Many businesses struggle to take their data management and exchange processes to the next level. They may be using an outdated Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) solution, or they may not be using EDI at all. 

If your business needs better data management, you may want to consider finding an EDI service provider. Here is an introduction to EDI and 10 considerations when looking for EDI service providers in 2023.

Overview of EDI implementation

In an increasingly digitized world, businesses must also change how they operate. Many companies are now turning to EDI to manage their workflows better.

According to statistics, the global EDI software market size is estimated to reach a whopping $4.04 billion by 2029, compared to $1.88 billion in 2022.

What is EDI? 

EDI is the electronic interchange of business information following a standard format. It’s generally used to streamline transactions between companies. This process was once done using paper documents that had to be mailed back and forth, however, EDI now enables businesses to exchange data electronically and quickly.

What is the difference between EDI and non-EDI?

While EDI refers to the process of electronically exchanging business data in a pre-defined format between systems, non-EDI is the traditional way of exchanging information without any pre-defined format. This would include using paper documents or even emailing attachments back and forth. Non-EDI can be very timeconsuming and expensive due to mailing costs. Non-EDI formats can include: Fixed length flat files, Variable length flat files, Binary files, to name a few.

Benefits of EDI software to a business’s supply chain 

EDI can be powerful to the business supply chain, automating and speeding up processes that would traditionally be done manually or through ineffective processes. Various organizations, including retailers, manufacturers, and distributors, can use EDI software to automate processes and improve data accuracy. It can maximize efficiency, improve overall experience, minimize errors throughout the supply chain, and provide the following key benefits:

• Order management: If your business wants the most efficient way to fulfill orders, EDI is the solution. EDI can automate the process of orders being placed with suppliers and keep up with customer demands. This way, businesses have a way to quickly and easily place orders with suppliers.
• Inventory management: EDI can also help businesses keep track of inventory levels. By integrating with your company’s accounting software, you can get real-time updates on what needs to be restocked. This helps avoid stock-outs and keeps the supply chain running smoothly.
• Shipping and logistics: One of the major benefits of EDI is its ability to streamline shipping and logistics. In tandem with a company’s shipping software, businesses can automatically generate labels and track shipments. 

Top 10 Considerations for Selecting Your EDI Service Provider

To ensure your business is ready for the new year, you’ll want an efficient and reliable EDI service provider. Here are a few considerations to keep in mind when selecting one:

1. What kind of integration is there? Do they support all formats?

A good place to start is to make sure the provider can integrate with all the software you’re using. Finding an EDI service provider that uses an Application Programming Interface (API) for integration is recommended to make it easier to connect with your existing systems. 

Integrated solutions are important because they can automate processes and make it easier to manage data. 

2. Are they industry-agnostic?

Your EDI provider should not be specific to any one industry. This is because your business might branch out into new markets and you don’t want to change providers. An agnostic provider will also be able to give you a more objective perspective on how best to use EDI in your business and cater to your unique needs. 

3. What deployment models do they use?

There are three main deployment models for EDI: on-premise, cloud-based, and hybrid. On-premise means the EDI software is installed and managed on your company’s servers. Cloud-based solutions are hosted by the provider and accessed through the internet. 

Hybrid deployments use a combination of both on-premise and cloud-based resources. The best option for you will depend on your company’s size and needs, budget, and IT infrastructure.

4. How long do they take to implement EDI?

Time to implementation is important, as you don’t want your business to be disrupted for too long. A good provider can give you a timeline for implementation and stick to it. As EDI can be difficult to set up, it’s important to ensure your provider has a good track record with other clients. 

5. Do they have an industry understanding in which you operate? 

You should ensure that the provider you choose has a good understanding of your industry and your company’s specific needs. This way, they can help you select the best EDI software for your business and ensure a smooth transition to using it. 

For example, your provider should be familiar with HIPAA compliance if you’re in the healthcare industry. Or, if you’re in the retail industry, your provider should know about EDI for e-commerce. 

6. Do they have a technological understanding?

You’ll also want to make sure that your provider has a good understanding of the technology you’re using. They should be able to support you and help you troubleshoot any issues you may have. 

Additionally, they should be up-to-date on the latest EDI software and standards so that you can be confident your business is using the best possible solution. 

7. Is it a secure platform? 

EDI data is often sensitive, so it’s important to ensure that your provider has a secure platform. Also, 80% of all cyber breaches happen in the supply chain, and 72% of companies don’t have full visibility into their supply chains. The platform should comply with industry security standards like HIPAA and PCI DSS.

8. Is the solution user-friendly? 

One of the most important things to consider when choosing an EDI service provider is whether or not their solution is user-friendly. After all, you don’t want your employees to waste time figuring out how to use the software. 

A good EDI service provider will offer a solution that is easy to use and comes with training and support so your employees can be up and running quickly.

9. Is the solution scalable?

As your business grows, you’ll want an EDI solution that can scale with you. A good EDI provider will offer a scalable solution so that you can add on features and functionality as needed. This way, you won’t have to switch providers down the road when your business expands.

