Firstly, complements of the season to all.
As with all companies in the business of EDI, at least some of our customers have continued to operate throughout the holiday season. In particular in the retail sector orders for goods to be delivered on all days are being processed, and at least one of the logistics companies that use our service were actually working from 6pm on 25th December.
Of course our servers operate on a 365 days per year basis, but certain customers require the comfort of a support contact available as well, which we provide. This is seen very much as an insurance policy and we hope it never needs to be called upon. Unfortunately this year, on 26th December it was. Not a problem with any of our servers, but because we monitor customers traffic we were able to alert a particular customer to the fact that their systems had failed and they had not sent some of the transmissions we had expected. Sometimes, because EDI is integral to a business, we can actually help users to see errors in other systems, before any other alert is raised, and it is great to be able to offer such help.
One other issue that has come to our attention is the practice of some other providers in charging for messages stored on their servers. A number of new customers this year have contacted us concerned about storage charges over the festivities. It appears that some of our competitors charge for holding messages that the customer does not download within 7 days. Whilst this does not effect users such as those detailed above, this would obviously cause extra cost for users if they are shutdown over the festive period. What an outdated practice. One would almost think that this was the equivalent of an EDI "Stealth Tax". We were able to put users minds at rest as we do not charge for storage of up to one year. Some of our users are saying this will save them several hundred pounds which is great. We want our users to be happy customers for years to come and being short sited for a few hundred pounds would be ridiculous. It would also appear to be at odds with our views that EDI should be Software as a Service and AS2 must be Free of Charge.
One day all EDI will be this way.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
It's the data that matters, not how it looks
This blog could also be entitled the triumph of substance over style.
We had a new customer sign with us last week, not in itself unusual, but that fact that we were replacing an alternative solution, and at the same time becoming the partner of choice for another software house is worth mentioning. At a more technical level it gave me an insight in to the limitations of some of the older methods for EDI integration.
The client concerned required a particularly rapid turn around of one specific trading relationship and asked if we could move faster than our standard Service Level Agreement (SLA). We had a quick look at the data, the format required by the recipient and the how the missing data could be deduced. We then said yes.
However, the reason for the rush was that this particular Trading Partner (a customer of our customer) had been waiting for over six months. The reason was that whilst the previous EDI vendor had claimed that their tool was flexible and did not need rigid formats. The truth was more like "we have several different formats that we can use, but outside of these formats we will struggle or it will be a an expensive consultancy exercise".
I have a problem with this approach. I do see the benefit of standard data formats being developed, in fact I really admire the business analysis that has gone in to the development of standards such as UN EDIFACT. However these standards are rarely rigidly adhered to and that is both the problem and the beauty. Different businesses have different data requirements, sometimes based around restrictions in the ERP system, sometimes around the business process. Therefore, your EDI solutions must have the flexibility to change as the business requirements or you or your partner changes, this may involve merging data from various sources, using a message intended for one purpose to provide the data for a different message, splitting or concatenating data to provide different data and the use of look-up tables or catalogues. Sometimes we are even asked to use one message between trading partners to add data to another message between the same partners. Obviously, because our service is Software as a Service (SaaS), the idea of such data merging is easier than for software deployed at the end user site, especially when like us you can be using industry catalogues that are shared amongst many users.
One thing is certain, the format of the data (XML, EDI, csv, Fixed Width or even MS Excel) is irrelevant as long as the data that is required by the recipient is either present or can be deduced. You see the style of the message is not as important as the substance (aka content) of the message.
We had a new customer sign with us last week, not in itself unusual, but that fact that we were replacing an alternative solution, and at the same time becoming the partner of choice for another software house is worth mentioning. At a more technical level it gave me an insight in to the limitations of some of the older methods for EDI integration.
The client concerned required a particularly rapid turn around of one specific trading relationship and asked if we could move faster than our standard Service Level Agreement (SLA). We had a quick look at the data, the format required by the recipient and the how the missing data could be deduced. We then said yes.
However, the reason for the rush was that this particular Trading Partner (a customer of our customer) had been waiting for over six months. The reason was that whilst the previous EDI vendor had claimed that their tool was flexible and did not need rigid formats. The truth was more like "we have several different formats that we can use, but outside of these formats we will struggle or it will be a an expensive consultancy exercise".
I have a problem with this approach. I do see the benefit of standard data formats being developed, in fact I really admire the business analysis that has gone in to the development of standards such as UN EDIFACT. However these standards are rarely rigidly adhered to and that is both the problem and the beauty. Different businesses have different data requirements, sometimes based around restrictions in the ERP system, sometimes around the business process. Therefore, your EDI solutions must have the flexibility to change as the business requirements or you or your partner changes, this may involve merging data from various sources, using a message intended for one purpose to provide the data for a different message, splitting or concatenating data to provide different data and the use of look-up tables or catalogues. Sometimes we are even asked to use one message between trading partners to add data to another message between the same partners. Obviously, because our service is Software as a Service (SaaS), the idea of such data merging is easier than for software deployed at the end user site, especially when like us you can be using industry catalogues that are shared amongst many users.
