VAN Independence: How Does a Trading Partner Break from Its VAN?

What’s Your VAN Independence Strategy?

Independence Day is now behind us and summer is nearing its end. The 4th of July holiday encourages reflections, reflections that include independence and country. It also includes independence in financial, personal, and business matters. Returning to work following the mid-summer holiday this year, I began to think about systemic independence – specifically the independence of trading partners who are more willing than ever to declare themselves independent from their VAN.

A value-added network (VAN) is a private network used by a company to facilitate and ensure the exchange of EDI transaction documents with one or more trading partners.

Communication

Traditional EDI includes costs of configuration, transformation, integration, and communication. EDI communication typically includes the use of a VAN. EDI requires a mechanism that allows trading partners to send and receive messages. While there are other methods, the VAN is the most conventional one.

There are many such VANs available, typically through subscriptions. These VANs communicate with members as well as among each other, allowing VAN subscribers to communicate with one another regardless of the community to which they belong.

Foundation

The original VANs were much more than what service-based organizations associated with a transport mechanism. Many began their lives as services associated with “computing time” back when computers were rare and the needs for computing were greater. Companies like IBM set up massive communication channels using the IBM Systems Network Architecture (SNA) to facilitate the use of mainframe computers; such interactions and transaction exchanges were subsequently moved to smaller and smaller machines using File Transfer Protocol (FTP).
 

Domination

Once in place, VANs began reducing the services they provided. No longer providing computing services, they set their sights on becoming massive communication channels. They set up their own independent communications networks, complete with “mailboxes” and “interconnects”. The mailbox was an address on a VAN used by a trading partner to pick up and drop off transaction documents. On the other hand, the interconnect was a tool used by VANs to communicate with other independent VANs to help delivery and exchange of transaction documents.

Substitution

Once in place, VANs began reducing the services they provided. No longer providing computing services, they set their sights on becoming massive communication channels. They set up their own independent communications networks, complete with “mailboxes” and “interconnects”. The mailbox was an address on a VAN used by a trading partner to pick up and drop off transaction documents. On the other hand, the interconnect was a tool used by VANs to communicate with other independent VANs to help delivery and exchange of transaction documents.

So why aren’t more companies moving to AS2? It may be because no one has explained the benefits in a way that makes a comparison easy.

Explanation

AS2 securely moves more data at a lower cost by relying on Internet access rather than a dedicated network. The VAN’s monthly access fees and kilo-character costs disappear.

AS2 relies on software and the Internet to accomplish the same tasks that were once only found in the domain of VANs.
 

Erosion

Market consolidation of EDI products and services has recently seen a consolidation of VANs, with many of the impacted customers moving toward AS2. Considering the growth rates we saw in the use of “free email” in the browser wars of the 1990s, industry experts agree that AS2 is likely to become more like FTP in its frequency of use.

What’s the Lesson?

EDI buyers will look for an EDI solution that:

• Offers independence from the VAN, can leverage any type or number of independent connections, and is in tune with today’s market
• Has a willingness to go that extra mile for their business
• Provides improved service offerings at a fixed cost and includes everything they need to make it work
• Integrates directly with their ERP, works without manual intervention, and helps them be more efficient.

Questions to Ask Your Client

• Are you happy with your current EDI solution?
• Is your EDI solution integrated or does it require manual intervention like logging into a portal, uploading spreadsheets, or running a batch process to make it work?
• Are you using multiple solutions to communicate with your trading partners?
• How would you like to break from these dependencies?
• Would you be interested in hearing about a frictionless EDI solution?

Why is EDI integration important to your business?

Electronic data interchange (EDI) enables the smooth, rapid, and structured exchange of important data between businesses. However, businesses have come to realize that manually entering data to be sent via a third-party EDI solution is still fairly time and labor-intensive. To further enhance business growth, companies that use EDI solutions can automatically synchronize all inbound and outbound partner data with their ERP system.

This blog post will shed light on some of the core advantages that EDI integration brings to your business.

Accuracy

Inaccurate information and failure to comply with EDI standards or individual trading partners’ internal policies can result in chargebacks or expensive errors. You might accidentally instruct a supplier to ship products to the wrong warehouse or even lose business by incorrectly processing a major customer’s order.

