December 2nd, 2011

Daler-Rowney consolidates their EDI with Wesupply™

Daler-Rowney Ltd., a leading manufacturer in the artist’s materials market, is consolidating its connectivity with key customers through Wesupply’s OneTime® EDI solution.

Daler-Rowney is not new to EDI; in fact the company has previously used a myriad of systems to trade electronically with their customers. One such system was Wesupply’s OneTime solution, which Daler-Rowney was using to trade electronically with a key customer – a leading out of town art and craft retailer. It was decided however, that further efficiencies could be gained by consolidating all of their electronic trading activities onto one platform, which could be integrated with their back office system.

Daler-RowneyDaler-Rowney will be using the Wesupply platform to automate the exchange of orders, invoices and Advanced Shipment Notices (ASN’s) with its customers.

“A significant factor in choosing Wesupply as our EDI provider was the company’s ability to provide us with a solution that was capable of including pallet information on ASN’s – a key requirement for trading with one of our customers” says Tiffany Howard, IT Manager at Daler-Rowney. “The solution will also provide us with the flexibility to meet new customers’ EDI requirements moving forward”.

“We are delighted to further assist Daler-Rowney with their electronic trading requirements” says Ben Holmes, Sales Executive at Wesupply. “By choosing Wesupply’s fully managed, outsourced EDI solution the day to day involvement in EDI activities will be reduced considerable for Daler-Rowney, allowing the company to focus on their core business”.

View article (opens in a new window)

December 2nd, 2011

Artist’s materials manufacturer takes Wesupply

Daler-Rowney, an artist’s materials manufacturer, is consolidating its connectivity with key customers with Wesupply’s OneTime EDI solution.

It will be using Wesupply to automate the exchange of orders, invoices and advanced shipment notices with its customers.

It had previously used several EDI systems, including Wesupply’s OneTime solution, but it decided further efficiencies could be gained by consolidating all its electronic trading activities onto one platform, which could be integrated with its back office system.

View article (opens in a new window)

December 2nd, 2011

Daler-Rowney consolidates EDI online with Wesupply

Artist materials manufacturer Daler-Rowney is drawing on Wesupply’s OneTime EDI solution to handle all its customer EDI links.

Tiffany Howard, IT manager at Daler-Rowney, makes the point that the organisation is not new to EDI – in fact the manufacturer has used a myriad of systems to trade electronically.

Wesupply’s OneTime was one such, used to trade electronically with an out of town art and craft retailer. However, Howard says that it was the lure of further efficiencies through consolidation onto one platform, with integration into its back office system, that prompted the change.

“A significant factor in choosing Wesupply as our EDI provider was the company’s ability to provide us with a solution that was capable of including pallet information on Advanced Shipment Notices – a key requirement for trading with one of our customers,” explains Howard.

“The solution will also provide us with the flexibility to meet new customers’ EDI requirements,” she adds.

Daler-Rowney will now be using the Wesupply platform to automate exchange of orders, invoices and ASNs with its customers.

View article (opens in a new window)

November 17th, 2011

Cloudy outlook

Cloud computing is a remarkable phenomenon, with analysts at IDC predicting public cloud computing services to be a $73 billion (£46 billion) market by 2015. However, many CIOs are still puzzled by the term and may not yet be familiar with how appropriate it is for certain business IT functions. Concerns over security, too, remain an issue for some.

The wide availability of computing power, storage capacity and software over the internet, through ‘the cloud’, presents businesses with the potential to use highly sophisticated software products on a pay-as-you-go basis – removing the pressure of capital investment for hardware and software, as well as taking away the onerous responsibility of maintenance. Smaller businesses now have the ability to access software delivered as a service and use it to gain operational advantage over competitors, both large and small. The opportunity of a level playing field is now available to all.

One of the greatest advantages of the internet is its connectivity – the ease with which it can link businesses together. Orders, acknowledgements and invoices can be easily passed between buyers and suppliers through this medium. Electronic data interchange (EDI) is a natural fit with the internet and the ‘intelligence’ offered by next generation EDI sits comfortably in a cloud environment. However, there are important differences between the requirements of EDI services and the ‘self-service’ nature of the public cloud.

Public cloud services require businesses to use their own staff to set-up, input data and maintain services. This may not always be convenient or desirable, and may not be applicable to all IT functions, including EDI.

Connecting buyers and suppliers up to an EDI platform is a sophisticated, complex and arduous task that requires skilled technicians that are familiar with the many protocols used by business. Outsourcing this function to an EDI provider on a managed service basis removes this issue. Also, by moving to a ‘managed cloud’, compliance to an organisation’s trading requirements becomes a simple matter. If a customer changes their message format, it is the responsibility of the service provider to update the system.