One thing is certain, the format of the data (XML, EDI, csv, Fixed Width or even MS Excel) is irrelevant as long as the data that is required by the recipient is either present or can be deduced. You see the style of the message is not as important as the substance (aka content) of the message.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Some times you can process EDI too fast, Nice Problem to Have
A client rang me this week with what I believe to be a first in terms of customer requests for us. His problem was that we were processing the EDI invoices TOO FAST. I guess sometimes speed isn't everything.
This was however a genuine business problem as follows. The sender of the invoice issues the invoice upon dispatch of the goods, not an uncommon practice. Both parties are linked via our FREE AS2 service. When the invoice is issued it is placed in the AS2 outbox, received by our service, translated and sent via AS2 to the recipient. The whole process takes less than 1 minute from the time the invoice is issued, to the time it is received by the recipient. The recipient then loads the invoice in to their system (all automated) and it is immediately rejected because the goods have not been received by the warehouse. Hardly surprising because the goods have just left the loading bay at the supplier and still have hours of road time before they will arrive.
It's good to be able to have a laugh at work and the client and I found this quite amusing (maybe we're just a bit sad), but it is worth noting that no matter how efficient and fast we make the technology it still has to take the actual business practice in to account.
There are many resolutions to the problem. The first would be for the invoice issuer to delay sending the invoice until the following day. The second would be for us, as the central hub service, to stall the invoices until the following day. This was the option that was taken as our systems were easier to configure than any one Else's. The recipient could delay processing invoices until the following day as another option.
However the best solution would be for the invoice to be raised not upon dispatch, but upon receipt of an electronic Goods receipt Note (GRN), sent by the recipient of the goods when they are received in to the warehouse. This would be electronic trading haven, you could even make the invoice match the GRN, so that there would be no chance of the invoice being refused by the recipient. There is a flaw in this process though. If the recipients systems and/or the senders systems cannot process a GRN they will have to alter their ERP systems, which has a cost. It might be possible to cost justify but it is a major change of business process and proper thought must be put to the business/profit advantage to be gained. Too many times we see technologists come up with a great technology solution to a problem without thought to the true business benefit.
For these customers the simple solution worked best. We have other customers using the GRN process and they have established a huge cost reduction by doing this. Luckily with SaaS it is easy for one system to accommodate both customers, so both customers get the electronic trading that their business justifies.
This was however a genuine business problem as follows. The sender of the invoice issues the invoice upon dispatch of the goods, not an uncommon practice. Both parties are linked via our FREE AS2 service. When the invoice is issued it is placed in the AS2 outbox, received by our service, translated and sent via AS2 to the recipient. The whole process takes less than 1 minute from the time the invoice is issued, to the time it is received by the recipient. The recipient then loads the invoice in to their system (all automated) and it is immediately rejected because the goods have not been received by the warehouse. Hardly surprising because the goods have just left the loading bay at the supplier and still have hours of road time before they will arrive.
It's good to be able to have a laugh at work and the client and I found this quite amusing (maybe we're just a bit sad), but it is worth noting that no matter how efficient and fast we make the technology it still has to take the actual business practice in to account.
There are many resolutions to the problem. The first would be for the invoice issuer to delay sending the invoice until the following day. The second would be for us, as the central hub service, to stall the invoices until the following day. This was the option that was taken as our systems were easier to configure than any one Else's. The recipient could delay processing invoices until the following day as another option.
However the best solution would be for the invoice to be raised not upon dispatch, but upon receipt of an electronic Goods receipt Note (GRN), sent by the recipient of the goods when they are received in to the warehouse. This would be electronic trading haven, you could even make the invoice match the GRN, so that there would be no chance of the invoice being refused by the recipient. There is a flaw in this process though. If the recipients systems and/or the senders systems cannot process a GRN they will have to alter their ERP systems, which has a cost. It might be possible to cost justify but it is a major change of business process and proper thought must be put to the business/profit advantage to be gained. Too many times we see technologists come up with a great technology solution to a problem without thought to the true business benefit.
For these customers the simple solution worked best. We have other customers using the GRN process and they have established a huge cost reduction by doing this. Luckily with SaaS it is easy for one system to accommodate both customers, so both customers get the electronic trading that their business justifies.
Monday, November 12, 2007
"Both Parties Must Both Gain Benefits" is the First Golden Rule
You may recall that in "Beware the "cheap" option!" we looked at some of the wasteful abuses that can be imposed on you if a "website" substitute for business-to-business, integrated EDI is presented to you as the means to provide your customer with electronic documents, such as invoices, despatch and remittance advices. The "cheap" option only leads to your staff having to double type all the information from the documents into your systems and into the “website”!
- Your work is doubled.
- Your risks from human error are doubled.
- Your costs go up.
- Your profits fall.
- Your prices need to go up...
- You become less competitive!
What can you do to avoid such abuses?
Well, the remedy is a bit like growing asparagus...
Asparagus?
