Advance Managed Outsourced Solutions


	Advance Managed Outsourced Solutions Introduction The rationale for organisations adopting EDI within their supply chain has generally been as a result of: Responding to customer initiatives downstream Pro-actively e-Trading with suppliers upstream Industry initiatives Typically this involved companies making a one-time, up-front investment in hardware, software and mapping, either in-house or via mapping services provided by EDI vendors. On-going transactional costs, via network services such as VANs, would decrease over time the more EDI was advanced and exploited. Nevertheless these charges have always remained high and this, along with the complexity of operation of many software solutions, have been serious inhibitors to the achievement of 100% electronic trading. The Cost Imperative However, once these original costs are recovered, EDI operations are seen as a cost centre and inevitably the challenge begins to either: Continue to process EDI at an equivalent level of efficiency while reducing operating costs Extend the use of EDI with significantly reduced incremental costs These in-house cost considerations have frequently been an inhibitor to EDI enabled businesses wishing to further develop EDI capabilities with all of their trading community. Primarily these additional costs lie in staffing with the appropriate expertise, additional software, maintenance and error handling. Containing or managing costs within our businesses has arguably never been challenged so much as it is today. New Challenges: Facing the Customer UK Retailers and OEMs are beginning to adopt new EDI technologies, Standards and communications methods to their suppliers so that they can benefit from reductions in costs and improved efficiencies e.g. EDI communications across the internet using AS2, XML structured messages and third-party EDI portals. The benefit to customer is clear, the cost to respond to these new EDI initiatives by suppliers, however, probably has to be borne. Investment in new software, hardware and training towards in-house EDI systems will have to be undertaken to meet these new requirements. This now presents several issues to the IT department. Lead time to implement : install, test to live and production with trading partner Learning curve or acquisition of new skills Benefit/cost competing with other key IT projects Depending upon an individual company’s capabilities, this list will vary but could represent significant up front cost and further on-going charges. Your Supply Chain: Driving out the Cost Furthermore, if your company is only undertaking EDI for downstream activities with customers and not your suppliers, then one truism remains that cost is not being driven out of your supply chain and you may well be holding more cost than you need to. Having made the investment in EDI then there is a real opportunity to maximise this by looking Upstream to doing EDI with your own suppliers. To undertake cost effective EDI with your suppliers, future customers or smaller customers. But How! There is a Cost Efficient Way AMOS – Advance Managed Outsourced Solutions is a recently launched programme by AdvanceFirst Technologies. Designed specifically for our customers AMOS provides an outsourced service for Taking cost out of the supply chain by extending current EDI capability to provide orders and invoices to suppliers regardless of their EDI capability. AMOS also provides a supplier ramp facility which is managed by AdvanceFirst. Use existing EDI infrastructure to create a cost effective single process to send electronic orders to all of the suppliers. Outsourcing EDI upstream with AMOS enables our customers to receive 100% of EDI benefits rapidly with minimal people and development costs. Irrespective of the size or technical capability of the supplier AMOS provides an electronic means of them conducting EDI with these suppliers at minimal cost. Thus a single process of sending an EDI order to upstream suppliers can reach 100% of the trading partners. Advantages: - Cost Effective…minimising upfront cost of hardware, software and training to take advantage of pay as you go business model Utilise existing EDI capability….exploit current EDI investment to do considerably more for less. Enable internal IT resources to be deployed on other mission critical applications Utilise the expertise of AdvanceFirst to provide speed to benefit for enabling upstream EDI or EDI to SME type customers Minimise upfront investment on software and IT resources. Replace FAX and telephone to streamline operations and squeeze out the associated people cost and IT overheads. If you have any requirements to extend your electronic trading capability to either your customers or suppliers, or if a customer has asked you to trade with them electronically by a new route or utilising new document types, then please come and talk to us about what you wish to achieve. It may be much easier, faster and cheaper than you think! For more information on AMOS from AdvanceFirst Technologies please call us on 01932 789004 or email enquiries@advancefirst.com