10. What is the reputation of the partner and support? 

Finally, select an EDI service provider with a good reputation. You can check online reviews and talk to other businesses in your industry to see what they recommend. Additionally, you’ll want to ensure the provider offers good customer support if you have any problems using their software. 

Why choose PartnerLinQ?

As you browse EDI service providers that can offer all of these things, you’ll want to keep PartnerLinQ in mind. We’re a leading provider of EDI solutions and have over 25 years of experience helping businesses with their data exchange needs. With PartnerLinQ, our digital platform for communication with EDI and non-EDI partners, you can take full control of your supply chain.

If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, request a demo today and learn more about PartnerLinQ and how it can help you transform your supply chain ecosystem.

What’s new this holiday season?

While the Thanksgiving holiday has passed and we remain grateful for another wonderful year, we were treated to a visit from the technology elves on our return. The elves mentioned that they were hard at work finalizing the new release of PartnerLinQ as the holidays approach and were stopping by in order to demonstrate some its advanced features.

The Platform

The platform has been given an upgrade and the dashboard is sleek, smooth and faster than ever before. an ever before.

Recent Activities, located in the center, ensures PartnerLinQ customers remain proactively informed of the latest activities.

Recently Assigned Customers are just to the left, ensuring PartnerLinQ customers actively engaged in onboarding have a front row seat. It’s here that PartnerLinQ customers can visually ascertain the status of any onboarding customer at any point in the onboarding process.

Systems and Tasks alerts are on the right, and subscriptions can be toggled on and off by the user at any time.

Further down and always visible is a Support button that helpfully opens the support window.

With one-click you can search the support FAQ and access email and telephone support. The platform features Google-like search functionality at the top of the page, ensuring that anything a PartnerLinQ customer is looking for is one click away.

We make it easy. We keep it simple. And it is all in one place.

The Evolution

This holiday season, we are reminded that the evolution of PartnerLinQ has been a special process.  From the very beginning, our commitment to “making it easy and keeping it simple and putting everything in one place” has been an inspiration to not only our team and the technology elves, it has also inspired prospects to become customers and strangers to become friends. Now, having been on this path for a few years, the next few years are looking even more promising.

The Extensible Platform

Putting everything in one place is a core tenet of the PartnerLinQ extensible platform. Everything is accessible, from a selection of widgets that can be added to the user’s home screen to a selection of APIs and tools that can be added to your PartnerLinQ subscription. Speaking with some of our customers recently, the reaction to the new extensible platform has been, “I can’t wait for Christmas!”

The Upgrade

The upgrade to the new PartnerLinQ Platform, like everything else we do, is included with the platform. We’re all about making it easy and while the Azure-hosted subscription model has been available for some time, some self-hosted and licensed PartnerLinQ instances remain. PartnerLinQ customers keeping it simple today on the self-hosted and licensed PartnerLinQ instances will benefit from the ways we are making it easier tomorrow.

The Apps

We think of the apps as the best presents under the tree this year. Instant Ocean and Scan2EDI are the first of many PartnerLinQ solutions moving to the PartnerLinQ “in-app” subscription model. Available exclusively to PartnerLinQ customers, PartnerLinQ apps connect subscribers with Visionet IP products, factories, distributors, 3PL service providers, payment gateways, and more.

Instant Ocean is the newest PartnerLinQ IP and brings real value to PartnerLinQ customers who are also ocean freight participants. Instant Ocean is an “in-app” subscription to complete container visibility delivered to the user dashboard. Imagine integrated, automated, and reliable ocean status at your fingertips. Instant Ocean container updates can be delivered to the PartnerLinQ dashboard or directly to the enterprise. Instant Ocean even makes use of business rules and alerting so you can have it your way. Your port, your container, Trans-Atlantic, Trans-Pacific, and everywhere in between. Instant Ocean removes human intervention from your ocean-going freight and delivers real business insight.

Scan2EDI assembles the best modern technologies in one easy-to-use solution reaching well beyond that of ordinary optical character recognition (OCR). Beginning with OCR, PartnerLinQ makes use of robotic process automation (RPA) for data retrieval and data extraction, OCR for transformation, indexing, and image storage, and document management software in our intuitive PartnerLinQ platform interface.

PartnerLinQ’s business process outsourcing ensures that any transaction not immediately recognized receives an initial review and response so that PartnerLinQ customers have the option to add transactions, integrations, vendors, and customers mid-flow. This can happen because mapping and error handling are fully automated, the function includes business rules that fit our client’s business expectations, and with built-in alerts, no transactions are ever overlooked or missed. Artificial intelligence ensures transactions are sorted, tagging, and routed through processing and should an unexpected transaction be encountered, automated error handling takes care of the alerting your business team.

Application integration is what PartnerLinQ’s Scan2EDI was designed for and with our enterprise integration framework, Scan2EDI transactions land as expected in the enterprise whether they’re purchase orders (POs), advanced ship notices (ASNs), invoices, shipping documents, or any of the 500-plus available transactions that Scan2EDI was designed to handle out of the box.

Happy Holidays!

Whatever holidays you celebrate, we think that PartnerLinQ’s evolution is a reason for good cheer. With better visibility and flexibility, we’re adding even more resilience to your supply chain, and in these uncertain times as we sort out the “new normal,” resilience is the key to success.

