Selecting the Right EDI Solution Partner

Communication with suppliers, vendors, and other trading partners is an essential aspect of commerce, and electronic data interchange (EDI) is a very common set of standards that enhances and expedites partner communication. If you don’t use EDI or a similar digital solution for sharing information across your supply chain, then your organization’s supply chain isn’t operating at peak efficiency, and you should look for a suitable solution right away.

There are many factors to consider when you’re shopping for EDI solutions. You’ll want a system that’s secure, simple to use, dependable, and capable of processing large transaction volumes. It should support common EDI standards and protocols, as well as non-EDI standards to communicate with partners that haven’t subscribed to an EDI service. You should choose a solution that provides a simple way of converting files between your preferred document formats and those used by your partners. The solution should also integrate with your internal ERP, CRM, PLM, or other business software to provide a seamless and efficient user experience.

However, it is just as important to evaluate the technology provider behind each EDI solution. Even if you choose the most efficient, user-friendly, and scalable EDI platform on the market, poor support from your solution partner can lead to unexpected challenges and hidden costs during implementation, long wait times for technical support, and higher operating costs. Problems like these can sour the user experience for an otherwise excellent EDI product.

Here are a few points to consider while selecting and EDI solution partner for your organization:

Industry Experience

How familiar is the solution partner with your particular industry? Providers with a detailed understanding of the way your industry works will take less time to onboard your vendors and partners, and the finished product will mesh more easily with your existing day-to-day business operations.

Flexible and Responsive Implementation

To what degree does the provider accommodate customer requests, and how promptly do they respond to questions? If your business requirements change, do they show flexibility and make changes to their implementation plan? Solution providers that are too rigid can sometimes leave you with a solution that would have worked well for you a few months ago instead of one that suits your needs right now.

Support: Full-Service versus Fire-and-Forget

Some solution providers take a very hands-off approach once the EDI system has been implemented: they deploy and configure the solution and provide initial training, but you have to handle all partner onboarding, monitoring, and maintenance by yourself after the solution has been rolled out. This can be disastrous if your in-house IT staff run into issues a few months down the road.

From employee training and partner onboarding to maintenance and performance monitoring, choosing providers that offer a complete range of support services is essential. Even if you decide to take a largely self-serve approach to managing your EDI system, it pays to have a contingency plan. Knowing that your solution provider can step in if you experience difficulties will give you peace of mind.

When you’re evaluating your options for digital supply chain communication, you must consider both the immediate cost of implementation and the long-term costs of operation associated with each solution provider. Poor post-implementation support can lead to business-impacting downtime, so don’t be tempted to save on deployment costs by choosing a less reputable implementation partner. Be sure to ask for references, testimonials, case studies, or other kinds of endorsement from previous customers.

To identify your specific supply chain communication needs and learn more about PartnerLink, an ERP-integrated digital platform for communication with EDI and non-EDI partners, please contact Visionet Systems to schedule a complimentary consultation session.

Optimize Your Inventory Using Predictive Machine Learning

Here is a common scenario for large retailers that operate dozens or hundreds of stores across large geographic regions. They pour millions of dollars into safety stock, ostensibly to prevent out-of-stocks, but at the end of the day, it looks like all this extra stock is there just for the sake of maintaining perfect fill rates. Some businesses order excess stock because their vendor minimums are too high. Other businesses accidentally treat seasonal items like year-round products, maybe because of regional differences in buying patterns.

Whatever the reason, this excess stock doesn’t move, though not necessarily for lack of demand. These products might simply be in the wrong stores and distribution centers, or are waiting for the right time of year to arrive. However, without a reliable way to generate sales estimates, most retailers are flying blind. The problem is not low demand; it is poor predictive capability.

Lost sales is just one of consequences of poor forecasting. Excess stock eventually leads to markdowns, which have a major impact on profits. Maintaining a large inventory and frequently transferring products between locations to save sales also shrink margins.

In a perfect world, retailers know exactly how many sales will occur at each location, deliver each product from the optimal source, and maintain optimal replenishment schedules with each of their vendors. Cutting-edge digital technologies have now made inventory optimization a reality, allowing retailers to cut their excess inventory in half.

Visionet Systems has helped retailers nationwide by analyzing several years of sales data, categorized by store and SKU, and using this data to train machine learning systems. After applying several regression algorithms, we were able to predict the actual sales with a high degree of accuracy e.g. sales spikes on holidays and long weekends. The optimizations suggested by our forecasting algorithms reduced our client’s inventory spend by 66%, and also reduced stock markdowns and scrapping.