Yes. To grow asparagus you dig a hole three meters long by three meters wide about one meter deep. You fill it with all sorts of good stuff from stables mixed with exquisite soil and you plant the asparagus – FIVE YEARS AGO!
You must avoid being pushed around by the eBusiness team. They are working to a very restricted agenda. They know nothing and care less about your business value to their employer. You need to maintain and cultivate your highest levels of contact within your customer. You need your relationship to be strong enough for your senior contact to be prepared to instruct the eBusiness team to co-operate with you. To make an exception in your case. You will still be a very willing eBusiness partner, but the job is going to be done properly and, to a certain extent, on your terms!
It is best if you avoid direct contact with the eBusiness team. Let your eBusiness provider do that whilst you maintain your good standing with your senior contact(s)!
What then do you offer to do for your ally in the senior echelons of your customer?
When the “website” was implemented it was configured to receive orders from your customer's purchasing systems. These orders are passed to the “website” in electronic form. They are files and they have a format. All that has to be done is for you to be supplied with this format and for your customer to agree to sending the order files to your eBusiness system by one of the accepted transport methods.
Similarly, the “website” passes the documents (such as invoices, despatch advices and remittance advices) that are inbound for the customer's systems as files and they too have formats. If the formats are made known to you and your eBusiness provider then they too can be passed directly to the customer's systems just as efficiently as the files that are currently passed to them from the “website”.
The benefits here are that you avoid doing the work twice.
All the risks listed above are eliminated.
You have reinstated the first GOLDEN RULE:
BOTH PARTIES MUST BOTH GAIN BENEFITS!
In that same WIN-WIN vein, you are perfectly entitled to follow the example of Oliver Twist and ask for more. You are being asked to make an investment in money, time and effort to help your customer. Are you getting as much business from your customer as you could? On a number of occasions I have seen the Sales Director of a supplier use the “request” for electronic trading as a very sound reason to visit the customer and literally “ask for more”. In one instance a customer of mine, a supplier of specialist tools and devices to the construction industry, went to her customer and said something along the lines of, “We would be happy to do as you ask, but currently you only give us about ten per cent of your business. You give ninety per cent to our competitor! Give us fifty per cent and we will do all you ask and do it immediately!”
She won the extra business, increasing her company's sales to that customer by 400 per cent!
In summary so far then:
You must be informed of exactly what is required, IN FULL. It can be too late to get a decent working relationship if you fail to cultivate your senior contacts in your customer and just become part of a target list drawn up by the customer's eBusiness team or their vendor. You and your customer must get worthwhile benefits out of the eBusiness relationship. Get these things right with your customer and you have both made a good start towards successful and beneficial electronic trading.
You may even find an early opportunity to multiply your sales to this customer!
Thursday, November 08, 2007
The use of catalogue data in EDI
One of the big issues that faces companies exchanging data electronically in any industry is the alignment of the data on all trading partners systems.
As a simple example we can look at a purchase order sent from a retailer to a supplier. The purchase order contains data that has been produced from the retailers back office system that is required by the suppliers back office system in order that the order is fulfilled efficiently. This data will include information such as the delivery point and the code for each product ordered.
When the order is processed by a human, the human interprets the data they see and translates this in to the data required by the suppliers ERP system. When the data is exchanged electronically this "translation" needs to be done automatically. For a lot of suppliers ERP systems this has already been accommodated, but we still get requests from customers to help with this process.
One of the advantages of a Software as a Service (SaaS) is in the nature of having a centralised hub. We have taken the approach of hosting catalogue data on the hub which means that ALL customers that need access to this data, to enhance the data they send or receive, can use it. If our software was deployed at our customers sites then each customer would need a copy of each catalogue they use, and they would have to be regularly updated. With the SaaS approach one catalogue is shared by all relevant users, and is regularly updated in one place.
I should say that to us a catalogue is a name given to ANY look-up data which we process. This could be a list of valid delivery points, a list of product groupings and, of course, products and prices. The important thing to do is to enhance the data received by the recipient so that they can process the incoming data automatically without human intervention. After all that is what EDI is about.
Whilst we have found this approach to be some use in the retail sector, the real advantages have arisen in the construction sector, where EDI is still a maturing technology and the back office systems of both sides of a trading relationship are not a well configured for electronic message exchange as those in the retail sector. But as we are adding construction trading relationships at the rate of 20 to 30 LIVE trading relationships per month, this technique is proving its worth.
As a simple example we can look at a purchase order sent from a retailer to a supplier. The purchase order contains data that has been produced from the retailers back office system that is required by the suppliers back office system in order that the order is fulfilled efficiently. This data will include information such as the delivery point and the code for each product ordered.
When the order is processed by a human, the human interprets the data they see and translates this in to the data required by the suppliers ERP system. When the data is exchanged electronically this "translation" needs to be done automatically. For a lot of suppliers ERP systems this has already been accommodated, but we still get requests from customers to help with this process.
One of the advantages of a Software as a Service (SaaS) is in the nature of having a centralised hub. We have taken the approach of hosting catalogue data on the hub which means that ALL customers that need access to this data, to enhance the data they send or receive, can use it. If our software was deployed at our customers sites then each customer would need a copy of each catalogue they use, and they would have to be regularly updated. With the SaaS approach one catalogue is shared by all relevant users, and is regularly updated in one place.