So, enjoy the time off from work, spend time doing the things you love, and we’ll see you in the new year with a new evolution of the PartnerLinQ solution that will keep you singing “Happy Holidays” well into the new year. Talk with our experts to learn more.

By Thomas A Smith Senior EDI Implementation Strategy Consultant  

On a warm morning in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at a symposium in 2005 the Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made the following statement…

“While the techniques and instruments to absorb fluctuations have improved, there is uncertainty about how they will perform in a serious downturn.”

The speaker was Ragham Rajan and while he was widely ridiculed at the time, his speech would prove to be prophetic. The 2007-08 financial crisis to follow occurred because market changes and advancements were concentrating risk despite appearing to diversify risk.

The Great Disruption

The world is witnessing an unprecedented level of disruption beginning with COVID-19, followed by supply chain issues, and a growing disruption within the labor market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the flight of workers from the hospitality industry in September, with a reported 863,000 leaving their positions, fully 6.6% of the hospitality workforce. Across the world we see acute shortages for commodities, including computer chips, furniture, and mobile devices among them. Fortunately, there are no nationwide shortages of food. Although in some cases we might have certain foods with low inventory, food production and manufacturing are widely dispersed in North America. Global Industrialization is suffering, and many manufacturers in the US are reporting a wait of more than 90 days to procure materials and assemble parts to make their products.

The Disruption Today

Beyond the supply chain shortages and bottlenecks there are multiple causes for disruption. The emerging cause can be attributed to a shortage of labor, especially truck drivers, which has stalled production operations across plants, distribution points, and delivery centers. Despite rising unemployment, the gap between labor and unfilled positions is increasing.

With global production chains divided into specialized links over many decades, different industries have become inextricably connected over a period of time. Supply shocks have spread across unlikely industries, such as automobiles and semiconductors, or food and fertilizer.

Perhaps an even more visible cause for disruption lies in oversea shipping. The port crisis in the US has received global attention over the last year due to the immense buildup of ships and the never-ending influx of cargo. What supply chain professionals initially viewed as temporary is now threatening to change global shipping infrastructures from the size of ships to business practices, which relied on speed rather than on efficiency, availability, or visibility. Container ships are now circling ports and remaining at sea for longer periods increasing costs. Sea containers cost more to ship, resulting in exorbitant prices, and the accumulation of goods at shipyards, rail yards and warehouses, a direct result of the aforementioned labor shortage, dominated by a shortage of truck drivers.

Supply Chain News

Attending a supply chain conference last week for the first time in more than 18 months, I had an opportunity to listen to several speakers. One by one each delivered his or her view of what happens next, after the great disruption.

One speaker stated simply, “Supply chain is sexy again” and that caught my attention, for starters, I would agree. Having been largely automated and then ignored, the supply chain is again making news and having work in the supply chain for many years, there is more than a passing interest from John Q. Public on Supply chain matters. The speaker went on to talk about a financial newspaper with wide distribution. The paper, the speaker continued, published a mere handful of supply chain articles each month while in recent months, that handful had exploded to several articles every day. The articles, looking more critically now, are well beyond a single new outlet and appear to have a wide array of supply chain perspectives. Reflections of the articles range in impact from the DOW to the NASDAQ and from Retail to CPG and from staples to emerging technologies and in the virtual world these articles are boundless, including this one, which brings us to the following observation.

Stress Testing the Supply Chain

The string of supply chain disruption following the pandemic has resulted in the biggest stress test for supply chain leaders the world over, retail executives in North America anticipate issues to last beyond 2022. What appeared at first to be temporary has now turned into a series of long-lasting setbacks, some perhaps resulting in a permanent state of disruption in some industries. Considering the nearly two years since the onset, when and how these disruptions will end remain a matter of conjecture. The answers are not to be found, not in anyone’s tea leaves, not yet.

The Future of Supply Chain

In order to future-proof, supply chain leaders are facing factors of change that have not been previously considered or discussed, solutions from worker migration to flexible labor practices and the movement of sourcing to new sourcing centers in emerging markets or those which can be more closely controlled or deliver an environmentally neutral position. The solution is in resolving multiple issues in the supply chain as it did way back when plastic hangers seemingly changed to black overnight.

The Solution Approach

Renewing the approach to transparency and visibility across the supply chain is critical in light of the uncertain future in this period of the Great Disruption, now clearly extended, with no end in sight. Increased transparency can better prepare stakeholders to deal with changing regulatory, environmental or compliance requirements while solving supply chain dilemmas. Visibility, through better partner communication, is becoming increasingly important to supply chain leaders that I spoke with at the conference. The importance of end-to-end communication with suppliers and partners across the trading network from their perspective cannot be overstated. Through the right technology, organizations can ensure that the appropriate information is collected, stored, and disseminated, and when partners are onboarded quickly to meet these unexpected scenarios, the results are a positive impact on business and on other concerns.

Supply Chain Advantage

The PartnerLinQ advantage is its hybrid cloud architecture and easy partner onboarding, PartnerLinQ delivers a smarter B2B/B2C Integration platform with automated End-to-End Workflows and includes business rules for omnichannel integration.