One of the most common barriers to companies moving to a cloud environment is the question of security. Although attitudes are changing fast, companies can be reluctant to place data outside their own firewall. However, for any business that has a network there is always the danger that someone could compromise their systems, and yet few companies are adequately equipped. Cloud computing services have to be more secure than any individual business and leading service providers dedicate considerable resources to maintaining the highest standards on security and virus protection on a 24/7 basis.

Importantly, EDI services are best suited to what may be regarded as a ‘community cloud’ – where access is only available to the hub owner and authorised trading partners. An important consideration when adopting a cloud solution is whether each individual customer has their own database, with their data completely separated from other customer’s data. This is key in ensuring that there is no possibility of data getting mixed up or someone getting access to another company’s information.

An often-overlooked advantage of moving to the cloud is the creation of a repository of information away from the enterprise. This allows the stored information to be accessed anytime, anywhere. Therefore, if a company’s ERP is unavailable, access via a browser enables business to continue, therefore assisting in the company’s disaster recovery process.

Many major businesses in the retail, manufacturing and building sectors are moving their electronic trading to next generation EDI services hosted in the cloud. Taking an outsourced managed service approach has been seen by a growing number of leading companies as the best way of freeing up internal IT resources, dealing with issues of compliance and facilitating the fast on-boarding of new trading partners. The ‘managed cloud’ is the right place to be for next generation EDI.

View article (opens in a new window)

October 28th, 2011

Suppliers have everything to gain from EDI changes

A shift is under way within the grocery sector relating to the way transactional information is exchanged between retailers and suppliers. A change that will significantly impact on the way suppliers do business with the big supermarket chains.

With such large numbers of transactions, it is hardly surprising that grocery retail chains were early adopters of electronic data interchange (EDI) technology, having used in-house systems supported by value added networks (VANs) to electronically exchange orders and invoices with key suppliers for the past 30 years. According to the EDI Cost Savings Report published in September 2010 by the global standards organisation GS1 UK, in conjunction with Cranfield School of Management, some 27 million orders are made in the UK grocery sector every year. Some 84 per cent of orders by retailers and 87 per cent of invoices from suppliers are transacted using EDI technology. The report into the UK’s top 15 grocery retailers – covering 90 per cent of the sector – finds that the industry saves £650m per year in costs by using EDI instead of manual, paper-based processes for its orders, invoices and dispatch advices.

Although EDI is well established in the grocery sector, GS1 UK’s report highlights that, at present, only 38 per cent of the orders made by UK grocery retailers use dispatch advices, a situation which presents an opportunity for the sector to save a further £200m a year through full EDI implementation.

An increasing number of retailers seem to be recognising this opportunity and are now pushing for even greater supply chain efficiencies by demanding more information from suppliers, such as dispatch notes/advanced shipment notifications (ASNs) and a more frequent exchange of this information.

At this present time, several of the large supermarket chains are looking to move their electronic trading capabilities to outsource service providers on a fully managed basis. Sainsbury’s is in the process of transferring 4,000 of its suppliers onto a single b2b platform operated by Wesupply to significantly improve visibility into critical supply chain processes.

Suppliers to the grocery retail sector have the opportunity to use b2b EDI technology to their advantage, bringing IT and administrative costs down and pushing supply chain performance up across all their customers. Grocery retailers have recognised the benefits of outsourcing their EDI capabilities; perhaps their suppliers should be thinking along the same lines.

David Grosvenor is chief executive of Wesupply.

View article (opens in a new window)

October 21st, 2011

IBP Outsources Its EDI To Wesupply

The IBP Group, one of the world leaders in plumbing fittings, has moved to Wesupply’s OneTimeTM EDI platform for a fully-managed electronic trading service that allows the real-time exchange of critical business documents with its customers. Wesupply was IBP’s preferred EDI provider following several years experience of trading electronically with a key customer – a leading builder’s merchant – on the Wesupply network.

EDI is not a new concept for IBP, in fact the company had an on-premise EDI solution for many years. However, following a restructure of the IT department and the receipt of a new requirement, that their existing EDI solution could not comply with, it was decided that an outsourced solution would be more appropriate. It was felt that a fully managed EDI solution would enable the company to fulfil current and future trading partner requirements more efficiently, while also freeing up the IT department to work on other projects.

“We chose to outsource our EDI requirements to Wesupply as our previous experience of working with the Wesupply team was positive and we were familiar with the OneTime solution” said Neville Billingham, IT Technical Specialist at IBP. “We were also aware of the firm foothold Wesupply have in the Plumbing and Building sector – in fact, all of our UK customers are already connected to the Wesupply network.”

IBP will be using the Wesupply platform to automate the exchange of orders, invoices, acknowledgements, Advanced Shipment Notices (ASN’s) and remittances with approximately 50 of its UK and European customers.

“By outsourcing to Wesupply, IBP are free from the burden and risks associated with technical issues, maintenance costs and the need to keep abreast of advancing technology, and can instead, take advantage of the extensive business benefits that come from electronic trading” says Andrew Ziff, B2B Consultant at Wesupply.

