Stride Rite Finds GXS Good Fit for Supply Chain Connectivity

Footwear company to use EDI network to consolidate management of B2B transactions

Footwear company to use EDI network to consolidate management of B2B transactions

Gaithersburg, MD — March 30, 2005 — Footwear stalwart Stride Rite has turned to B2B connectivity specialist GXS to consolidate management of the company's business-to-business supply chain transactions.

With 2004 sales of $558.3 million, Lexington, Mass.-based Stride Rite offers a line of athletic and casual footwear. With recent merger activity among electronic data interchange (EDI) value-added networks (VANs), the company wanted to rationalize its B2B infrastructure to enable more effective management of its EDI traffic.

With GXS, Stride Rite can remain on its existing EDI network and then upgrade to GXS' B2B e-commerce solutions, including the GXS Trading Grid, when the organization is ready to leverage other value-added services and hosted applications, GXS said.

The solution provider suggested that Stride Rite's decision to consolidate its B2B traffic onto the GXS network will provide a number of advantages that come from doing business with a single global provider, including reduced vendor costs and reduced internal IT investments associated with building and maintaining a supply chain.

"Our objective in teaming with GXS is to make our supply chain infrastructure transparent, while we maintain our focus on core business operations," said Yusef Akyuz, chief information officer of Stride Rite. "As we migrate to GXS' Trading Grid in the future, we see opportunities to provide additional functionality and efficiencies to our customers, partners and suppliers."

Stride Rite has been a long-time customer of GXS' data synchronization services, Global Product Catalogue (GPC). GXS said that GPC enables suppliers like Stride Rite to electronically exchange information, including product dimensions and packaging specifics. The company is planning to consolidate more of its product catalog exchange onto GXS services, a move that GXS said would simplify Stride Rite's B2B processes, reduce costs, streamline vendor management and provide a single point of accountability for its B2B supply chain.

"GXS knows that for companies like Stride Rite, the best information exchange method is one that makes the transaction virtually effortless for all parties involved," said Bobby Patrick, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for GXS. "By deploying GXS' B2B Transaction Management Services, Stride Rite is not only ensuring consistent trading activities and service levels in the present, but is also laying the foundation for the creation of future efficiencies through its eventual adoption of Trading Grid."


Additional Articles of Interest

The focus in the retail sector has shifted from managing the movement of goods to managing the information about goods. Read more in "Ramping Up the Retail Supply Chain," in the February/March 2005 issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive.



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