Are the follow-up costs generally not transparent?
Stefan Nicolai: I am currently working intensively with the WWS partners on this transparency. It’s of no use to me if I say that EDI costs 2.50 euros for us – and then the merchandise management provider comes and says: For me it costs another 10 euros. Let’s play this through: Let’s say someone had up to a maximum of one H2 data record and now wants to start with EDI. For the retailer, this would mean a basic fee of 40 euros for a comprehensive data supply. If he does EDI, there will definitely be an additional 2.50 euros for a supplier, which makes 42.50 euros. An EDI module with master data costs around 100 euros from a merchandise management provider – we’re already at 142.50 euros. That’s a lot for someone who didn’t have any extra costs before. Our job is to say: This is your time savings and don’t just do it with one supplier, do it with 20, because then the costs become revenues.
Thomas Hüser: For us, the total monthly costs are around 113 euros. As a dealer, I would accept all of that. I just lack perspective. I’m building parallel worlds. We afford ourselves the luxury of adding five to ten new suppliers to our 120 suppliers every season. We don’t want to give that up because it’s our philosophy. We want to surprise customers and show them something new. Unfortunately, I don’t have the market power to say: I won’t list you without an EDI connection, simply because my orders aren’t that big. 20% of my suppliers can and want EDI and support me. But I have to carry out all other processes according to the old patterns. To get started on the topic, I would like three players, the supplier, ECC or perhaps someone from the purchasing associations, to agree to say: Let’s take them by the hand and do EDI very simply in eight steps. We document the whole thing and then other retailers can see what can happen. Elvis is ideal for getting started because the product can be experienced directly and the benefits are immediately visible. Overall, I would like EDI to make this world easier for me.
Stefan Nicolai: It’s quite classic: constant dripping wears away the stone. If 1,520 retailers do not accept that no data will be provided, but keep insisting that data must be provided, then a rethink can take place. If we as ECC open up and say, yes, you should supply data now, the supplier says: The trade doesn’t ask for it, why should I pay money for it?
Thomas Hüser: Sure, the constant dripping wears away the stone. Just who am I talking to? We are making a generational change in our house. Before visiting a trade fair, my son said: Come on, leave the writing pad at home, we’re going to do everything digitally now. At that time I answered him: Wait and see how many copy pads are left
on the tables! I could definitely walk through the exhibition halls with an information flyer on the subject of EDI, but I don’t know whether these topics are even being addressed further by the sales teams in your companies.
Elvis seemed to have been a kind of door opener. A simple solution to a problem, and many manufacturers quickly jumped on board…
Roman Degenhardt: That’s a fact. It wasn’t rocket science, because some of the data had already been delivered to the ECC. We just had to make a few changes to how they are reported. The big hurdle was that there was initially no interface to the merchandise management systems. We currently have a similar topic with sample orders. We do everything we can to ensure that these reach as many retailers as possible as quickly as possible. The ECC is ahead in many cases when it comes to programming. Now it depends on the sensitivity of the merchandise management providers: When do they implement topics and how many resources do they have available for this? If something is programmed, are these new, paid tools or are they included in the next update? There are very different approaches.
Marc Schreiber: A good keyword: We have been working with sample orders for over 15 years because we have the need to do proper limit planning. And sometimes that doesn’t work. I have the feeling that both the suppliers and the inventory management manufacturers first heard about the subject of sample orders three, four, five years ago. I would like people to talk to us and see how we work! And it doesn’t always have to be the case that the retailer adapts his way of working to the IT. It can certainly go the other way – or it should even go the other way! I still have a delicate point between the dealer and the supplier: Because of Elvis and the automatic reordering, the dealer obviously has an interest in shifting the storage capacity towards the manufacturer. And I’m relatively sure that there are a lot of manufacturers who don’t and don’t want to keep stocks because stocks are bad. Inventories tie up capital. I could name a few suppliers from whom we could reorder endlessly, but who simply cannot deliver. They still say that the customer should please place their pre-order, and nothing more is discussed.
The still high pre-order rate is still an issue that is discussed but not resolved…
Marc Schreiber: We talk a lot about problems today, but there are also positive examples. It is widely known that Lloyd maintains an extensive warehouse. When I work with my representative, the first thing we do is not look at the collection, but rather we first look at our NOS items or the items that we automatically re-sort. We are redefining these taking into account the change of season. And we have had relatively great success with these items being ordered automatically. I’m amazed and happy at how many sales I’ve quietly and secretly made from some standard black men’s shoes that simply turn. Some suppliers have not yet realized how much potential there is.
Frank Sauter: I would like to say a word about the contact persons. Our field service is briefed on EDI matters. He has a checklist that is processed together with the dealer. It’s about questions like “Which merchandise management system do you have?”, “Are you interested in EDI?” “Are you connected?” “Do you want to do VMI?” This list is transferred to the internal sales department – I don’t need a sales manager for that – and Then there is another conversation with the dealer and everything else is set in motion. This way, any misunderstandings can be eliminated straight away. That’s why I can only recommend that the industry sensitize the sales force and then bring the information into the company to the experts. Then everything goes relatively smoothly.
Thomas Hüser: That was the reason why we started EDI with BNS because it worked so smoothly. The sales force asked us a few questions about our ideas, then the answer was “I’ll take care of it” and the information was passed on. The connection was then established and everything was implemented in no time.
What next steps does the ECC have on its agenda?
Stefan Nicolai: Among other things, we are working on communicating the advantages of EDI. In our videos we explain EDI messages and their advantages. Then there is a part where a dealer reports from practice. The third part is the step-by-step explanation of the installation. We also explain which modules are necessary and what costs arise. We are pushing this information through newsletters and other means, but there is not yet enough traction. We will also place these topics in the ANWR and SABU knowledge world to gain a broad audience. I have great hope that this very dedicated and broken down “how to” will help the retailer overcome the remaining hurdles.