Even though our algorithms were extremely good at estimating product demand, we also recognized the value of human experience. Our solution allows users to make manual adjustments to computer-generated estimates, which are then submitted to decision makers for approval. Users can make as many adjustments they deem necessary, and any approved changes are used as feedback by the forecasting system to improve future estimates. The forecasting system interfaces directly with the retailer’s ERP system, and the difference between computer estimates, manual adjustments, and actual sales are compiled and presented in detailed reports.

If you think you are spending too much on safety stock, this solution is a quick win, with most implementations taking less than a month to complete. Contact Visionet Systems for a POC that uses your own historical sales data and gives you a clear picture of your expected ROI.

The millions you save in inventory costs makes this solution extremely worthwhile.

Filling the missing middle: Practical steps towards AI-enhanced operations

A recent Wall Street Journal article highlights an emerging approach to business transformation. Instead of trying to displace their human workforce and replace it with faster, cheaper AI equivalents, a handful of leading businesses have chosen to use AI to augment the capabilities of their human personnel. It’s like giving their employees superpowers that let them comprehend and process incredibly large volumes of digital information with breathtaking speed and precision.

However, not many companies have caught on to this hybrid approach, which is why the WSJ article calls it the “missing middle” – somewhere between manual paper-pushing and fully automatic, AI-driven operations. Whether the reason behind slow adoption is a fear of being replaced by a machine, or just some form of operational inertia, the emergence of commercially viable AI is an opportunity for business leaders to leap ahead of their competition by becoming early adopters. Over time, your team will begin to understand that commercial AI solutions aren’t their replacements – they’re more like power tools for knowledge work.

The author outlines five key principles for successful AI augmentation:

1. Adopt a hybrid mindset to help reinvent traditional processes so they take advantage of AI agility.
2. Continually experiment with the way your business operates.
3. Consider the ethical and legal implications of using AI.
4. Accumulate and prepare extensive, varied, and unbiased data sources to train AI.
5. Develop skills required to effectively train and collaborate with AI.

These five principles are excellent jumping-off points for devising an AI augmentation strategy, and they involve a mix of creativity, business acumen, and technical expertise.

Principle 1 certainly benefits from an understanding of what currently available AI solutions can accomplish, but absolutely requires insight into viable use cases for a particular organization. Some business leaders might already possess this powerful combination of technical and operational awareness, but it’s much more convenient to look for a technically competent implementation partner with industry-specific experience. They’ll be able to point out business processes that will yield the biggest ROI after deploying AI to enhance worker productivity. Look for a partner that’s done it for other businesses in your industry – if they’ve deployed AI for them, you know they can do the same for you.

Principle 2 suggests frequently changing, fluid business operations. That requires a flexible solution that can be modified or reconfigured without investing a lot of time or money. Consider looking into robotic process automation (RPA), which, unlike traditional business process automation techniques, quickly inserts AI agents (commonly called “bots”) into your existing processes, and allows business users to retrain them without requiring extensive programming experience. Since exploring changes doesn’t require you to engage a software development team, RPA solutions are perfect for encouraging experimentation with new business processes.

A solid grasp on legal and ethical challenges is the focus of principle 3. Once again, unless your organization has its own legal team that is well-versed in automation and AI, hiring an experienced technology consulting firm is the most sensible approach. Having gone through multiple successful implementations, a seasoned technology partner can help you identify and avoid tech-centric legal pitfalls in the initial planning phase, long before any software is actually deployed.

A unified business management solution can help you realize principle 4 with minimal effort. If you have a full-featured, extensible ERP platform like Microsoft Dynamics 365, you can integrate it with your AI agents and give them access to as much live business information as they need. In order to ensure that the data you’re using to train your bots isn’t skewed or biased, choose a technology partner that is experienced in delivering Big Data solutions.

The importance of principle 5 cannot be overstated. No matter how sophisticated an AI augmentation solution you choose to deploy, it will be designed to work alongside your human workers. The better trained and more comfortable they are working with bots, the more successful your digitally enhanced operations will be. There are two components to achieving this result: extensive hands-on training for your staff, and a user-friendly AI solution that makes your bots less intimidating to work with. You will need an open, accessible implementation partner that provides ongoing training and support for your employees, and a user-configurable RPA deployment that replaces frighteningly complex pages of code with easy-to-understand, drag-and-drop controls.