PartnerLinQ’s unique approach to supply chain can help your organization communicate with your partners rapidly, ensuring end-to-end digital connectivity across all functional areas and through a centralized visibility platform.

PartnerLinQ zeroes in on issues, tracks them, and provides detailed analysis of all of your partners, including all of their inbound and outbound transactions and can generate alerts for specific partner events, delivering the insight your users need to address supply chain issues immediately.

Scan2EDI converts your manual process into electronic transactions using robotic process automation, optical character recognition, document management software, business process outsourcing, and artificial intelligence. Scan2EDI offers application integration advantages including PartnerLinQ’s ERP Integration Framework.

Instant Ocean Visibility provides container status at your fingertips. Integrated, automated, and reliable, your port – your container, Instant Ocean Visibility removes human intervention from container tracking, eliminates endless web searches, eliminates phone calls & email and eliminates voice messages and call backs.

Take control of your supply chain in the present and forge a new one for the future with PartnerLinQ. Talk with our experts to learn more.

By Kevin Balentine, PartnerLinQ

Building a New Resilient Supply Chain

The global marketplace today can perhaps be described as volatile. Prices are on the rise, shortages are popping up unexpectedly and in unexpected places.  Many major retail grocers are expecting center store sales to increases, an indication of things to come.

While supply chains have become more extensive and interconnected, they have also shown unprecedented instability in the face of disruption. In the wake of COVID-19, the fragile stability of lean supply chains found difficulty in recovering quickly in the face of disruption.  What has emerged is a succession of supply side ripples across multiple industries. The ripples collide until at last they reach the end of the line and, similar to the domino effect, as one chain ends another begins in sequence.  Many of the assumptions upon which the lean manufacturing model was created, were undone by market and environment variables that emerged during the onset of the COVID disruption.

Organizations are beginning to accept a pretense of recovery amid a truly formidable challenge of accelerated customer demand and labor shortages, and while research indicates that retail sales can grow by as much as 10.5% to 13.5% to generate more than USD 4.4 trillion in this year, there are concerns. Having undergone unprecedented and unwelcome change throughout the past year, suppliers require stability and flexibility to tackle the surging demand. Resisting instability forms the key priority for retail suppliers, which brings focus to resilience.

21% That’s the number of respondents in a recent Gartner survey who affirmed that they have a resilient network at present. Giving context to the figure, resilience implies elevated visibility, persistent velocity in moving product from source to destination while avoiding supply chain constraints. In this current moment of volatility in the market, it is imperative for retail suppliers and retail enterprises to increase their supply chain resilience.

Becoming more resilient is no longer a luxury for supply chain leaders. The long-standing tradition of lean manufacturing and its entrenched philosophy will be the challenge to overcome. Supply chains need to be efficient as well as resilient, and practices such as redundant supply chain operations, alternative factories, and ample safety stock need to be developed in parallel with productivity and performance improvements.  Supply chains also need to maintain compliance substituting lesser performing partners for those more suited following the COVID disruption. The widespread disruptions affected supply chain monitoring and audit and while enforcement may have been relaxed, performance improvements can only be brought about by effective monitoring and accounting. In order to holistically build a resilient supply chain network, retail suppliers need specific data elements to be incorporated into their supply chain and a robust solution methodology which combines five important elements is key.

Connectivity

A surefire approach to building supply chain resilience in retail is ensuring anytime, anyone, anywhere communication, systems need to be ‘access anywhere’ supportive of SSO (Single Sign on) and active directory. Manual partner-to-partner communication requires a lot of paperwork and must be reduced in light of staffing shortages.  Manual communication methodologies lead to errors and errors mean more human intervention. Automatic and secure document flows compatible with multiple enterprise level system and capable of a variety of data interchange formats and in real time delivers resilience.

Flexibility

A significant aspect of resilience is ironing out friction within the network. A resilient supply chain must be flexible and able to fix critical issues with the least amount of effort.  ‘Fix-on-the-fly’ functionality reducing human interaction increases flexibility. An efficient business rule manager is key to incorporate such flexibility. Reusable business rules ensure seamless partner onboarding and transaction integration.  Reusable sets of business rules allow for the conservation of scarce technical resources and ease of use.  The addition of reusable rules to rule sets to overcome existing issues, and proactive alerting based on business rules means time to make a correction where and when necessary. Change, through a business rules engine can be automated and in real time. Audit functions mean changes can be rolled out, and rolled back if that become necessary.

Adaptability

Perhaps the greatest lesson that the past year has taught suppliers in retail has been the importance of adaptation. The transition to digital and the prominence of ecommerce platforms has been well documented in the retail industry. An omnichannel strategy covers all potential channels for distribution and sales. An omnichannel strategy makes sense amid market disruptions such as we’ve seen this past year and a half.  An omnichannel strategy means demand can be met with convenience and speed. While a stand-alone omnichannel strategy as a solution is one way to meet demand, leveraging a common process workflow to bring transactions in or out of the enterprise the same way every time means an increased ability to create multiple trading relationships and do so quickly. By eliminating the need for additional support or maintenance, a common process workflow takes partner on boarding to a new level while increasing the utility of business rules reduces the dependencies on map and mapping activities. Combining centralized B2B communication with such a workflow results in a highly independent system in which transactions and business processes are handled automatically, accounting for connection changes, partner onboarding, acquisitions, mergers and complete enterprise migration without adding disruption.

