Tristate Holdings Eyes Paperless Trade Transactions

Garment manufacturer adopts TradeCard solution as standard to streamline vendor management, drive procurement process efficiencies

Garment manufacturer adopts TradeCard solution as standard to streamline vendor management, drive procurement process efficiencies

New York — August 19, 2004 — Hong Kong-based Tristate Holdings, one of the largest garment producers in Asia, is using a Web-based global trade transaction platform from TradeCard to manage its global trade business with multiple suppliers as part of an initiative to streamline its vendor management and drive procurement process efficiencies.

Tristate Holdings, the result of a merger between two major garment manufacturers, Tristate and Hwa Fuh, produces a range of garments under its own lines and for brand names in the United States, Japan and Europe. The group, which operates 15 factories around Asia, has more than 25,000 employees and produced over 26 million garments in 2003.

The company is using the TradeCard system to manage accessory and material purchases from suppliers. Through TradeCard, Tristate's trading partners gain online access to real-time reporting to improve the settlement process. Tristate gains online access not just to multiple suppliers but also to logistic services and TradeCard's network of service providers.

In order to improve business processes, Tristate and TradeCard have jointly worked to integrate TradeCard with the company's current systems. This integration provides centralized access across multiple factories and countries to allow automation of the transaction process from purchase order to accounts payable. TradeCard said its trade transaction platform enhances the value of Tristate Holdings' existing in-house back office system by providing a single, automated interface to its trading partners.

According to Gene Hue, vice president of supply chain at Tristate, TradeCard made it possible for companies throughout Tristate Holdings to be connected online in a fast and easy way. "TradeCard has given us a solution that is flexible enough to meet our needs as a large company [that] has to communicate with many different parties, such as customers, vendors, our own factories, and logistics and financial institutions across multiple countries," Hue said. "Our aim is for TradeCard to be the standard for the vast majority of our business."

Eleni Wang, president and chief operating officer at Tristate Holdings, added that the increased visibility into transactions that the company has gained through TradeCard has helped it to achieve an important strategic goal: ensuring that its factories receive the right goods in the right quantities at the right time. "This is absolute key in our ongoing effort to optimize purchasing and manufacturing operations," Wang said.

Kurt Cavano, chairman and CEO of TradeCard, said, "The apparel industry is a strategic vertical for us and by bringing all aspects of Tristate's trade business online with TradeCard, we have set a clear precedent for the wide array of benefits both financially and in process efficiencies that can be achieved through full automation of financial supply chain processes in this important global industry."
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