If you read the original WSJ article and were wondering how your business might implement something as new and niche as AI, take heart: technology partners like Visionet Systems can deploy AI augmentation solutions in just a few weeks, instead of the months and years that traditional automation used to take. As detailed above, adopting the five principles of AI augmentation are absolutely achievable for companies in any industry, and we’re here to help. Contact Visionet Systemsfor a complimentary consultation session, and discover how AI can boost productivity by giving your staff digital superpowers.

Basics of Retail Process Integration

You’ve designed and produced an exciting new product, and your marketing team has generated a lot of buzz. Orders have begun to flood in, but how prepared are your operations for fulfilment, and will you be able to track, analyze, and react to sales data?

Quality products and marketing savvy will only get you so far in retail. Without a highly coordinated operational chain, your success will be short-lived. This coordination arises from business process integration, which produces a seamless experience for your personnel as well as your customers. With current and reliable information on inventory, customers, sales, deliveries, and the rest of your business processes, your staff will be ready to offer excellent customer service, and your decision makers will be able to plan for and adapt to sales trends and customer demand with pinpoint accuracy.

Different businesses use one of two contrasting approaches for integrating internal processes.  The first technique involves an in-depth analysis of each business process, all of which are then re-implemented (usually after some optimization) in a single application. This application is usually an ERP platform. The second technique keeps the organization’s existing business software in place, and instead of combining business processes in one application, connector software (often called “middleware” or an “enterprise service bus” by vendors) passes information back and forth between your separate business systems to ensure that they’re always in sync.

Both methods have their own merits and challenges, and choosing an experienced integration partner is the best way to ensure that you end up selecting the method that aligns best with your business objectives. This article, however, focuses on ERP integration using the first method. We’ll look at what happens when your business is not integrated, and discuss a few pros and cons related to integration.

Drawbacks of Unintegrated Operations

Keeping your internal business processes running separately puts severe restrictions on organization-wide operations. Here are a few examples:

• Managing processes using several separate systems requires considerable manual transcription between them. Allocating personnel to data entry is expensive and inefficient, not to mention highly prone to error.
• If your processes and departments aren’t talking to each other directly and instantly, your business will take a lot more time to react to changes of all kinds. If one of your suppliers fails to fulfill an order or a new retail trend emerges, a collection of unintegrated processes probably won’t inform you in time to avoid loss of business.
• Smooth business operations are essential for happy, loyal customers. If poor supply chain information disrupts your ability to fulfill customer orders, or your customer service department can’t forward complaints and suggestions to procurement, product development, or other relevant groups quickly enough, customers will begin to abandon your brand in droves.

Business Process Integration: Pros and Cons

It should be easy to understand now why process integration is so important for the health of your retail business. However, it is also critical that you understand the following pros and cons:

Pros:

• By delivering accurate data in real time, integrated internal processes improve your ability to analyze, plan, forecast, and act intelligently in both the short and longer term.
• You eliminate a large amount of manual entry and transcription, which are the easiest ways to introduce errors into your data.
• Automatic communication between processes is also much faster. You won’t have to wait for end-of-day or weekly reports to discover your next opportunity or avoid emerging business risks.
• Without the need for continual human intervention, your internal communications become much more cost-effective, so you’ll improve your bottom line, too.
• Fewer applications equal simpler IT operations. You’ll spend less on maintenance and support, experience less downtime, and have a happier IT department that’ll have more time to process other technology-related requests.

Cons:

• Most commercial ERP platforms will not meet the specific needs of your line of business – at least not straight out of the box. Be sure to choose an ERP solution that comes in industry-specific editions or supports industry-specific add-ons, so that your final ERP implementation conforms to the way your business operates instead of requiring your personnel to adapt to an inflexible software package.
• When it comes to ERP integration, the first few steps are the hardest. Because of the degree of complexity involved, a lot of planning and preparation goes into a successful ERP rollout. It is absolutely critical that you choose an ERP implementation partner that possesses a high degree of technical competence, yes, but is also intimately familiar with the needs of your industry. An implementation partner that has successfully deployed an ERP platform for an organization very much like your own will act more efficiently and encounter fewer unexpected challenges than one that isn’t as familiar with the way things work in your industry.
• Since integration means that each business process will be constantly talking to several others, many types of errors in one area can have serious effects on the entire ERP system. It pays to take extra care during the initial planning phases, double- and triple-checking to make sure everything is the way it should be. Once again, the right ERP partner can spell the difference between triumph and trouble.