Accountability

With much of the COVID disruption behind, and planning and change ahead, compliance has never been more important for retail suppliers.  A flexible and effective event notification processor to stay on top of supply chain events and issues in real time becomes a valuable tool. Such rules-based processing must be backed by comprehensive audits, reports, and analytics.  Such tools must be visible across the internal supply chain operation. Transaction transportation, transformation and integration tools must include analytics to ensure consistent business operations, keeping disparate teams in touch with the latest goings-on in the supply chain domain.

The Way Forward

Accepting resilience is just the first step. The path includes overcoming challenges like supply chain and labor shortages and success in resilience is achieved by combining five key elements:

• Centralized communication across multiple methods, formats, and platforms
• Flexible business rules, business rules management, and alerting.
• An adaptive common processing workflow that simplifies onboarding and processing
• Visibility, accountability, and adaptability
• Easy access to these key elements and in one place.

A resilient path will quickly deliver an elevated level of performance, particularly important as the retail industry begins to leave the COVID disruption behind and starts to engage with the new normal.

The PartnerLinQ Advantage: 5 Key Value Adds for Food and Beverage Supply Chain Optimization

Foodservice on the Rebound?

Consumer interest had increasingly tilted towards experiences like travel, movies, and entertainment over the last decade. So being homebound over a year and a half has naturally created a void in people’s lives, with a craving for activities that create memories and provide entertainment. This was reflected by an immediate increase in restaurant transactions when municipalities tentatively eased restrictions for on-premises dining in 2020. And following a widespread rollout of vaccines in the US, consumers are becoming more confident about eating out. The first signs of a shift in spend pattern are already evident. The US Census Bureau’s Advance Monthly Sales for Food Services1 show a surge in April sales for food services and bars, with dollar sales up 15% from a pre-pandemic 2019 and a whopping 116.8% over last year. As per a NielsenIQ survey2, 62% of Americans miss eating out at restaurants the most and 28% of households are planning more trips to restaurants and bars than they did in 2020.

Reimagining Customer Experiences

Foodservice outlets are also innovating in terms of customer experiences and product offerings as their buyers still prefer contactless, hands-off transactions. Quick-service giants like McDonald’s and Burger King are redesigning premises3 with smaller dining rooms, more pick-up options, and a distancing of store operations from guests. Some like Maggiano’s are presenting a whole line of pre-cooked meals for consumers to take home and eat later. As restaurants desperately try to recapture lost sales, they are boosting up their catalog of digitally-delivered meals to ease household cooking burdens and provide in-home restaurant experiences. New methods of delivery like on-demand food trucks and in-garage grocery delivery services are picking up, while brands like Albertsons, Domino’s, and Kroger are experimenting with sophisticated technological alternatives like robots, drones, and driverless delivery services.

Food and Beverage Supply Chain Optimization: A Continuous Process

But the F&B industry also needs to continue looking for ways that optimize supply chain and partner networks in order to meet quickly evolving market demands. Many food makers and distributors are facing impediments like labor shortages, supply constraints, and high freight costs, which make it difficult to deliver all their products on time. Retailers had overlooked such deviations for months during the pandemic. But they are less willing to accommodate now as companies strive to get back to business-as-usual amid a reopening economy. Big buyers like Walmart are imposing chargebacks on suppliers for late deliveries or incomplete orders, while Kroger has launched a new ‘supplier discovery program’ to add new, diverse, and more reliable suppliers for farm produce, bakery, meat, seafood, and dairy.

On one hand, friction between food retailers and their suppliers adds costs across the food value chain. On the other, end-consumers are struggling to come to terms with job losses or other financial hardships brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Buyers are growing increasingly more price sensitive; IRI data4 indicates that a 10% increase in the price for edible products could reduce sales volume by as much as 17%.

The PartnerLinQ Advantage

To fully utilize a period of increased demand, PartnerLinQ provides food service organizations a number of distinct advantages to extract maximum value out of their supply chains.

Easy Partner Onboarding

F&B companies need to rapidly onboard new sales channels and supplier partners to take advantage of opportunities as and when they emerge.  PartnerLinQ supports EDI communication as well as direct B2B transfers to and from non-EDI organizations. It also supports a wide range of common data interchange standards to ensure reliable and secure communication across partner networks. With its EDI-optimized business rule engine and extensive preconfigured business rule library, PartnerLinQ increases the flexibility to connect with partners on their own terms and makes it possible to respond faster to partner-driven changes.

Automated End-to-End Workflows

PartnerLinQ’s infinite job scheduler allows organizations to configure, schedule, and execute multiple transactions simultaneously, including features like a bulk transfer of business-critical data to trading partners without any human intervention and without interfering with other business processes. Removing hands-on processing means that F&B organizations can ensure fewer errors and improved customer relationships, leading to improved delivery of goods and services and reduced customer turnover. A streamlined and automated communication process enhances compliance and helps avoid fines due to SLA breaches, payment delays, and performance gaps. PartnerLinQ’s built in auditing functionality gives F&B organizations the information to combat chargebacks and provide proof of delivery to end customers.

