EDI-INT from the Retailer Perspective

Integrated Solutions for Retailers, September 2001
by Stephanie Roussel-Dupre

Posted with the permission of Integrated Solutions for Retailers Magazine

Why Drive A VAN When You Can Fly?

Although Dollar General already communicated electronically with half of its trading partners via EDI (electronic data interchange), an Internet connection would eliminate monthly VAN (value-added network) fees it incurs with every transaction. VANs facilitate EDI transactions by offering EDI translation and encryption, secure e-mail, and management reporting. For a large company, VAN charges could add up to $100,000 or more per month. Wanting to decrease its VAN dependency, Dollar General purchased [BizManager™,] a transaction management product from [Inovis, Inc.], in the second quarter of 2001. The software allows Dollar General's suppliers to communicate securely via any standard browser or transport protocol including VAN, Internet, FTP (file transfer protocol), and HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol).

Procter & Gamble, one of Dollar General's largest suppliers, supports the move to an Internet-based trading environment. "On a global basis, 70% of our business orders are transmitted to our customers through a number of different EDI standards," said Steve David, CIO and chief B2B officer at Procter & Gamble. "We want to move these transactions to the Internet, where open standards-based transmissions can occur with all of our trading partners so we can achieve machine-to-machine, no-touch, perfect transactions." This way, retailers and suppliers could use their existing EDI systems. Internet-enabled EDI provides the potential for all companies to conduct business in a standard environment - the challenge is having industry players agree to standards. This was the advantage Dollar General knew it could offer its suppliers. The next step was taking the concept for a test flight and asking its trading partners to copilot.

DOLLAR GENERAL - Eliminating paper transactions and automating transportation planning... Case Study

HANOVER DIRECT - Decreasing cycle times by connecting smaller trading partners... Case Study

PETCO - PETCO ramps up EDI initiative... Case Study

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