Sending business information directly from your ERP via integrated EDI technology greatly reduces the chance of making these mistakes. ERP platforms use various methods to validate information against a set of business rules to ensure compliance. Minimizing manual actions during inter-organization data exchange also prevents most errors, which helps your business avoid unexpected costs, reduce customer attrition, and preserve healthy margins.

Increased Efficiency

Compared to stand-alone EDI systems, ERP-integrated EDI solutions don’t require you to dedicate hours or days to manual input. Inbound and outbound partner communication can also be automated by initiating an EDI transaction on a fixed schedule (like sending an end-of-week report) or when a specific set of conditions arises in your ERP system (like requesting replenishment when you’re out of stock). This results in faster order processing and delivery, increased operational agility in response to changes in your supply chain, and improved relationships with suppliers, vendors, distributors, and other trading partners.

Reduced Costs

Automatic, paperless partner communication drastically saves costs by at least 35%. Savings can be as high as 90% with the use of electronic invoices. Rapid EDI communication also helps you control costs by allowing you to reduce inventory levels and shorten order processing and delivery times. However, manually keying business information into a separate EDI system introduces errors, delays communication, and increases labor costs.

Integrating your EDI and ERP systems allows you to send verified, standards-compliant information to suppliers and trading partners without needing to pay a worker to manually key in that information. You can avoid costs associated with SLA violations, performance gaps, and delays by using ERP integration to virtually eliminate manual error and ensure that your documentation process conforms to EDI standards.

Data Security

If an unauthorized person gains access to your business secrets, that’s bad enough, but someone manages to transmit that data, that’s far, far worse. EDI system integration helps keep your valuable business information safe by only granting EDI access to authorized ERP users. Each ERP user can be granted or denied access to EDI capabilities based on their specific role. Since most ERP platforms offer sophisticated auditing capabilities, you can also keep track of who sent or requested a specific document, and when.

Conclusion

Seamless EDI-to-ERP integration makes partner communication paperless, which results in reduced operational latency and errors, reduced costs, and better relationships with business partners. It also enables authorized users to exchange business information safely and securely. To learn more about how EDI integration maximizes the effectiveness of B2B communication, please contact PartnerLinQ.

EDI is the most widely used structured electronic data exchange between organizations. However, not all EDI solutions are created equal. Instead of operating as stand-alone applications that require manual entry and their own maintenance regime, leading EDI platforms integrate seamlessly with ERP software and other business applications to eliminate manual rekeying and duplication of business information.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a powerful cloud-based ERP solution. A fully integrated EDI solution can extend this power by directly connecting your implementation of Dynamics 365 to your trading partners’ ERP systems. Decision makers need to choose an EDI solution that integrates rapidly with Dynamics 365 and takes full advantage of Dynamics 365’s analytics, workflows, and other productivity-enhancing capabilities.

In this blog post, we’ll consider several factors that are important for effectively integrating your EDI solution with Dynamics 365:

The advantage of native integration

Some EDI solutions are designed to natively integrate with Dynamics 365. If you choose the correct one of these solutions, you don’t have to worry about compatibility or security issues – everything just works. This is the best way to avoid compromises or complications during or after solution implementation.

Choose a reliable integration partner and platform

If you decide to implement an EDI solution that isn’t specifically designed to integrate with Dynamics 365, choose an integration partner that possesses in-depth experience with integrating EDI solutions with Microsoft platforms. Since Dynamics 365 runs on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, your partner of choice should be familiar with Azure-compatible enterprise application integration (EAI) tools and methodologies. To minimize business risk and avoid future upgrade costs, the integration platform should be highly secure and scalable.

Onboarding new EDI trading partners

In addition to the many security and regulatory concerns associated with transmitting sensitive data between organizations, each business that you partner with usually has its own set of information policies and standards. While integrating your EDI solution with Dynamics 365, make sure that the integration provides enough flexibility to accommodate these partner requirements.

Eliminate manual processes

The ROI of automating EDI processes varies depending on the frequency and importance of your data exchanges with other organizations. If you send or receive just a few documents each month, a fully automatic solution might not deliver enough value to justify the cost of implementation.