Smarter B2B Integration

PartnerLinQ integrates natively with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and can be integrated with other ERP systems at the same time without the need for additional licensing or subscriptions. It also provides robust support for EDI integration with dozens of ERP systems and ecommerce platforms. This allows foodservice businesses to shift seamlessly between EDI ERP and API-based integrations and with corporate parent companies or wholly owned subsidiaries at the same time, making support and maintenance more efficient, more attractive, and less vulnerable. F&B organizations can enjoy seamless connections with all network partners and a variety of internal systems while deploying multiple supply chain solutions within a single platform.

Hybrid Cloud Architecture

The food supply chain software ensures a simple and robust cloud deployment that minimizes infrastructure costs and enhances analytical reporting powered by Azure’s serverless, scalable, event-processing engine. A hybrid cloud architecture provides the most agile, flexible, and frictionless way to exchange B2B data, enabling further F&B supply chain optimization and empowering foodservice companies to take on the complexities of a multi-enterprise, multi-application integration process. In addition, they can now enjoy real-time visibility to garner insight and control across the entire value chain.

Omnichannel Integration

PartnerLinQ’s multi-channel integration capabilities allow it to combine perfectly with a Headless Commerce architecture, which separates the front- and back-end of an ecommerce solution to enable faster and more flexible customer experiences. It is also aligned with a unique CSP program and a layer of API integrations, delivering tailored experiences unique to customer preferences.

Gearing Up for the Next Normal with PartnerLinQ

In addition to a digitally-empowered F&B supply chain optimization, PartnerLinQ helps foodservice companies increase throughput, establish and enhance supplier relationships, keep track of deliveries and stay on schedule, while reducing chargeback risk and taking on new market opportunities and additional channels in the new normal. PartnerLinQ’s food supply chain solution also helps manufacturers keep traceability in house, remain in line with customer preferences, and increase connectivity across channels – both traditional and e-commerce.

Endnotes:

1. https://www.census.gov/retail/marts/www/marts_current.pdf
2. https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2020/understanding-consumer-sentiment-can-help-companies-adjust-as-the-u-s-begins-to-re-open/
3. https://www.bakingbusiness.com/articles/53819-foodservice-adapts-new-concepts-as-it-recovers
4. https://www.iriworldwide.com/en-us/insights/publications/cpg-pricing-promotion-revenue-growth-during-inflation

Smarter B2B Integration: A Must-Have for Food & Beverages Supply Chain Networks

Consumer spending on food had been remarkably consistent in the US from 2016 to early 2020. As per McKinsey’s study, growth hovered around 4% annually, while total spend was almost evenly split between retail outlets like grocery stores and supermarkets and food service organizations like restaurants, fast-food locations, coffee venues, and school and office canteens. While the COVID-19 pandemic drastically impacted margins for almost all business segments, the food & beverages (F&B) segment rode the storm better than most. From $6196.15 billion in 2021, the industry is expected to reach $8163.61 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 7%.

Yet, March 2020 upended the distribution of consumer spend dramatically. Amid lockdowns and the perceived health risk in public places, people preferred staying and eating at home. Sales in groceries and supplies grew 29% compared to the previous year, while food service centres saw a corresponding dip of 27%. More cooking at home led to more staples sales, while consumers increasingly turned to comfort food to cope with heightening anxiety. Canned soup sales were up 200% year on year, frozen food 40%, potato chips 30%, and popcorn 48%.

Rebalancing Supplies to Address Changing Demand

Over the years, F&B distributors have been running a balanced and optimized supply chain where upstream orders come in based on the forecast of downstream orders going out. As a result, revenue margins were also largely dependent on a steady flow in both directions.

But with the rapid shift in consumer spend pattern brought about by the pandemic, the previously balanced system was completely upended. Downstream orders came to an abrupt halt with restaurants closed, but upstream orders kept coming in from the farms, food-service producers, and processors. This led to a clog in the logistical chain as well as shortages in storage space. As distributors cancelled incoming shipments from farmers, food products were stranded upstream, leading to food-security risks for the more vulnerable consumer segments.  

Food distributors have also been by quick-service and casual-dining outlets switching to takeout-only modes of service. Some have partially adapted by taking the online route and initiating delivery services. But those that do not supply to retail channels have had to completely overhaul their sales routes, making their supply chain transformation even more challenging.

Gearing Up for the ‘New Normal’

F&B distributors who managed to rebalance their supplies are now left with overcapacity in their storage facilities and distribution networks. But the pandemic has also taught them a very crucial lesson – about maintaining reliability in supply even at the cost of price. As consumers grow more comfortable with the ‘new normal’, they will continue to save trips to the store given the increased domestic responsibilities they have picked up. While panic buying has ceased, using digital will only continue to increase. Many buyers who preferred to shop offline before the pandemic are now using digital channels having realized the convenience that online ordering provides.

