There are huge benefits to moving your electronic trading to next generation web-based platforms, says David Grosvenor
Ashift is under way within the grocery sector relating to the way transactional information is exchanged between retailers and suppliers.
According to GS1 UK's recent 'EDI Cost Savings Report', some 27 million orders are made in UK grocery every year, with 84% of orders by retailers and 87% of invoices from suppliers transacted using electronic data interchange (EDI) technology saving the industry £650m a year over manual, paper-based processes.
More retailers are now pushing for greater supply chain efficiencies by demanding more information from suppliers, such as despatch notes/Advanced Shipment Notifications (ASNs) and more frequent exchanges of information.
To facilitate this, several chains are looking to move their electronic trading to next generation web-based EDI by outsourcing to a service provider. Sainsbury's is transferring 4,000 of its suppliers onto a single B2B platform (operated by Wesupply) that enables integration with supplier back-office systems, provides checking and validation of messages exchanged between Sainsbury's and suppliers and will generate alerts in the event of errors or delays.
Given the scale of change sweeping the industry, most grocery suppliers are likely to be mandated to comply with the varying and expanding electronic trading requirements of the major supermarkets. This will place pressure on those with in-house EDI systems, but it is also an opportunity for them to adopt next generation EDI themselves.
Outsourcing to a service provider offloads the responsibility for compliance to the provider. A supplier can develop its own electronic trading hub through which it can trade with all its customers, irrespective of complexity, cutting order to cash time and giving them full control of their supply chain, as they set the rules by which electronic trading takes place.
Suppliers have the opportunity to use B2B EDI technology to their advantage, bringing costs down and pushing supply chain performance up across their customers. Retailers have already recognised the benefits. Isn't it time suppliers did too?
David Grosvenor is chief executive of Wesupply.
Ashift is under way within the grocery sector relating to the way transactional information is exchanged between retailers and suppliers.
According to GS1 UK's recent 'EDI Cost Savings Report', some 27 million orders are made in UK grocery every year, with 84% of orders by retailers and 87% of invoices from suppliers transacted using electronic data interchange (EDI) technology saving the industry £650m a year over manual, paper-based processes.
More retailers are now pushing for greater supply chain efficiencies by demanding more information from suppliers, such as despatch notes/Advanced Shipment Notifications (ASNs) and more frequent exchanges of information.
To facilitate this, several chains are looking to move their electronic trading to next generation web-based EDI by outsourcing to a service provider. Sainsbury's is transferring 4,000 of its suppliers onto a single B2B platform (operated by Wesupply) that enables integration with supplier back-office systems, provides checking and validation of messages exchanged between Sainsbury's and suppliers and will generate alerts in the event of errors or delays.
Given the scale of change sweeping the industry, most grocery suppliers are likely to be mandated to comply with the varying and expanding electronic trading requirements of the major supermarkets. This will place pressure on those with in-house EDI systems, but it is also an opportunity for them to adopt next generation EDI themselves.
Outsourcing to a service provider offloads the responsibility for compliance to the provider. A supplier can develop its own electronic trading hub through which it can trade with all its customers, irrespective of complexity, cutting order to cash time and giving them full control of their supply chain, as they set the rules by which electronic trading takes place.
Suppliers have the opportunity to use B2B EDI technology to their advantage, bringing costs down and pushing supply chain performance up across their customers. Retailers have already recognised the benefits. Isn't it time suppliers did too?
David Grosvenor is chief executive of Wesupply.
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