Are you feeling the pinch?

2 March 2010

With Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, reporting that sales have fallen in its home market and saying that conditions in the US remain “challenging”, it looks like we are all feeling the pinch.

In today’s economy, businesses are faced with ever-increasing cost-containment pressures. You already have scarce IT resources to maintain software and infrastructure in order to conduct business with an ever-evolving trading partner community. How could you possibly cut costs without jeopardizing your supply chain operations?
Benefit from Outsourcing Your EDI Operations

Take an experienced team of specialists using best-in-class methodologies and combine it with Inovis’ state-of-the-art network and hosting infrastructure. What you end up with is seamless data exchange and transformation between you and business partners of all sizes and technological sophistication.

Alternatively you could look to Reduce Annual EDI Van Costs by 50%. Deluxe Media consolidated their VANs with InovisWorks and saw significant savings.

How about Decrease Your Order-To-Payment Cycle by looking for an end-to-end EDI solutions increase communication and eliminate points of error.


BT EDI*Net Service closure

19 February 2010


In October of last year I asked if anyone was planning to move VAN services, especially as BT EDI*Net have announced the closure of its VAN services on the 24th February 2010.

Did you act or are you still trying to find the time? Time has run out, but there are still plenty of people out there who can help.

If you received the letter from BT EDI*Net, then there are plenty of companies out there that can help you. Inovis is just one of them. And if you’d like to know more about what Inovis offers, you can read up on our VAN services.

If you have already changed, don’t forget to inform your trading community, so that they can advise their own VAN network to change the interconnect details

We are here to help you, whatever your needs.


Advanced Shipping Notes (ASN)

18 February 2010

SF Bay Shipping Container

Last month Freeway Inovis announced the launch of their Advanced Shipping Notes (ASN) Consolidator Portal.

This solution will help suppliers of all sizes meet the electronic ASN requirements of retailers such as B&Q, John Lewis, House of Fraser, Homebase, Sainsburys and Tesco. The retailers are increasingly requiring the use of electronic ASN’s to more accurately track the movement of goods from suppliers, enabling them to forecast when deliveries will be received and optimise stock levels for better warehouse and storage efficiency.

In conjunction with this, Inovis continues to help Tesco to get its thousands of grocery and non-food suppliers up to speed with the electronic trading system it wants them to use.


THE IMPORTANCE OF HOUSE KEEPING

10 February 2010

the importance of keeping house

In my blog in November of last year I asked, “How reliant is your Company on EDI?” I have 2 further questions for you.

What would happen if you were trying to get month end through and your system just stopped?
What about those time critical orders? What would happen if your EDI system couldn’t process them?

This week, one of our TrustedLink iSeries (TLI) support consultants made the comment that she had come across 6 companies in 1 week who had problems after not regularly running a purge.

If you want to avoid that dreaded IBM message: ‘Maximum numbers of objects reached,’ which is an OS/400 restriction, then devote a little time to setting up the concurrent purge now available in TLi V6.3

Gwyn Madsen posted a blog in November last year promoting additional functionality in the latest version of TrustedLink iSeries (TLi) V6.3.
Improved TLi Data and Object Management
- Run 24/7, 365 days a year without interruption as the purge/archive process can now be executed concurrently with normal TLi operations running.
- Communication Session Retention Settings & IFS Purge inclusion

So there are no excuses; run a purge today to stop problems in the future.


Retailers: what is GSCoP and are you ready?

15 January 2010

GSCoP maybe yet another acronym that gets chucked around in retailing circles, but this is an acronym that is being taken seriously.  GSCoP stands for: Groceries Supply Code of Practice,  this new initiative demands Retailers to self regulate their trading relationships in accordance with the rules laid down within the Code.  Retailers have until February 2010 to meet the new GSCoP code from the Competition Commission.

John Kearns, Head of Strategic Alliance Development, Inovis,  has been investigating the code and has some thoughts on it:

“Many retailers face a real challenge to meet the new GSCOP code before the February 2010 deadline, due to the often complex nature of trading relationships and how information is exchanged.  Inovis has extensive experience working with retailers and their suppliers on overcoming compliance problems, and through the Actionable Intelligence solution, we can take the pain out of meeting GSCOP requirements whilst building better trading relationships.”

Want to know more – http://www.inovis.co.uk/gscop.html