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Welcome
Spring!! It seems like most of us have had a cold winter (that seemed
to never end) followed by a wet and somewhat miserable beginning of
spring. Hopefully the warmth of the sun will soon follow. Today's
business climate seems to be following this same pattern. Most of the
economic indicators (and feedback from our customers) seem to feel that
growth will be somewhere between 'flat' and slightly 'up'. Given that
revenue growth may be elusive this year, it seems like it's a good time
to work on cleaning up internal processes, removing costly manual
operations and, in general, reducing your cost of doing business. Since
we're a big proponent of using technology to solve business problems,
let me address one problem area that everyone has; namely costly paper
processing.
From
the very first EDI transaction that you process (or if you're a Host*EDI
customer, we've processed), you've run two systems. You have a very
efficient EDI system that (for the most part) feeds Orders and Invoices
in and out of your applications in a 'lights-out' environment and that
second 'good-ol' paper handling processes that are a nightmare at best.
Handling mundane paper orders and invoices is highly labor intensive
and, as a result, expensive. Additionally, it's error-prone and
time-consuming. Worse yet, it's tough to manage your business knowing
that the data you need is in 'that stack of paper, somewhere'.
And,
these days, with the push to reduce inventory levels (by both buyer and
seller), we see the generation of greater quantities of smaller orders
(and their resultant return documents). So the end result is that
companies wind up pushing too many low-value paper documents around;
the cost of which is disproportionate to their revenue-generating
value. Still, if you receive paper orders from your customers (or paper
invoices from your suppliers), you may be unwilling (or unable) to
affect change. For both parties, it cripples the order-to-cash cycle
and sustains a cost component that can be hard to eliminate.
So
let's look at some solutions to this problem. Instead of paper, Orders
and Invoices can be emailed. While this helps the delivery time lag, it
doesn't address the keying and clerical processes that happen at the
receiving end. Another alternative that some customers have created for
their supply chain is a web-based facility where orders are delivered and
invoices can be entered. Nice for the customer, but still labor
intensive for the supplier. Worse, both of these solutions are not
integrated with the supply chain's back office systems. It may not even
be integrated with the customer's back office systems. From the
supplier's perspective, he has the same 'paper-based' workload and the
same associated problems.
The
ideal solution would be one where each party could dictate what they
wanted. The company that wants to send and receive paper should be entitled
to do so and the company that wanted EDI should be treated in equal
fashion. Neither should be penalized because of the decisions of the
other. Does such a solution exist that can satisfy these two disparate
camps?
Yes
it does. Recently, Digital Movers has partnered with Easylink Services
Corporation to provide 'Hosted Data Conversion Services' to its
customer base. In essence, we turn a 'paper document' into an
'electronic document' (EDI, XML, etc) and can, in turn, deliver that
data anywhere, at any time, into whatever enterprise application the
partner dictates. Digital Movers and Easylink have created a
sophisticated document processing facility that receives faxes, logs
them into a workflow database, scans the documents to extract the
desired data, quality assures the data with real live people (we
guarantee 99% accuracy), then converts that data into EDI, XML or any
form the customer desires. Plus the 'digitized' fax image is available
to be sent to either party and/or available for on-line viewing with a
standard web browser.
And
all of this is done at a cost that's considerably less than an in-house
data entry solution. And if you're a Host*EDI Outsource customer, we'll
deliver this data together with your EDI data (in fact you wont be able
to tell a paper PO or invoice from an EDI one). And, like our EDI
processing, the faxed data is available on-line through our Insight
facility, in either report format, raw EDI, or flat file displays.
Give
our sales department a call (973-409-0838) to see how this process can
reduce your costs and give you more accurate, timely data to run your
business with.
Welcome Aboard! - In this issue we're
recognizing one of our new customers, Home
Décor Products, Inc.. HDPI is the latest
company to utilize our Host*EDI hosted electronic data interchange
service to facilitate the trading of electronic business transactions
with its vendors. Home Décor Products, Inc. a leading pure-play online
retailer of kitchen and bath products, appliances, and related items
for the home, operates ten websites focusing on different segments of
that market. Those websites are: HomeClick, AbsoluteHome, Barbecues.com,
KnobsandThings.com, Hechinger, PoolClick.com, Chefs Corner, Cliquidate,
Christmas Catalog and NationBlinds. It is the fifth largest e-tailer of
Housewares/Home Furnishings and is ranked #105 on the Internet Retailer
Top 500.
Customs
Connection - A reminder, for those of you who need to send
Transportation EDI documents to U.S. or Canadian Customs, we've got
your connection! Send your data seamlessly through one of our Tier 1
Vans. And our costs are lower than the competition. Save your company
some money. Be a hero!
Once
again, a very large 'Thank you' to our loyal customers, many of whom
have been with us for a very long time. We'll continue to work hard to
earn your business every day and provide you with the best in
E-Commerce services and support.
As
always, please fee free to email me your comments or thoughts at kkonikowski@dmovers.com.
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