While integrating your EDI platform with Dynamics 365 will automate many manual processes, some ancillary processes might continue to be performed manually. Before you go the extra mile and attempt to eliminate these additional steps, define your specific EDI integration goals and determine the value you expect from automating each manual process. This will give you a clear picture of what you stand to gain from end-to-end automation of supply chain communication.

Data accessibility and privacy

If there are regulations or internal policies that prevent you from storing some types of business information in the public cloud, you will have to take this into consideration while planning to integrate your EDI solution with Dynamics 365. Instead of simply using Dynamics 365 or Azure cloud storage, you might have to implement a hybrid solution. These requirements add cost and complexity, so you should be aware of them before you begin integration.

Conclusion

Organizations that prepare a complete roadmap of the EDI integration process are rewarded with faster time to value, lower implementation costs, fewer delays, and higher ROI. For more information on best practices for integrating EDI with Dynamics 365, contact PartnerLinQ for a complimentary consultation.

ECommerce is on the rise. Buyers want access to everything from the comfort of their laptop or phone, and customer journeys that span multiple channels have become the new norm. Because of these and other complexities, success in digital commerce depends heavily on a smoothly functioning supply chain.

Successful online retailers are adopting electronic data interchange (EDI) solutions so they can efficiently exchange purchase orders, delivery notes, invoices, and other documents with manufacturers and suppliers in their global supply chain using a single digital platform. EDI systems can enhance your eCommerce experience in several different ways:

Fewer stockouts

Few things annoy your shoppers more than their desired product being out of stock. Even if your suppliers are completely reliable, you might forget to place replenishment orders in time.

Modern EDI solutions that integrate with your ERP and WMS software let you simplify or even automate your replenishment cycle by either notifying you or immediately placing orders with your suppliers whenever stock levels fall below a specified threshold. As a result, your customers are far less likely to experience stock-outs, which helps you maintain high customer satisfaction.

Fewer order fulfillment errors

Incorrectly keyed information can lead to your customers receiving the wrong product. They might be shipped the correct product in the wrong quantity, or if you’ve made a mistake in their delivery information, they won’t receive their order at all! Any of these errors will almost certainly lead to very irate customers and maybe even negative publicity.

EDI minimizes manual entry. You (and your supplier) won’t have to decipher someone’s messy handwriting, hunt down an email that contains order information, or risk making a mistake while rekeying an order from one program into another. More accurate order information reduces the risk of fulfillment delays, angry customers, and loss of business.

Personalization and direct shipping

More and more businesses are harnessing digital supply chain technology and consumer analytics to offer their customers made-to-order products. With real-time vendor communication solutions, retailers can keep their supply chain agile and minimize logistics and inventory costs by sending customized product orders to manufacturers so they can produce and send items directly to your customers.

You don’t need to offer product personalization services to take advantage of EDI in this way. Even if your products are mass-produced, the ability to instantly send delivery information to suppliers is a great way to drastically shorten order fulfillment times, minimize warehousing and inventory spend, and keep your customers happy.

Real-time special order availability

Some online retailers allow their customers to place special orders for items they don’t usually keep in inventory. However, most of these retailers don’t have an up-to-the-minute record of their suppliers’ stock levels or delivery times, which means their online store doesn’t tell their customers how soon they’ll receive these items. More often than not, customers decide to look elsewhere for the item they wanted, and the retailer misses out on a sale.

EDI integration can give your customers real-time information about special order availability and wait times. Even if you don’t keep a particular item in stock, your online store can use EDI to instantly consult your supplier’s records, determine the item’s estimated delivery time, and place an order.

Conclusion

Your customers value timely replenishment, quick and accurate fulfillment, and end-to-end visibility, and digital technologies like EDI that allow you to effortlessly deliver this value represent a real competitive advantage. To learn more about how digital B2B communication drives growth and reduces customer churn, please register for our December 13 webinar, Live Demo of PartnerLinQ for Dynamics 365 FO in Retail.

