Conexxus and IFSF sign global standards development
This agreement builds upon the collaborative work that both entities are doing and further formalizes the infrastructure and processes for joint work product and resulting API Standards.
Conexxus and the International Forecourt Standards Forum (IFSF) have signed global standards development and cross licensing agreement that will pave the way for future global collaboration, resulting in international standards and an API Data Dictionary for the retail fuels and convenience industry. This agreement builds upon the collaborative work that IFSF and Conexxus have been doing and further formalizes the infrastructure and processes for joint work product and resulting API Standards.
“Standards allow implementers to write once, implement many,” said Linda Toth, managing director of Conexxus, “thus reducing the time to market and barrier of entry for core functionality. This allows implementers to focus on innovation and other differentiators.”
The data dictionary, by clearly defining data elements common in our operations, enables easy sharing of data with partners and faster creation of data lakes for the next phase of business analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
“The large number of global vendors serving this industry – largely with proprietary data meanings and interfaces – creates unnecessary technical debt and inability to quickly innovate. This increases costs and missed opportunities for our retailers,” said Gray Taylor, executive director of Conexxus.
This initiative and the formalized agreement are the result of a detailed analysis of how both Conexxus and IFSF can better serve their membership in the face of increasing disruption in our retail segment.
“Even retailers doing business in one country benefit from global standards. Suppliers can implement one standard no matter the country of use which mean resources are freed from doing multiple developments for the same functionality,” said Ian Brown, API strategy manager, IFSF.
Conexxus is a non-profit, member-driven, technology organization dedicated to the development and implementation of standards, technologies innovation and advocacy for the convenience store and retail fueling market.
IFSF is a community dedicated to enabling technology standards for the benefit of retailers of automotive fuel and energy, and their suppliers.
