I have been participating in meetings with the Association of Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) since 2006 when Cisco joined as a member organization.  ARTS, a division of the National Retail Federation, is an international membership organization dedicated to reducing the costs of technology through standards.  Its mission is to develop best practices, technology standards and educational programs through collaboration and partnerships that will enable retailers, their vendors and suppliers to conduct business globally.  ARTS standards, products and programs are dedicated to fostering innovation, improving shopper experience, and increasing retailer efficiency.

The ARTS organization consists of several working committees that include Business Process, Data Model, XML, and Unified POS.  ARTS Work Teams are made up of people like you and me who have domain expertise in an area that ARTS wants to either create a new standard for, or provide industry guidance to (e.g., Mobile, Social and Cloud).  These work products come in the form of Technical Standards, White Papers, Blueprints and Standard RFP's for use by its members.

Cisco is currently participating in the following ARTS projects:

• Location Work Team
• Omni-Channel Pricing Work Team
• Change4Charity
• UnifiedPOS v2.0

Recently published standards Cisco participated in include:

• Compliance Audit Interchange
• Mobile Integration
• Payments

Cisco has the pleasure of hosting the next International ARTS meeting on June 4^thand 5^that our London Offices where we will kick off the welcome with a presentation by our own Retail Expert; Edward Westenberg, titled: The State of EU Retail.

There are a lot of great people that attend these ARTS meetings, I have developed friendships that I believe will last a lifetime.  If any of these projects look exciting to you, or you just want to hear a bit more of what ARTS can offer your business come and Join us!  You can read more about the agenda and sigh-up here: http://www.nrf-arts.org/content/arts-international-meetings-june-4-5-2013-london

If your challenges includes compliance, check out Cisco's Compliance Solutions by visiting www.cisco.com/go/pci

Be seeing you, Bart.