So F&B organizations are increasing production to maintain their presence on retail shelves, while others are scaling up their e-commerce presence. But dilemmas still remain about the means to address demand peaks and the future demand scenarios to prepare for. In addition, consumers need to be reassured, employees protected, and high quality supply maintained even at elevated costs.

For F&B participants from farm to shelf, it is imperative to come up with creative solutions and integrate their collaboration channels to ensure a reliable supply despite intermittent plant closures and demand disruptions.

Supply Chain Integration for Collaboration and Insights

A flexible and agile supply chain can help F&B companies effectively respond to these ongoing challenges. But they also need increased visibility and data from every node of their value chain to generate actionable insights. Lack of transparency exposes supply chains to unnecessary risk; this is exacerbated by using outdated systems or traditional paper tracking and manual inspections. Fragmented information and lack of communication leave parties in the supply network with little to no knowledge of each other’s actions. This leads to inefficiency and waste and generates mistrust among suppliers and their customers. And the problem gets much worse as organizations begin to expand their markets and partner networks.

Increased visibility will also go a long way in keeping operational costs in check. While simple supply chains can optimize costs using spreadsheets, more complex ones are better served by an integrated network solution that does not require customizations for each individual supplier. Modern B2B integration solutions make a business more efficient, more attractive to customers, and less vulnerable to competitive forces. They enable seamless connection to all your network partners, while deploying multiple supply chain solutions within a single implementation process.

Harnessing the Cloud: The Smarter Approach to B2B Integration

The complexities of the post-pandemic landscape are acting as a trigger as more and more industries feel the push to go digital. Only a cloud-based, integrated solution can provide the convenience, scalability, and reliability that food service organizations need for managing data exchange, workflow, and transactions.

Visionet’s PartnerLinQ ensures a simple and robust cloud deployment that minimizes infrastructure costs and enhances analytical reporting powered by Azure’s serverless, scalable event-processing engine. PartnerLinQ is designed to guarantee business success by quickly setting up connections with new partners, customers, and sales channels and seamlessly integrating with smart devices and appliances. It minimizes repetitive processes and works across all data formats and transaction protocols. With PartnerLinQ, F&B enterprises can automate end-to-end workflows, achieve elasticity and scale, and enjoy a hybrid architecture that also integrates with on-premise legacy systems.

As regulatory mandates demand faster and more extensive reporting, customers want more visibility into all aspects of a transaction, and new business models start being formulated, the need for simplified and end-to-end B2B integration becomes more urgent. F&B organizations can no longer afford to work in silos – a smarter B2B integration on cloud can quickly reduce their time-to-market, optimize costs with standard, industry-specific integration processes, and take an omnichannel approach to order fulfilment.

You are probably familiar with this ‘BIG VAN’ claim repeated early and often by the champions of value-added networks (VANs):

‘The advantage of the network is the network itself.’

The claim, like all wide-ranging quotes, is to some extent only relatively true. Its validity depends upon who you are connecting with and how actively you link up with your trading partners. A closer look at the flow of goods and information within your business network will possibly reveal that no single network or VAN can address all your B2B/B2C communication needs.

While EDI and, in some instances, the VAN does help you connect, connecting with all your trading partners translates into a significantly higher ROI.  EDI today means more than simply X12; it means supporting multiple standards, formats, and transactions from X12, UN/EDIFACT, and GS1 XML trade messages to a number of non-EDI formats like JSON, flat files, text files, and proprietary XML message formats.

Read more: The truth behind the “competitive advantage” of value-added networks

EDI also means accessing a diverse set of communication methodologies – like AS2, MFTP, FTP, SFTP, and APIs – each with their own set of variables. While transaction formats and transportation methodologies make EDI more versatile, the complexity of handling such varied data formats and communication methodologies creates its own set of challenges, particularly when you consider the ‘BIG VAN’ value proposition.

The ‘BIG VAN’ value prop proudly claims that all members in your value chain are available on the same network or VAN as yours; while true to some extent, this is not an entirely accurate assessment. A VAN connection is by all accounts handy and, in some cases, necessary to interact with some trading partners. But it certainly is not everything.

The right tool with the right EDI transportation methods delivers far more effectively than ‘BIG VAN’ and at a lesser cost.

The Significance of the EDI VAN Interconnect

The ‘BIG VAN’ claim is largely backed by the EDI VAN interconnect. The interconnect is a tool that helps your value added network communicate with other value added networks and facilitates exchange of EDI transaction documents between connected pairs of trade partners. The more partners you connect with, the bigger the benefit derived from your communication network.

VAN interconnects effectively reduce friction between and among VANs, while also reducing the need for new VANs. The largest of the VANs reduce VAN-related confusion within partner networks by making claims to connect to thousands of trading partners; in effect though, ‘BIG VAN’ highlights the characteristics of EDI under which all EDI solutions and VAN partners operate. 

But what about transactions beyond X12 EDI? 

‘BIG VAN’ and the interconnect rely on a steady stream of ISA and GS identifiers within X12 transactions to move data, without which the ‘BIG VAN’ is about as useful as a cell phone without buttons.  While the VAN connection does handle X12, what about images, APIs, or XML files? These are typically not included in ‘BIG VAN’ offerings and, in most cases, require a different product altogether, adding to your overall cost.

