![]() “Our migration from IBM Sterling Gentran to IBM Sterling Supply Chain Business Network was a seamless, straightforward process, and the IBM team did a fantastic job - particularly when it came to moving over our European trading partners,” adds Rekau. Today, 95 percent of all TMLC’s EDI orders are processed via IBM Sterling Supply Chain Business Network with no manual intervention from the EDI team. “IBM continually adapts the platform as laws and integration standards change - significantly reducing the complexity of our international operations.” ![]() “The Master Lock Company was an early adopter of IBM Sterling E-Invoicing,” Rekau comments. IBM Sterling Supply Chain Business Network Premium includes IBM Sterling E-Invoicing, a platform that enables businesses to exchange these documents in an automated, compliant and fully auditable way. Because IBM Sterling Business Transaction Intelligence is so user-friendly, our customer compliance team can now see the status of orders, shipments and payments in real time without any assistance from the EDI team - helping us successfully dispute chargebacks for data issues that were not our fault.”Īs it extends its operations into countries around the world, TMLC must stay on top of a wide variety of local requirements for electronic invoicing. She adds: “If we send incorrect order acknowledgments to a customer, we’re exposed to the risk of financial penalties. As well as building a scorecard to track our performance against internal service-level level agreements with the business, we have set up reports that highlight trading partners with higher-than-average error rates.” “With IBM Sterling Business Transaction Intelligence, we can dig deeper into our EDI data to identify patterns that wouldn’t otherwise be obvious. “If one of our EDI transactions fails for any reason, IBM Sterling Supply Chain Business Network sends us an alert, which is valuable on a tactical level because it helps us start to pinpoint the underlying cause straight away,” explains Rekau. IBM Sterling Supply Chain Business Network is enriched with IBM Sterling Business Transaction Intelligence, which provides cognitive analytics capabilities to help businesses gain deeper insight into EDI processes using visual reports and queries written in natural language. “When we need to bring a new trading partner onboard, we simply submit our requirements to IBM and the majority of the work is done for us: we only need to validate that the integration works in the expected way.” “One of the biggest benefits of migrating our EDI to IBM Sterling Supply Chain Business Network is the fact that we no longer have to dedicate full-time resources to activities such as EDI mapping,” comments Rekau. We looked for a partner to help us adopt a more streamlined and efficient approach.”īased on its positive experiences with the IBM Sterling Gentran platform, TMLC decided to migrate its EDI platform to IBM Sterling Supply Chain Business Network - a security-rich, cloud-based solution for trading partner integration. “Instead, if we could outsource the most time-consuming aspects of EDI, we would be able to manage growth while freeing up time for higher-value development activities. “We knew that we’d soon need to add at least three full-time equivalents to the EDI team just to keep our heads above water,” explains Rekau. However, with an average of 40 new trading partners to onboard every year - and the resulting incremental increase in complexity - TMLC’s lean EDI team was approaching its limits. Like many leading enterprises, the company relied for many years on IBM Sterling Gentran® to onboard and manage its EDI integrations. TMLC’s retail business depends on electronic data interchange (EDI) to effectively communicate with its global base of trading partners. ![]() Managing local requirements in areas such as tax and invoicing controls is vital to support the business.” Harnessing both organic growth and strategic acquisitions, the company has launched international operations in new markets across Asia, Central America and Europe.Ĭonnie Rekau, EDI Manager at The Master Lock Company, begins: “From the supply chain perspective, international growth creates a lot of additional opportunities. This was the situation facing The Master Lock Company (TMLC), the largest global manufacturer and marketer of padlocks and personal safes. Operating in new geographies often means onboarding significant numbers of additional trading partners, each with their own specific local requirements. ![]() International expansion can be a powerful tool to drive revenues and increase market share - but it also brings challenges. Business challenge story Global growth, EDI challenges
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