Mission:
FMI represents food retailers and wholesalers and develops and promotes policies, programs and forums supporting its members, their customers and supplier partners, and other industry stakeholders in the areas of:
- government relations
- food and product safety and defense
- education
- industry collaboration and networking
- research
- health and wellness
- social, environmental and sustainability programs
- communications
By pursuing these activities, FMI provides leadership and advocacy for the food and consumer product industry worldwide as the industry innovates to meet the changing needs of its customers.
Website: www.fmi.org
The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) is a trade association representing more than 1,500 companies responsible for three-quarters of all retail food-store sales in the US. FMI’s member companies operate more than 26,000 supermarkets across the country, including large multi-store chains, regional firms and independent supermarkets.
FMI advocates on behalf of the food retail industry on a wide range of issues to Congress and the regulatory agencies, including credit card interchange fees, food safety legislation, estate taxes, and organized retail crime.
The association provides educational programming to its members in a wide variety of areas, including health and wellness, food and product safety, sustainability, asset protection, leadership, and more.
FMI also offers a number of training tools and the latest research on consumer and industry trends through its website.
FMI hosts one of the largest exhibit trade shows for the food retail and consumer product goods industry every other year. Thousands of retailers, wholesalers, and suppliers attend the signature event to explore the latest new products, services, and solutions from a diverse array of suppliers.
It is an association that represents an industry that is constantly adapting to consumer needs.
Because the world outside FMI changes continuously, change is constant inside FMI. And change affects IT, perhaps more than any other functional area.
"When there's constant change, deciding what technology choices are best for FMI is a real challenge," says Sue Wilkinson, Senior Director, Information and Internet Services.
Sue is responsible for the long-range direction of IT at the association, as well as for day-to-day oversight of FMI's association management system.
"There's always something better to work with the minute you decide to implement a particular piece of software, smartphone, or operating system," she says. "End-users are savvier than ever about what's available today and, understandably, want to work as efficiently as possible. It's hard to keep up."
To help keep up, FMI outsourced its IT function to DelCor in 2003.
"We have one DelCorian on staff five days a week and one on site two days a week," says Sue. "They take care of the network and the help-desk responsibilities. I also get guidance from them on the trends in IT, so we can keep the network up to date and keep the FMI staff current with the tools they need to be as productive as possible."
3/7/2011