A closer look at the VAN interconnect reveals that the reality of ‘BIG VAN’ is very different from the claim; if the interconnect connects ALL VANs then ALL VANs have the same access to trading partners, which means that ‘BIG VAN’ has a very different concern. ‘BIG VAN’ is concerned that it will inevitably be relegated to the stature of an ‘Ordinary VAN’ and without reservation. 

‘BIG VAN’ makes a big claim and living up to that claim is becoming nearly impossible.  This makes all ‘small VAN’ operators a competitive threat – why else would ‘BIG VAN’ make such claims if not to control and confuse the market? The VAN interconnect and image files remove the confusion from the claim ‘the advantage of the network is the network itself’; what else is there to the reality of ‘BIG VAN’?

The Synergy

Architecturally speaking, an EDI solution is actually made up of three components (or solution layers, if you’ll pardon the expression) – the transportation, transformation, and integration layers. While EDI is very effective when it leverages a ‘VAN’ connection, the VAN component is only a fraction of EDI, less than 30%.

Think about your VAN connection in the same way you think about how your mobile phone functions.  Your mobile phone functions by combining the services provided by the phone manufacturer, an infrastructure provider, and a telecom company; similarly, EDI functions by leveraging the synergy of these component layers to work as a synchronous whole.

Components of the ‘VAN Solution’

• Transportation. Along with VANs, this layer works using many other methodologies such as AS2, MFTP, FTP, SFTP, and APIs. Most of these methodologies have been around for a couple of decades now. Your VAN, in fact, may still be using FTP to connect you with your VAN mailbox; if it is not leveraging FTP, it is likely using AS2. Get in touch with your EDI team representative and ask, they should be able to tell you.
• Transformation. The transformation layer facilitates translation between different (EDI) formats. Formats like X12, UN/EDIFACT, GS1 XML trade messages, JSON, flat files, text files, or proprietary XML messages are transformed into formats that your ERP systems can easily understand and use.
• Integration. In the final layer, the transformed message is available to be consumed by the ERP. API connectors have been introduced in recent years to connect you with your ERP in a normalized way, much like the ODBC connector you may have used in the past.  The integration layer can be an API or a connector like ODBC or ODATA – the main emphasis here lies in providing (a) the route for landing the messages and (b) feedback that lets you know whether the order was rejected or accepted. The latter is the target, which requires the least manual input.

Do More Connections Provide More Benefits?

The key word is ‘choice’. If one network has the potential to provide a competitive advantage, do multiple networks offer even greater benefit?

The quantity of available networks is only one criteria that determines how effective your network is.  Connecting to multiple VANs is, frankly, a drain on resources, particularly when all VANs make use of the same VAN interconnect. 

While there is a need to be mindful of the connections available to your trading partners, using multiple VAN connections to stay in touch makes no sense at all. It is like having two or more cell phones or cable TV subscriptions, particularly when methodologies like AS2, MFTP, FTP, SFTP, and APIs are available.  Many of these options have low or no cost associated with them while VAN costs are subscription based and incur transaction fees that need to be paid monthly, much like that second cell phone that we referenced earlier.

The AS2 Effect

Application Statement 2 (AS2) is used for a reliable and secure transfer of data over the Internet. It provides a direct, unhindered connection with a trading partner and delivers document receipts and real-time tracking without requiring a VAN or a VAN interconnect. Your standard internet connection serves as the transportation layer; it is payload-agnostic, which means you can use the same tool to transmit images and every business has internet connectivity today. 

Unlike a VAN, AS2 does not typically have monthly charges or transaction fees. It reduces the chances of transaction failure by establishing a one-to-one transmission channel, without the need for a middle man, a VAN interconnect, or a ubiquitous VAN. Also, there is a Message Delivery Notification, but more on the MDN at a later time.

Putting It All Together

Now that we have unpacked the ‘BIG VAN’ claim, we can conclude that your EDI solution should provide more than one communication channel, has to be capable of handling a wide range of EDI formats, and MUST integrate smoothly and automatically with your enterprise systems.

We’ve also come to the conclusion that ‘BIG VAN’ cannot support the features that you need without complicating matters with additional software and subscriptions.

That’s why PartnerLinQ is different. PartnerLinQ is not a VAN; rather, it is a highly scalable, dependable, and configurable EDI and B2B communication solution. PartnerLinQ is ‘integration without complication’ that supports integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and other ERP systems. It includes an AS2 solution, FTP, MFT, and SFTP and can connect with any VAN, making it the perfect tool for B2B/B2C communication for your EDI and non-EDI partners.

PartnerLinQ also supports API-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and Magento out of the box, providing your organization a seamless shift between EDI and API integrations; there’s nothing to add and nothing to buy, it’s all in there.

The solution also operates seamlessly between EDI and non-EDI formats – from X12, UN/EDIFACT, and GS1 XML to non-EDI formats like XML and JSON. While there are too many formats to list in a blog, this is a crucial factor that make PartnerLinQ a perfect choice for your EDI, B2B, and API integration and for smooth communication, while decreasing your reliance on ‘BIG VAN.’