Very well said Rob Samantha Scott EDI Manager The Yankee Candle Company South Deerfield, MA 01373
On Oct 28, 2011, at 7:57 AM, Rob Guerriere wrote: > Those Nasty and Evil EDI Testing Fees > > A Halloween Special Edition > > Suppliers and most EDI providers hate them. They love to vent their > frustrations on bulletin boards and blogs (reply with your thoughts). > Bottom line: testing fees add value to the buyer and the entire supply chain > if the buyer, seller, and EDI testing outsourcer employs best practices in > executing an on-boarding event. Now for the readers who know me, you are > either laughing or just in disbelief. But let me explain how testing > services and fees should work and even give an example of how best practices > are being employed at one of the largest retailers in North America. > > Many suppliers have had a bad experience. The service was bad, the support > was bad, the entire process fruitless and for usually around a grand or two > per retail customer. Talk about adding extra work and cost to a supply > chain. A thousand dollars pays for a lot of paper purchase orders. Where > is the efficiency and cost reduction gained? Many times the professionally > skilled EDI seller is dealing with a EDI provider with an inexperienced > staff and bad data. Talk about frustrating. It's no wonder that so many > Directors and VPs of Supply Chain have suffered that black mark on their > career. Previous to the testing kick-off many of these Directors and VPs > repeated the sales pitch back to me, "a couple thousand dollars is a nominal > fee that our suppliers have no problem paying [suppliers expect paying these > types of fees to their customers]." Perhaps they should have had a Kaizen > circle discussion on it. There is a way to implement EDI testing fees and > service that does add value and limit cost to the supply chain. > > For the buyer it makes sense. they get suppliers on-boarded with the latest > processes and transaction sets with added support services paid for by the > supplier. > > For the seller it does not make sense. added work and unexpected and > non-calculated cost added to the supply chain. And if the testing in not > effective; worse. Many suppliers end up paying the buyers selected third > party more in testing fees than the annual EDI service that handles their > transactions. And sometimes the supplier is more capable then the buyer > which adds insult to injury. As testing fees become more common place with > big retail buyers, times the testing cost and overhead resource cost by > every customer. Now figure the margin per item. How many extra items need > to be sold to cover the cost? > > Five fundamental best practice steps for a buyer to take in implementing an > EDI testing and on-boarding rollout: (1) survey the supplier base on > capabilities, (2) communicate the process and manage in waves. (3) Notify > and enable the EDI providers first and allow them to support their > client/your suppliers. Many providers offer a common platform with > validation rules that apply to groups of suppliers. (4) Lastly implement a > deadline for the remaining and/or preferred EDI capable supplier for > testing. (5) Everyone else goes through the testing process. > > There is one major retailer who has employed and is currently executing > these best practices with their supplier base. I'll leave it to that > particular retailer if they wish to share their results in the comments > below. > > What suppliers can do to avoid paying EDI testing fees: Be more pervasive > than your customer on EDI. Request an EDI connection from the customer > before they charge you a couple grand for the privilege. Even if a supplier > only gets ONE purchase order a year, many times if they are using an > outsourced provider, it is just a matter of the buyer flipping a switch. > > Do more than just rant on a blog. Show your support below use this to > petition a buyer looking to implement EDI testing fees. > > Rob G. > > Posted on: http://gtbp.org > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix.Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