Improving your supply chain efficiency with ERP-integrated EDI

In an environment of ever-changing consumer demand, your retail or manufacturing business needs to leverage every competitive advantage it has at its disposal. Modern global businesses rely on electronic data interchange (EDI) solutions to maximize operational efficiency and maintain market competitiveness.

Businesses use EDI technology to innovate on operational strategy, enhance supply chain management, and improve operational performance. Most large manufacturers and retailers coordinate their operations via EDI, from sending and receiving purchase orders and invoices to advance ship notices (ASNs) and product transfer reports.

So becoming an EDI-capable organization signals to potential trading partners that you are a trustworthy party that uses standards-based supply chain practices, and helps you unlock the door to global trade. However, EDI’s primary advantage lies in the vast improvements in operational efficiency it offers over paper-based processes.

Even though EDI promotes uniformity through the use of communication standards, not all EDI solutions are created equal. Many older EDI systems only use one EDI format and don’t support any modern, non-EDI communication standards. Many of these legacy systems (and even some newer “web EDI” solutions) require users to manually key in information, and may even require them to manually initiate and end the EDI transfer!

Advantages of EDI ERP Integration on a Modern Supply Chain Connectivity Solution

These methods, while better than using paper documents and a courier service, are ancient relics from the 20th century. If your organization still uses this kind of software, you should make it a priority to have it replaced with a supply chain connectivity solution that integrates directly with your ERP software. Here are three ways that an ERP-integrated EDI solution significantly improves efficiency:

Minimal Manual Entry

Direct EDI ERP integration means that you’ll hardly ever need to manually type information to send it to a vendor (or type received information back into your ERP system).

Since all information on your products, pricing, inventory, sales transactions, customers, and deliveries are already stored in your ERP system, you’ll usually be able to select the information you want to send with a few clicks. Then, depending on your operating procedures, you can either transmit that information to the appropriate trading partner right away or add it to a scheduled batch transfer.

More advanced EDI solutions will also confirm that the ERP information that you’re about to send complies with your trading partners’ internal policies for those specific document types. This is definitely much quicker and more convenient than consulting a separate compliance checklist for each vendor every time you transmit information.

By reducing its dependence on manual entry, your organization will spend less time managing information transfers, correcting transcription errors, and running damage control due to the errors you failed to catch in time. You’ll also improve supplier relationships and save a surprising amount of money on EDI chargebacks caused by noncompliant information transfers.

Rapid Partner Onboarding

A well-designed supply chain connectivity solution also improves efficiency by speeding up the onboarding of new trading partners. Instead of requiring days of configuration, modern EDI systems use intelligent field-mapping techniques to automatically reconcile your partners’ data and document formats with your own. The sooner you complete the onboarding process, the sooner you experience the benefits of a digital supply chain connectivity solution.

Agile Decision-Making

A seamless EDI ERP integration also allows you to start using advanced, ERP-integrated analytics tools to gain a better understanding of your trading partners. In the same way that your ERP system’s dynamic dashboards and advanced reporting capabilities provide actionable insights about your organization’s internal processes, they will also begin providing clear, easy-to-understand intelligence on how each of your vendors is performing.

Now you can anticipate and adapt to supply-side changes more quickly. Decision-makers will have access to the information they need to respond to emerging opportunities and challenges in real time.

Industry-leading EDI solution providers like PartnerLinQ provide end-to-end ERP-integrated solutions that drive efficiency by minimizing manual entry, expediting partner onboarding, and enhancing decision-making agility. Contact Us to request a demo.

PartnerLinQ is an innovative, process-centric B2B integration solution that enables progressive organizations to build their digital partner extensible platform leveraging APIs and robust EDI capabilities.

With PartnerlinQ, organizations in most industries including fulfillment (3PL), retail, Ecommerce, wholesale, and distribution can achieve operational efficiencies through streamlined B2B communication and real-time visibility. PartnerlinQ brings management of all forms of B2B interchange including EDI, real time APIs, and file based/proprietary formats into a cohesive solution which is easy to use and manage.

PartnerlinQ requires zero customization to Dynamics 365 for Operations and Dynamics AX 2012 to make your ERP EDI ready.