I should say that to us a catalogue is a name given to ANY look-up data which we process. This could be a list of valid delivery points, a list of product groupings and, of course, products and prices. The important thing to do is to enhance the data received by the recipient so that they can process the incoming data automatically without human intervention. After all that is what EDI is about.
Whilst we have found this approach to be some use in the retail sector, the real advantages have arisen in the construction sector, where EDI is still a maturing technology and the back office systems of both sides of a trading relationship are not a well configured for electronic message exchange as those in the retail sector. But as we are adding construction trading relationships at the rate of 20 to 30 LIVE trading relationships per month, this technique is proving its worth.
Friday, November 02, 2007
EDI Can Make You Feel Good and Improve Your Business
When we started developing the technology for exchanging EDI messages many moons ago, we obviously wanted to develop a software solution that would provide a service businesses would want to purchase, because without that we do not have a business ourselves. But we were also determined to ensure that the product and service were such that our customers would be able to see a return on their investment, unlike a lot of software that promises great ROI, but provides non.
We determined that the way to do that was to reduce any technical input from our customers to a minimum (reduce their costs of set-up), integrate messages to our customer's ERP systems when practical (some systems just could not cope with an electronic remittance for example) and to eliminate the need for them to change their systems to cope with our integration standard (You would be amazed how many times we have heard that from other people).
People keep buying the software and people keep renewing their licence so one could assume that we are continuing to get it right. But a better test in when customers actually talk to us and recently, as part of our program to achieve ISO 9000:2000 accreditation, we have be performing customer feedback surveys.
It's great when customers tell us what they would like from us next, as it means we do not have to keep coming up with all the new ideas. But in following up on the feedback, and expanding beyond the normal survey type questions, it was even better to find customers saying things like EDI has helped us achieve strategic alliances or we don't even notice the EDI is there it just works or we have dramatically increased the amount of e-trading we conduct. It makes you feel good when you can help someone else achieve success.
We aimed to provide the best SaaS for EDI in the UK and Europe, and the customers will judge us on that, but we also wanted to actually add value to our customers businesses and this also appears to be happening. Electronic message exchange for businesses has always had the potential to drive cost out of business but it was always perceived as a bit too much of a dark art.
Now with the combination of SaaS EDI where the actually mapping is done on the SaaS, not just a Web App you have to use, plus the best levels of customer service this is coming to fruition, and even adding to strategic business alliances.
The future of Electronic Message exchange is SaaS, the old technology of a piece of software deployed on a pc or server on site cannot deliver the flexibility needed for today's EDI.
We determined that the way to do that was to reduce any technical input from our customers to a minimum (reduce their costs of set-up), integrate messages to our customer's ERP systems when practical (some systems just could not cope with an electronic remittance for example) and to eliminate the need for them to change their systems to cope with our integration standard (You would be amazed how many times we have heard that from other people).
People keep buying the software and people keep renewing their licence so one could assume that we are continuing to get it right. But a better test in when customers actually talk to us and recently, as part of our program to achieve ISO 9000:2000 accreditation, we have be performing customer feedback surveys.
It's great when customers tell us what they would like from us next, as it means we do not have to keep coming up with all the new ideas. But in following up on the feedback, and expanding beyond the normal survey type questions, it was even better to find customers saying things like EDI has helped us achieve strategic alliances or we don't even notice the EDI is there it just works or we have dramatically increased the amount of e-trading we conduct. It makes you feel good when you can help someone else achieve success.
We aimed to provide the best SaaS for EDI in the UK and Europe, and the customers will judge us on that, but we also wanted to actually add value to our customers businesses and this also appears to be happening. Electronic message exchange for businesses has always had the potential to drive cost out of business but it was always perceived as a bit too much of a dark art.
Now with the combination of SaaS EDI where the actually mapping is done on the SaaS, not just a Web App you have to use, plus the best levels of customer service this is coming to fruition, and even adding to strategic business alliances.
The future of Electronic Message exchange is SaaS, the old technology of a piece of software deployed on a pc or server on site cannot deliver the flexibility needed for today's EDI.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Beware the "cheap" option!
A natural tendency, when asked by a customer to trade via EDI, is to put off the dreaded day for as long as possible. It is apparent that cost is involved. Who is to say that the customer will stick with you after you have spent the money to implement EDI? No wonder folks do their best to avoid it all and no wonder customers find it takes much longer than was hoped for to persuade the suppliers to trade electronically.
Your staff are expected to type it all again into your systems or copy type it into the “website”!
- Your work is doubled.
- Your risks from human error are doubled.
- Your costs go up.
- Your profits fall.
- Your prices need to go up...
- You become less competitive!
In truth that second bullet point is as deadly to your customer as it is to you. It leads to increased costs for your customer every time they get into the paper chases and escalations that always result during any remedial activities.
What to do?
