Lawson, Inc., Co-operative Retail Group, and Tesco.com Honoured at Global Retail Achievement Awards Ceremony

    PARIS--April 11, 2003--The Global Retail Achievement Awards honour retail industry leaders in the field of national and international technology and business innovation.
    Decided by an independent panel of judges and audited by Retail Systems Alert Advisory Service, the following winners were announced:
    The award for Best in Customer Service was presented to Lawson, Inc., for the Japanese convenience store chain's implementation of chain-wide kiosk and card sales systems, and the infrastructure to support these and other services, connected throughout the enterprise and to suppliers via a high speed communications network.
    This award was accepted by Teruo Aoki, Member of the board, Senior Executive Vice President and CIO.
    The award for Best in International Distribution and Logistics was presented to Co-operative Retail Group for the British co-operative grocer and convenience store retailer's collaboration methodology that has enabled it to dramatically improve product availability and supply chain efficiencies.
    This award was accepted by Peter Carefoot, Logistics Development Manager.
    The award for Best in eCommerce Innovation was presented to Tesco.com for the British grocery and convenience store giant's mobile shopping application, optimized to provide all features available to online users and allowing customers to shop at any time, regardless of location or internet connection.
    This award was accepted by Paul Arnold, Head of Research and Development.
    Tom Friedman - founder of the Global Retail Technology Forum and president of Retail Systems Alert Europe, also announced the creation of the Albert Heijn Achievement Award.
    An award which celebrates each year an individual who has made a major contribution to retailing, and especially to retail information systems, on an international scale.
    Dr. Albert Heijn has made a significant personal contribution to retailing and played an important part in the success of the Albert Heijn supermarket chain and the Royal Ahold group. Also, his work in the 1970's and 1980's in the development of independent industry standards, (CECD, later Euro Commerce) and especially the adoption of the barcode, is well known.
    For these accomplishments, Retail Systems Alert Europe has established a new Career Achievement Award to recognize an IT executive for their outstanding contribution to the retail industry. The first of these awards will be made at the Global Retail Technology Forum in Barcelona in 2004 and will continue to celebrate each year an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to international retailing.
    For further details and photograph's from the Global Retail Technology Forum 2003, please contact:
    Steve Barrell
    Marketing Manager
    Retail Systems Alert Europe
    Tel: +44 (0)1273 722687
    sbarrell@retailsystems.com