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03 Jul 08
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The second-largest U.S. marine supply retail chain, Boater’s World needed to improve its communication with trading partners and vendors, O’Hern says. That meant its computers needed to talk to partners’ computers through the process of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
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O’Hern says Boater’s World had EDI connections with about 50 of the 300-plus vendors in its supply chain, but lacked the ability to expand the use of the technology because of the toll it would take on the chain’s internal data processing resources. “We were struggling to add vendors,” he says, “because of the amount of time that it takes to go through the testing, configuration and certification process with each vendor.”
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Boater’s World’s global supply chain is complex, with vendors at varying stages of technology sophistication and adoption. “We have large vendors, but also smaller suppliers who make crab pots in their garages,” O’Hern says. Still, the chain was able to transition the majority of its vendors to the EDI platform within six months.
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Jim Frome, chief strategy officer and executive vice president of SPS, says the outsourced SaaS model for EDI assists retailers in completing the “integration handshake” with their suppliers. “Most people underestimate how much work is needed for supplier outreach,” he says. “It isn’t just one company that makes a change. Every single company needs to do a change on their end for that handshake to go forward.”
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