Best Practices for Supply Chain Integration

There are also a few groups that need to be onboard from the hub company side to ensure the supplier enablement project is successful. The first and most important group to approach resides in the executive suite. To guarantee that an enablement program will truly return its weight in gold, there must be an executive or business sponsor who is aware of the return on investment that universal supply chain connectivity can deliver. In addition, the information technology group must be onboard as they will be intimately involved in the implementation and support of the suppliers. Finally, the individual or group that is most involved with the suppliers must endorse the project and be fully engaged. This may be a vice president of merchandising, vendor relations or whomever heads up the buying group within the organization. Getting these individuals on the same page is a critical part of the initial planning phases.

In addition to securing the buy-off of all involved parties from the hub, developing a realistic rollout plan is also an important part of this non-exclusive process phase. There's no need to be overly ambitious here. Most organizations can only handle turning on a subset of their suppliers at once, so a phased project plan is likely to be the most efficient and the most effective in the long run.

Even though suppliers will be enabled in a phased manner, it's still a terrific idea to have a formal, orchestrated kick-off of the entire program. Promote a scheduled Webcast or make it part of a supplier meeting or convention. In fact, make it a big party if possible. For that job, you probably want to pick someone with whom suppliers are familiar and with whom they already have a good rapport. In the retail space, for example, the vice president of merchandising may be the ideal person to present the goals of the enablement plan along with the guidelines to the suppliers.

Again, making sure suppliers are comfortable with and can relate to the messenger is critical. This accomplishes several important goals. It lets suppliers know that the hub company is absolutely committed, that this is important to everyone's financial health and that participation from all parties will be a cornerstone of the program's success. Once that's done, it's time to roll up the integration sleeves and help the first batch of suppliers get going. Count on some 50 percent of suppliers wanting to update and test their current set up with your company guidelines. Smaller suppliers may want to look at other options, such as an inexpensive, easy-to-use hosted solution. This is where the second prong of the best practices trio, technology options, comes in.

Technology Options

When you consider that an enablement program will typically involve hundreds or even thousands of suppliers that may vary in size from $1 billion in revenue per year to less than $10 million, it's no surprise that providing a broad range of technology options is an essential best practice. One of the most essential of those options is a top-notch and easy-to-use testing platform that truly simulates your electronic environment and business processes so suppliers can certify their existing solution. Do not underestimate the importance of this. Though many companies believe they know the number of suppliers who have EDI software, they almost always underestimate how many have intentionally kept it a secret. The result is higher than expected demand from hundreds or thousands of suppliers that will be looking to test in a short period of time.

In the best-case scenario, the testing platform will let companies confirm sender and receiver identification set-ups. It will test value-added network (VAN) information set-up, and it will validate transport, syntax, content and workflow. It will also either pass or fail the vendor on compliance. And for those that fail, the testing platform or service will provide the vendor with diagnostic feedback so they can quickly make adjustments and re-test their system successfully.

For many small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), the existing solution will be the fax machine. To minimize resistance, vendors need an easy, inexpensive way to meet your guidelines without causing a big change in behavior.

Thankfully, numerous hosted solutions that specifically address the needs of SMEs are available — and have been available for some time. The best solutions provide the vendors with a suite of hosted options. The options help high-volume vendors to integrate a service directly into their back-end system. Medium- and low-volume vendors often utilize intelligent Web forms to minimize manual entry wherever possible. And for the slow adopters, services are available that will convert their faxes into electronic data formats on their behalf. In most cases, these services can be utilized with multiple customers over time, not just with the hub that causes the initial adoption.