Hi Michael,
Your right, that's another issue, and it is surely more pervasive than the WEB
EDI issue. Don't get me started. I have dealt with a lot of these bogus
testings, many of which do nothing more than test that you can receive a dummy
document to your translator and turn around a 997. Duh! Isn't that why we pay
for EDI translator products? So it also tests that you can successfully
implement the communications piece. Again, Duh! Isn't that why most of my
traffic goes through a VAN, and why I pay big bucks for an AS2 solution?
So it annoys me enough when it is some company I don't have a regular business
relationship with (SPS), because I think as soon as I pay them money, I become
their customer, but they don't see me as their customer, they see me as someone
they can treat like dirt because they hold all the cards (I have to jump
through their hoops or I can't establish EDI with my customer).
But then when it is GXS or Sterling that does it (anybody got an icon of steam
blowing out of someones ears I can insert here) . . . If they don't know I can
communicate and translate and send 997s then they must have some serious
reservations about the quality of their products and services that I better be
checking into.
And the term "Trading Partner" which I persist in using out of optimism: while
most of my trading partnerships are great (really!), there are those that leave
me thinking "'Partner'? If this is their idea of a partnership I'm sure glad
I'm not their spouse".
Ken
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Mattias/LS
To: EDI-L
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 9:47 AM
Subject: Re: [EDI-L] Need Sample EDI Survey
> The problem of "WEB EDI" is when you have a mature EDI program and want to
> do "real" EDI, but a customer *requires* [emphasis mine MCM ] you to do
> WEB EDI as a first step....
That one I haven't seen (care to share a name? off-list OK ) before... but
that is simply terrible "vendor relations."
I have a recent story where the vendor relations impact was at least as
bad... and perhaps more insidiously so....
A "major well-known retailing firm" revised their internal EDI processing
(for some good and valid reasons which they did offer to their vendors).
This revision required all vendors - including those with 'mature'
relationships - to pay one of two well-known compliance testing firms a fee
for 're-certification.'
While I found the entire policy of "vendor pays for our 'by choice' changes"
dubious, what I found uniquely terrible were the terms and conditions
imposed by one of the two compliance testing firms engaged by the retailer.
That firm allowed only two documents be submitted within a given number of
days... and if you had not passed it was 'two strikes and you're out!' and
you had to purchase an additional 'certification test run' good for eactly
one (count 'em, one) document run. (The other compliance testing firm was
a lot fairer... you got 'n' days, as many document runs as you needed to
pass the test).
Even though I was only serving as an outside consultant to the vendor and
did not have to absorb any of these fees myself, and my client was assigned
to the 'good terms' compliance testing firm, I took the time to write a
letter to the retailer to let them know that for as long as I had been in
the EDI business (20+ years) I had never encountered such unfair and
confiscatory compliance testing terms before and suggested that they do a
thorough review of "compliance testing firm one" before engaging them again.
( I'm pretty sure this got me on Compliance Testing Firm One's '<vulgar
euphemism for waste product> list' but - hopefully - all of Major
Retailer's vendors should benefit down the road.)
I hope any and all "buyer" firms who want to insist their vendors use EDI
remember the word 'partner' implies some consideration for the vendor's
burden.. if engaging an outside compliance testing firm, you put yourself in
your vendor's shoes before selecting such firms... and by the way, not all
your vendors are new to EDI and can skip the 'walk using the web before
running' step, too.
Michael C. Mattias
Tal Systems Inc.
Racine WI
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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