View article (opens in a new window)

October 20th, 2011

IBP outsources its EDI to Wesupply

The IBP Group, the plumbing fittings systems provider, has moved to Wesupply’s OneTime EDI platform for a fully-managed electronic trading service that allows the real-time exchange of critical business documents with its customers. Wesupply was IBP’s preferred EDI provider following several years experience of trading electronically with a key builder’s merchant customer on the Wesupply network. 

EDI is not a new concept for IBP, in fact the company had an on-premise EDI solution for many years. However, following a restructure of the IT department and the receipt of a new requirement, that their existing EDI solution could not comply with, it was decided that an outsourced solution would be more appropriate. It was felt that a fully managed EDI solution would enable the company to fulfil current and future trading partner requirements more efficiently, while also freeing up the IT department to work on other projects.

 ”We chose to outsource our EDI requirements to Wesupply as our previous experience of working with the Wesupply team was positive and we were familiar with the OneTime solution” said Neville Billingham, IT Technical Specialist at IBP. “We were also aware of the firm foothold Wesupply have in the Plumbing and Building sector – in fact, all of our UK customers are already connected to the Wesupply network.”

IBP will be using the Wesupply platform to automate the exchange of orders, invoices, acknowledgements, Advanced Shipment Notices (ASN’s) and remittances with approximately 50 of its UK and European customers.

“By outsourcing to Wesupply, IBP are free from the burden and risks associated with technical issues, maintenance costs and the need to keep abreast of advancing technology, and can instead, take advantage of the extensive business benefits that come from electronic trading” says Andrew Ziff, B2B Consultant at Wesupply.

View article (opens in a new window)

October 20th, 2011

IBP Outsources its EDI to Wesupply

The IBP Group, a world leader in plumbing fittings, has moved to Wesupply’s OneTimeTM EDI platform for a fully-managed electronic trading service that allows the real-time exchange of critical business documents with its customers. Wesupply was IBP’s preferred EDI provider following several years experience of trading electronically with a key customer – a leading builder’s merchant – on the Wesupply network.

EDI is not a new concept for IBP, in fact the company had an on-premise EDI solution for many years. However, following a restructure of the IT department and the receipt of a new requirement, that their existing EDI solution could not comply with, it was decided that an outsourced solution would be more appropriate. It was felt that a fully managed EDI solution would enable the company to fulfil current and future trading partner requirements more efficiently, while also freeing up the IT department to work on other projects.

“We chose to outsource our EDI requirements to Wesupply as our previous experience of working with the Wesupply team was positive and we were familiar with the OneTime solution” said Neville Billingham, IT Technical Specialist at IBP. “We were also aware of the firm foothold Wesupply have in the Plumbing and Building sector – in fact, all of our UK customers are already connected to the Wesupply network.”

IBP will be using the Wesupply platform to automate the exchange of orders, invoices, acknowledgements, Advanced Shipment Notices (ASN’s) and remittances with approximately 50 of its UK and European customers.

“By outsourcing to Wesupply, IBP are free from the burden and risks associated with technical issues, maintenance costs and the need to keep abreast of advancing technology, and can instead, take advantage of the extensive business benefits that come from electronic trading” says Andrew Ziff, B2B Consultant at Wesupply.

View article (opens in a new window)

October 20th, 2011

IBP outsources its EDI to Wesupply

October 19th, 2011

IBP Outsources its EDI to Wesupply

The IBP Group, leader in plumbing fittings, has moved to Wesupply’s OneTime EDI platform for a fully-managed electronic trading service.

The OneTime EDI platform facilitates the real-time exchange of critical business documents with its customers.

Wesupply was IBP’s preferred EDI provider following several years experience of trading electronically with a key customer – a leading builder’s merchant – on the Wesupply network.

EDI is not a new concept for IBP, in fact the company had an on-premise EDI solution for many years.

However, following a restructure of the IT department and the receipt of a new requirement, that their existing EDI solution could not comply with, it was decided that an outsourced solution would be more appropriate.

It was felt that a fully managed EDI solution would enable the company to fulfil current and future trading partner requirements more efficiently, while also freeing up the IT department to work on other projects.

‘We chose to outsource our EDI requirements to Wesupply as our previous experience of working with the Wesupply team was positive and we were familiar with the OneTime solution’ said Neville Billingham, IT Technical Specialist at IBP.

‘We were also aware of the firm foothold Wesupply have in the Plumbing and Building sector – in fact, all of our UK customers are already connected to the Wesupply network’.

IBP will be using the Wesupply platform to automate the exchange of orders, invoices, acknowledgements, Advanced Shipment Notices (ASN’s) and remittances with approximately 50 of its UK and European customers.

View article (opens in a new window)