Well don’t run a mile when you get asked to trade via EDI. Get the EDI integrated with your system so it runs automatically. Use a service that shines forth with efficiency and prompt attention for your customer. Stand out from the crowd and you will have a good chance of avoiding a dictated “solution” that may save you the price of a proper EDI implementation but will cost you much more in extra work and inevitable human error.
EDI, The ultimate Software as a Service
There are now more and more applications that are available as Software as a Service (SaaS). The highest profile is Salesforce.com, which we use internally for CRM, Customer Support and Project Management. We have partnered with another SaaS offering in Netsuite, which offers a complete ERP as SaaS, and we also use Google Docs for sharing Spreadsheets and Text Documents.
However, one of the very best applications that SaaS can be used for is EDI. The way EDI is moving at present with multiple standards (EDI, XML and Flat File) and multiple communication methods such as EDI VAN and AS2, it makes sense to outsource the technical complexity to a company that specialises in it. Whilst the importance of EDI as a way in increasing both profits and cash flow for your business are undeniable, it would be rare for the technical complexity to be a core business for any organisation other than an EDI specialist.
Since we started making our software available as SaaS in 2003, all our customers have moved to this model. They all share the same benefits of a single method of communications (to suit their requirements) and a single file format (which suits their ERP). On our customers behalf we currently have in excess of 800 different message translations and 17 different communication methodologies. Whilst some IT teams in large organisations may see this as "their territory", I am sure that the directors do not see it as core competency for the business, and would rather see them developing inventive uses for IT that affect their core business, whatever it might be.
SaaS is a growing market, even Microsoft are looking at planning to enter the market, and EDI SaaS is a natural fit.
However, one of the very best applications that SaaS can be used for is EDI. The way EDI is moving at present with multiple standards (EDI, XML and Flat File) and multiple communication methods such as EDI VAN and AS2, it makes sense to outsource the technical complexity to a company that specialises in it. Whilst the importance of EDI as a way in increasing both profits and cash flow for your business are undeniable, it would be rare for the technical complexity to be a core business for any organisation other than an EDI specialist.
Since we started making our software available as SaaS in 2003, all our customers have moved to this model. They all share the same benefits of a single method of communications (to suit their requirements) and a single file format (which suits their ERP). On our customers behalf we currently have in excess of 800 different message translations and 17 different communication methodologies. Whilst some IT teams in large organisations may see this as "their territory", I am sure that the directors do not see it as core competency for the business, and would rather see them developing inventive uses for IT that affect their core business, whatever it might be.
SaaS is a growing market, even Microsoft are looking at planning to enter the market, and EDI SaaS is a natural fit.
Friday, October 19, 2007
EDI as it was intended: To Make Savings!
Imagine you had just discovered EDI, or "B2B Messaging", or "XML" or "eBusiness", or whatever you want to call it and you were the first so to do!
Imagine that you were able to examine the pros and cons and decide for yourself just where in your business you wanted to make savings, without the distracting pressures of trading partners demanding you start doing EDI etc. their way, NOW!
Imagine you were going to come at EDI asking "What's in it for me?"
You might decide you would rather use this handy discovery of yours to make savings in areas that you have hitherto (in the real World) had to leave for another day...
Now you can have your EDI via Software as a Service (SaaS), where the service provider takes care of ALL the message formats needed by the recipients and ALL the transport methods they prefer, you can literally dump some of your problems for good. I'm on about such nasty jobs as making remittance advices, printing them off, stuffing them in envelopes, pushing them through the franking machine, burning fuel (yours or the postie's) to get them into the post... and all this at the end of the month, when your staff have plenty of other work they could be doing.
Why not simply dump the remittance advices and all the messy work they entail?
You can if you want to...
How?
Just output ("dump") them as a file into the directory that your SaaS EDI system links to. The service can then collect them ALL. The rules engine pulls out those that are destined for suppliers who can accept them as EDI, translates them to the required formats to suit each recipient and sends the messages to them via the agreed transport method...
Yes, yes that's OK for those suppliers but what about all the rest that have no EDI capable of accepting remittance advices?
It couldn't be easier. They are all translated into .pdf documents, complete with your logo and livery, and sent via email to each of the other suppliers. From start to finish, the process takes only a few minutes.
We have a customer for whom it used to take ten staff three hours (of very hard work) at the end of every month to get their remittance advices printed, folded, stuffed into envelopes, franked and ready for the post collection. Now it takes one person less than ten minutes (and the work now is very easy). It is saving our customer quite a bit and needed no months and months of delay waiting for every supplier to implement stuff in some draconian "roll-out". Those with EDI get EDI, the others simply receive their remittance advices in their emails.
The service takes full advantage of what is there. The suppliers get their remittance advices, no matter what is happening to the postal service. The customer gets valuable time back whilst saving: money, paper, envelopes, fuel. It is a very eco-friendly process in which nobody loses out.
Now isn't this the sort of thing you would like to be doing with EDI?
Imagine that you were able to examine the pros and cons and decide for yourself just where in your business you wanted to make savings, without the distracting pressures of trading partners demanding you start doing EDI etc. their way, NOW!
