunities to differentiate their products, and help their distributor trading partners and end-users make better buying and selling decisions, it said, adding that Schema provides a guide to populate marketing content for nearly 2,500 product categories.

IDEA partnered with Datagility, a data management service company, for the project.