PartnerLinQ Features and Benefits:

• Designed for ease of use in managing EDI
• Rapid partner on boarding based on hundreds of preconfigured EDI transaction and partner mappings
• Powerful and configurable business rule engine for automating document exchange
• Driven by business processes, beyond traditional point-to-point EDI interchange
• Supports APIs for Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, Jet, Amazon, DHL, UPS, and others.
• Unified management and workflow of all B2B communication channels
• Centralized B2B communication through a scalable and reliable solution
• Supports small package shipment and tracking
• Responsive solution that identifies and reports issues before they put business relationships at risk
• Highly scalable – Cutting edge, server-class architecture on Azure platform that scales to handle extreme seasonal spikes
• Browser based access, built-in reporting and notification capabilities

The PartnerLinQ solution is a fully managed cloud solution with complete EDI/B2B management professional services. PartnerLinQ is also available as licensed solution managed entirely by the customer. For more information please contact PartnerLinQ.

For many enterprises EDI is the main source of how revenue flows into the business. It’s often considered the lifeblood of a company. If not done well there can be a great deal of risk and hardship.

Managing an EDI campaign requires a specific knowledge base that few have. Different from other areas of business these skills are not widely carried across the majority of today’s technical staffs. Generally companies are lucky to have a small handful of people with this unique background. This makes choosing the correct software/service provider and delivery model imperative to avoid problems that could damage customer relationships and cash flow.

Many other technology platforms that companies invest in have inherent cross training. CRM and ERP environments often have large teams of people that work on them and in them on a daily basis. This is rarely the case with EDI.

For years companies didn’t have much choice when it came to B2B community enablement. They are mandated to participate by their trading partners and this would require them to buy software and hire the appropriate technical talent. Fortunately today there are choices. Some still buy the software, maintain the environment and staff required. Some take advantage of other delivery models and offload much of the heavy lifting when it comes to EDI.

There are three general delivery models to choose from:

• On premise / self-managed
• Hosted / self-managed
• Cloud / managed service

On premise / self-managed model has been around for forty years. This is a common choice for companies that still desire to keep everything in-house and don’t assign a great deal of importance to a cloud strategy.

Hosted / self-managed model is similar. The end user still needs to maintain the staff with the required skillset. Their EDI environment may be collocated in an offsite data center but the company is still responsible for the daily maintenance of the environment, adding transaction sets / trading partners and error resolution.

With the prevalence of cloud based ERP and CRM solutions today the two models above, for some, make less sense and carry a risk of failure. Getting and keeping EDI capable people has become difficult. Companies that have made the decision to implement a cloud/managed service delivered ERP/CRM see the value in outsourcing.

When making a decision on which direction and delivery model to choose a company needs to look a three things. Does this provider line up with your cloud strategy? Do you want to maintain EDI capabilities in-house? Do you see the value and reduced risk involved with today’s cloud/managed service delivery? The answers to these three questions should help point you in the right direction. To learn more please Contact PartnerLinQ.

EDI Solutions for Dynamics 365

Complete EDI, B2B and API solution for frictionless partner communication.

Exchanging business data with other organizations can be expensive and technically challenging:

• Many EDI solutions fail to scale to high volumes and become sluggish under peak loads
• Standalone EDI systems need to be maintained separately from ERP platforms and create a disconnect between EDI processing and other business processes.
• Your partner will use probably different EDI platforms and data formats than your own.

Traditional EDI platforms have multiple limitations. Partner onboarding can be time-consuming and frustrating, and communicating with partners that don’t use EDI requires expensive, difficult-to-maintain customization. Complicated error tracking, poor transaction visibility, and vendor rule management lead to expensive chargebacks that can severely impact your margins.

PartnerLinQ simplifies partner onboarding by supporting business rule-based transactions with businesses with existing EDI setups as well as non-EDI businesses. Its advanced business rule engine and extensive pre-configured business rule library make it easy to configure, save, and reuse business rules for multiple partner organizations and EDI scenarios.

PartnerLinQ can be configured to generate alerts that are triggered when specific conditions are met, and can be used to quickly identify EDI bottlenecks or errors. These notifications are a critical component of PartnerLinQ’s error handling functionality and can help reduce business costs by preventing chargebacks and low transaction throughput.