Imagine you were going to come at EDI asking "What's in it for me?"
You might decide you would rather use this handy discovery of yours to make savings in areas that you have hitherto (in the real World) had to leave for another day...
Now you can have your EDI via Software as a Service (SaaS), where the service provider takes care of ALL the message formats needed by the recipients and ALL the transport methods they prefer, you can literally dump some of your problems for good. I'm on about such nasty jobs as making remittance advices, printing them off, stuffing them in envelopes, pushing them through the franking machine, burning fuel (yours or the postie's) to get them into the post... and all this at the end of the month, when your staff have plenty of other work they could be doing.
Why not simply dump the remittance advices and all the messy work they entail?
You can if you want to...
How?
Just output ("dump") them as a file into the directory that your SaaS EDI system links to. The service can then collect them ALL. The rules engine pulls out those that are destined for suppliers who can accept them as EDI, translates them to the required formats to suit each recipient and sends the messages to them via the agreed transport method...
Yes, yes that's OK for those suppliers but what about all the rest that have no EDI capable of accepting remittance advices?
It couldn't be easier. They are all translated into .pdf documents, complete with your logo and livery, and sent via email to each of the other suppliers. From start to finish, the process takes only a few minutes.
We have a customer for whom it used to take ten staff three hours (of very hard work) at the end of every month to get their remittance advices printed, folded, stuffed into envelopes, franked and ready for the post collection. Now it takes one person less than ten minutes (and the work now is very easy). It is saving our customer quite a bit and needed no months and months of delay waiting for every supplier to implement stuff in some draconian "roll-out". Those with EDI get EDI, the others simply receive their remittance advices in their emails.
The service takes full advantage of what is there. The suppliers get their remittance advices, no matter what is happening to the postal service. The customer gets valuable time back whilst saving: money, paper, envelopes, fuel. It is a very eco-friendly process in which nobody loses out.
Now isn't this the sort of thing you would like to be doing with EDI?
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Back to the Future of EDI
In my last post I looked at the benefits of using the Internet to exchange business messages electronically rather than proprietary Value Added Networks (VANS). One on the problems with the VAN approach is that customers are normally expected to have a specialised, normally proprietary, piece of software to allow the message exchange. Now this software is not normally proprietary to the Network, and your EDI software does not need to match your trading partners EDI software, but you still need specialist software.
Obviously with the Internet comes the advantage of standards based message exchange. Whilst we favour the use of AS2 as the communications protocol, preferably Free AS2, we are happy to use most Internet standards for communication. This is because by using open standards it makes it easier to engage trading partners in the exchange of electronic documents.
I actually thought, regardless of whether companies charge for AS2, that all EDI and XML message exchange was moving to Open communications standards. It was therefore a great surprise to me to find that one trading partner of a customer was trying to insist that they install a proprietary piece of communications software to exchange invoices with them. When we questioned this we were told that whilst in theory their software could support the open standards, their software provider preferred that they use the software providers own communications protocol. This was even worse than the software needed for EDI VAN communications because what the software provider was trying to say was that to exchange any messages with their customer you must use the software houses own communications software.
The IT industry has a habit of inventing solutions to problems that do not exist and here is a prime case. Having been offered the options of email, FTP, HTTP(S), SSH, EDI VAN and AS2, a software provider was trying to insist upon their own proprietary solution. Having insisted (with our customers permission) that we would not install proprietary software, the trading partner went for email (but only after days of delay), not our favourite method, which works OK.
So having moved from the world of proprietary networks and associated software, to the glorious open world of the Internet, are we really going to step back to proprietary? I hope this is an isolated instance, because otherwise we may as well go back to EDI VANs, and I don't think that helps anyone.
The exchange of business documents offers many benefits to businesses both large and small, reducing costs, reducing errors and it has environmental benefits too. Putting barriers in the way of message exchange reduces likely uptake and, when as above, it is an unnecessary barrier it is just silly.
Obviously with the Internet comes the advantage of standards based message exchange. Whilst we favour the use of AS2 as the communications protocol, preferably Free AS2, we are happy to use most Internet standards for communication. This is because by using open standards it makes it easier to engage trading partners in the exchange of electronic documents.
I actually thought, regardless of whether companies charge for AS2, that all EDI and XML message exchange was moving to Open communications standards. It was therefore a great surprise to me to find that one trading partner of a customer was trying to insist that they install a proprietary piece of communications software to exchange invoices with them. When we questioned this we were told that whilst in theory their software could support the open standards, their software provider preferred that they use the software providers own communications protocol. This was even worse than the software needed for EDI VAN communications because what the software provider was trying to say was that to exchange any messages with their customer you must use the software houses own communications software.
The IT industry has a habit of inventing solutions to problems that do not exist and here is a prime case. Having been offered the options of email, FTP, HTTP(S), SSH, EDI VAN and AS2, a software provider was trying to insist upon their own proprietary solution. Having insisted (with our customers permission) that we would not install proprietary software, the trading partner went for email (but only after days of delay), not our favourite method, which works OK.