There is little doubt that using an ERP platform to integrate and optimize internal business processes is highly valuable. While the process isn’t without its risks, a few simple precautions can help you bring your integration plans to fruition quickly and painlessly, allowing your business to grow and flourish.

For guidance on the best ERP-enabled process integration technique for your business, please contact Visionet Systems today to schedule your complimentary consulting session.

Creating an Effective Map of the Customer Journey

Sustainable retail success requires a thorough understanding of the journey that your customers embark on, from initial interest and product prospecting to post-sale support, and every step along the way. Creating a customer journey map allows you to understand both the big picture as well as the minutiae of your entire sales process, while keeping the focus on your customers and their habits, wants, and emotional state. This helps decision makers walk a mile in their customers' shoes, which makes it easier for them to scrutinize and fine-tune every detail across each phase of the journey.

A carefully mapped customer journey helps retailers improve process efficiency and create a memorable shopping experience that increases loyalty by resonating with customers on an emotional level. A detailed map will ensure that you offer the right products and effective customer service at every stage, and simplify omni-channel marketing activities. If you want to ensure that your customer journey map is accurate and complete, this requires data collection and analysis from every department and business process. An ERP system is a powerful and efficient tool for performing this collection and analysis, and is also capable of making intelligent decisions based on what it has learned without requiring human intervention.

This article discusses why you should create a customer journey map, how using ERP technology to map the customer journey can be beneficial for retailers, and a few best practices to help you get started.

Why create a customer journey map?

Did you know that customers make contact with an average of five touchpoints before completing a purchase? Since these touchpoints typically use different channels, a basic requirement of every customer journey map is to give you a better understanding of how these channels merge into each other to create a complete, consistent, and impactful experience that resonates with your customer.

A customer journey map can enhance your customer experience by:

• Detecting potential factors that might dissuade customers from completing a purchase or lead to a negative emotional state
• Highlighting the types of information you need to enhance your decision making abilities regarding marketing and customer service
• Revealing opportunities to improve inefficient business processes

How can an ERP solution help?

Customer journey maps depend on reliable business data, so you must be able to collect high-quality data and organize it accurately. Using an ERP solution designed especially for retail businesses will automatically collect and manage a wealth of customer data for you, in addition to improving the efficiency of internal processes across your entire organization. With minimal human involvement, you can create detailed reports on customer preferences such as when and where they prefer to shop, which products tend to be purchased together, how shoppers prefer to research and pay for items, and much more. With this valuable information in hand, you will gain a clear understanding of how, when, and how frequently your customers engage with your brand before, during, and after each purchase.

Customer Journey Maps: Best Practices

Follow these best practices to create an effective customer journey map and make the best use of it:

• Adopt an ERP platform that performs real-time data collection to ensure that your map is built on information that is accurate and current.
• Use data on important touchpoints from each one of your physical and digital channels so that your map becomes a founding document for an excellent omni-channel experience. An ERP solution that has been integrated with your e-commerce platform and POS system will automatically collect real-time transaction data from your brick-and-mortar and online stores.
• Make sure that your map supports a high degree of personalization, such as emails and texts that address customers by name, and app-accessible portals that customers can configure according to their individual preferences. ERP systems simplify personalization during marketing activities by leveraging customer information gathered from past interactions via your online store, in-store POS terminals, customer support calls, and any other touchpoints tracked by the system.
• Use external methods like mystery shoppers and surveys to verify the accuracy of your map, and then use the results to make further improvements.
• Encourage employee participation during the mapping process – no matter which department they work in, your team members are the ones that work closest to each customer touchpoint. They have an intimate understanding of how customer-facing processes really work, making their feedback indispensable.
• Presenting customers with a consistent brand experience across all channels inspires confidence and trust. Your customer journey map can help you align each touchpoint with your overall brand image, and an ERP system can help you enforce this consistency by centrally managing all relevant marketing and merchandising activities.

Conclusion

Designing an engaging customer journey is like planning an exciting cross-country trip – you need an accurate map that aligns with the participants’ habits and tastes. An ERP solution can simplify the data collection and analysis required for the creation of a complete customer journey map. Avoid concentrating too much on any single part of the journey at the expense of others, and if you need a little direction, don’t hesitate to ask for help from external consultants or technology vendors.

Will your current operational setup provide the information you need to accurately map your customer journey? Please contact Visionet Systems for more information on ERP-enabled retail data management.