So having moved from the world of proprietary networks and associated software, to the glorious open world of the Internet, are we really going to step back to proprietary? I hope this is an isolated instance, because otherwise we may as well go back to EDI VANs, and I don't think that helps anyone.
The exchange of business documents offers many benefits to businesses both large and small, reducing costs, reducing errors and it has environmental benefits too. Putting barriers in the way of message exchange reduces likely uptake and, when as above, it is an unnecessary barrier it is just silly.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Why is the Internet not Free?
When companies started using EDI to exchange their business messages (way back in the days of punched card) they needed a way to send the messages to each other. This method needed to be both secure and reliable and from this rose the EDI Value Added Network (VAN).
A number of IT Network companies around the world, normally in conjunction with a telecoms operation, set-up dedicated networks that could carry your business data to any part of the world as long as the recipient had an EDI mailbox. It did not matter if that person used the same EDI VAN as the sender, the networks could communicate and so messages could be reliably exchanged. Obviously the EDI VAN would charge for this service as you were using their network capacity and their servers.
Then along comes the Internet. Over time the Internet has been able to connect any computer to any other computer and this has opened up the opportunity to replace the EDI VAN with other methods of sending and receiving data. The advantage being that as long as the communications method used was an Internet standard, you would not need a specialised piece of software (as you did to communicate with an EDI VAN) and so you could send the messages for Free. So we now see people sending EDI messages using email, FTP, FTPS, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH and AS2.
But hang on a minute, whilst you can use all the other methods for free, and no one will object, some people are trying to charge for AS2, and sometimes a hefty premium. I just don't get it. AS2 stands for Applicability Statement 2 and is a WC3 published Internet standard. Therefore we should have the choice to buy it or write it. As long as it conforms to the WC3 standard, all AS2 servers should talk to each other. But this is not what we sometimes hear.
We hear Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) stories that you have to have each version of a given server tested with each version of another server and if all the various server products in existence have not been tested with each other then you cannot guarantee that they will work. When is a standard not a standard? I think this is arrant nonsense, dreamt up to enable people to charge for something that should be free.
Luckily the Open Source community sees through this and there are a number of Open Source AS2 servers available. We use the server from Open AS2 and have used it to establish hundreds of AS2 connections, with the vast majority of the "charged for" servers. In fact, if the last statement is true, we have done the testing that most people charge for. We have had one failure for Open AS2, but when we delved in to it we discovered that the large organisation involved had not conformed to the AS2 standard and that no one had connected a vanilla AS2 server to theirs anyway.
We are firm believers in the value of AS2 for sending business messages via the Internet, we just believe it should not be charged for. We now deploy it Free of Charge for our customers and their Trading Partners should they wish to use it. It reduces the costs of Electronic Message Exchange, greatly enhances the speed of message delivery and provides the most secure and reliable method for exchanging business messages. It's certainly better than the Postal Service :-)
Have a look at Open AS2 today. It could save you time and money.
A number of IT Network companies around the world, normally in conjunction with a telecoms operation, set-up dedicated networks that could carry your business data to any part of the world as long as the recipient had an EDI mailbox. It did not matter if that person used the same EDI VAN as the sender, the networks could communicate and so messages could be reliably exchanged. Obviously the EDI VAN would charge for this service as you were using their network capacity and their servers.
Then along comes the Internet. Over time the Internet has been able to connect any computer to any other computer and this has opened up the opportunity to replace the EDI VAN with other methods of sending and receiving data. The advantage being that as long as the communications method used was an Internet standard, you would not need a specialised piece of software (as you did to communicate with an EDI VAN) and so you could send the messages for Free. So we now see people sending EDI messages using email, FTP, FTPS, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH and AS2.
But hang on a minute, whilst you can use all the other methods for free, and no one will object, some people are trying to charge for AS2, and sometimes a hefty premium. I just don't get it. AS2 stands for Applicability Statement 2 and is a WC3 published Internet standard. Therefore we should have the choice to buy it or write it. As long as it conforms to the WC3 standard, all AS2 servers should talk to each other. But this is not what we sometimes hear.
We hear Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) stories that you have to have each version of a given server tested with each version of another server and if all the various server products in existence have not been tested with each other then you cannot guarantee that they will work. When is a standard not a standard? I think this is arrant nonsense, dreamt up to enable people to charge for something that should be free.
Luckily the Open Source community sees through this and there are a number of Open Source AS2 servers available. We use the server from Open AS2 and have used it to establish hundreds of AS2 connections, with the vast majority of the "charged for" servers. In fact, if the last statement is true, we have done the testing that most people charge for. We have had one failure for Open AS2, but when we delved in to it we discovered that the large organisation involved had not conformed to the AS2 standard and that no one had connected a vanilla AS2 server to theirs anyway.
We are firm believers in the value of AS2 for sending business messages via the Internet, we just believe it should not be charged for. We now deploy it Free of Charge for our customers and their Trading Partners should they wish to use it. It reduces the costs of Electronic Message Exchange, greatly enhances the speed of message delivery and provides the most secure and reliable method for exchanging business messages. It's certainly better than the Postal Service :-)
Have a look at Open AS2 today. It could save you time and money.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Got EDI working? Now everyone gets fired?
Of course not! Yes EDI and all variations of it, when integrated to your systems and running automatically, will be cheaper than people. But you won't be getting rid of them. What a waste that would be! Your company IS the people within it. They are the key to your success in the past, your success right now and your success into the future.
Being a somewhat older person I am old enough to remember when companies ran their businesses without any computers at all. Everything was written down and a good head for figures, or nimble fingers for the comptometer, or add listing machine, were important desiderata.
Along came the first computers. Knees trembled. Fears mounted. What will we all do? We are to be replaced by a machine!
Our fears were unfounded. All that happened was that businesses grew without adding more folk to look after all the extra administration work. In other words we got more productive and were able to concentrate our time on work best suited for human beings than for machines like computers.
EDI, and all the other methods of integrated, automatic, electronic trading, led to the same number of people being able to handle more work. EDI takes care of the input and output of information. The people simply use the information (information that just so happens now to be more accurate and more quickly obtained than in the old days of manually copy typing everything) and so the business grows again...
Imagine a supermarket chain without electronic trading to link to its suppliers! The sheer volume of copy typing to raise orders couldn't be managed even with aircraft hangars full of people clacking away at keyboards. The shelves would have a few hundred product choices to try and satisfy hungry patrons ("consumer" is such a dismal name that implies squandering and questions like "Who ate all the pies? So let's call ourselves "patrons"). Today there are thousands of product choices in hundreds of supermarket branches, all over the country and it's all thanks to EDI.
Being a somewhat older person I am old enough to remember when companies ran their businesses without any computers at all. Everything was written down and a good head for figures, or nimble fingers for the comptometer, or add listing machine, were important desiderata.
Along came the first computers. Knees trembled. Fears mounted. What will we all do? We are to be replaced by a machine!
Our fears were unfounded. All that happened was that businesses grew without adding more folk to look after all the extra administration work. In other words we got more productive and were able to concentrate our time on work best suited for human beings than for machines like computers.
EDI, and all the other methods of integrated, automatic, electronic trading, led to the same number of people being able to handle more work. EDI takes care of the input and output of information. The people simply use the information (information that just so happens now to be more accurate and more quickly obtained than in the old days of manually copy typing everything) and so the business grows again...
Imagine a supermarket chain without electronic trading to link to its suppliers! The sheer volume of copy typing to raise orders couldn't be managed even with aircraft hangars full of people clacking away at keyboards. The shelves would have a few hundred product choices to try and satisfy hungry patrons ("consumer" is such a dismal name that implies squandering and questions like "Who ate all the pies? So let's call ourselves "patrons"). Today there are thousands of product choices in hundreds of supermarket branches, all over the country and it's all thanks to EDI.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Postal Strikes are good for e-trading
Here in the UK we are now looking forward to yet another postal strike. The Royal Mail workers have decided that to protect their jobs they need to withdraw their labour.
What has this to do with e-trading? Well it's a sales opportunity ;-). The last postal strike was at the end of June. What that meant for a number of companies was that their invoices to their customers, produced at the end of the month were delayed. Not delayed by the 24hours of the postal strike but, because the strike was on a Friday and there were no Friday collections, the invoices were not collected until the Monday, and then the Royal Mail were dealing with a backlog. Invoices arrived not 24 hours late but in some cases over 96 hours late.
For large volumes of invoices some people are now looking at switching from Royal Mail to their competitors in the business postal arena. But if they look at it logically why post an invoice. Send it electronically. In most cases electronic invoices arrive the same day, in some cases we have experience of them arriving in the same minute. If people choose the correct transmission methods (e.g. AS2) then they can even receive an electronic receipt showing that the document arrived on the recipients system (No more "Invoice, What Invoice, we didn't receive it?" from the payments department :-)).
All this and it is cheaper than people and more environmentally friendly.
Damn it this is so easy I think our Sales Quota should double. Better go and discuss this with the Sales Director....
What has this to do with e-trading? Well it's a sales opportunity ;-). The last postal strike was at the end of June. What that meant for a number of companies was that their invoices to their customers, produced at the end of the month were delayed. Not delayed by the 24hours of the postal strike but, because the strike was on a Friday and there were no Friday collections, the invoices were not collected until the Monday, and then the Royal Mail were dealing with a backlog. Invoices arrived not 24 hours late but in some cases over 96 hours late.
For large volumes of invoices some people are now looking at switching from Royal Mail to their competitors in the business postal arena. But if they look at it logically why post an invoice. Send it electronically. In most cases electronic invoices arrive the same day, in some cases we have experience of them arriving in the same minute. If people choose the correct transmission methods (e.g. AS2) then they can even receive an electronic receipt showing that the document arrived on the recipients system (No more "Invoice, What Invoice, we didn't receive it?" from the payments department :-)).
All this and it is cheaper than people and more environmentally friendly.
Damn it this is so easy I think our Sales Quota should double. Better go and discuss this with the Sales Director....
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