In the JIT world of automotive manufacturing where "missing" or "late" ASN's can cost a supplier business, being able to prove by use of a third party that the supplier did, indeed, send the data in a timely fashion has saved a lot of time and trouble and yes, business for many companies. One other value add that has proven useful is the "store" part of store and forward, in that I've worked with a few companies who had catastrophic (or chronic) system issues which caused them to lose data. Having a week or 10 days (or more) of data available in one place from all trading partners to be requeued for pulling at their vendor as opposed to bothering their multiple customers and suppliers, has saved time and face, and possibly business as well. For smaller companies, not having to staff a person to set up/troubleshoot/monitor multiple connections in multiple protocols possibly with multiple applications with their own inherent support costs and issues. Having to have that staff fight the trading partner's corresponding staff on set up issues, "who changed something since this was working yesterday" and as to whether or not files were sent/received is a value and a cost savings.
I will agree that a VAN, without being asked, also provided a former employer of mine the "value add" of changing delimiters thus shutting down the whole system for several hours while the problem was investigated, data was recovered and changes made. Leah ________________________________ From: Travis Truax <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 2:48 PM Subject: Re: <Sales><Jobs> Re: [EDI-L] Selling EDI I just flat-out don't understand what the "value added" is (or ever was). My guess is that whatever the value is, it only relates to large organizations. Being a small manufacturer, in 15 years across several VANs, I never once got anything other than a ridiculously expensive FTP folder to pass data in and out of. When we have an option of direct communication, we ALWAYS go that way. In fact, I distinctly remember one thing in the past that Sterling "added" that caused me a bunch of grief: unwanted, unrequested delimiter conversions. Just out of curiosity - what do others on the list actually "get" in terms of value from your chosen VAN? Travis- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Art Douglas" <[email protected]> To: "Rob" <[email protected]>, "Earl Wertheimer" <[email protected]>, [email protected], "Steve Ay" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 1:16:07 PM Subject: RE: <Sales><Jobs> Re: [EDI-L] Selling EDI What Michael Matthias said. The EDI Coordinator didn’t care about price because s/he isn’t concerned about budget. Otherwise, they would be concerned about price. But as MM said, price is less important than uptime – reliability. Capabilities are important too. What Added Value can the VAN provide? I prefer Liaison’s Network Services (formerly Softshare). Pair their VAN with Athena, their web EDI solution, and now my smaller supply chain TPs can send EDI POs and receive ASNs and Invoices for about the same cost as the VAN alone. Also, my VAN costs are competitive as well. Another consideration would be, does your prospect have TPs who mandate use of a specific VAN? Believe it or not, there are companies out there who won’t do business with you unless you send your transactions using the same VAN as they use. Why, if you’re forced to use VAN A to transact with TP Z, would you also contract with VAN B for everything else, unless you were compelled to as well? BTW, don’t try pulling this with your customers as a device to force more business your way. You’ll make a few thousand enemies on this list if you do. While you’re out there selling, should you run into somebody who needs some EDI help, send them my way. I’m searching for my next meal ticket, scratch that and make it “client”. Good luck, Art Douglas EDI Pro (877) 464-8915 Skype: BlackwaterBud From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rob Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 10:41 AM To: Earl Wertheimer; [email protected]; Steve Ay Subject: Re: <Sales> Re: [EDI-L] Selling EDI Earl, You should look into iConnect as well. ________________________________ From: Earl Wertheimer <[email protected] <mailto:earlw%40spe-edi.com> > To: "[email protected] <mailto:EDI-L%40yahoogroups.com> " <[email protected] <mailto:EDI-L%40yahoogroups.com> >; Steve Ay <[email protected] <mailto:ediansix12%40yahoo.com> > Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 1:26 PM Subject: Re: <Sales> Re: [EDI-L] Selling EDI Steve > If you are with Opentext why would you be hesitant to change to IBM, or > GXS to nuBridges. What are preferences for specific VAN's and what > would you say is important to you in your VAN that you use that other > VAN's may not have. Depends on the client. Some clients with big volumes will switch based on price. It's an economic decision. The savings with a cheaper VAN should be more than the cost of making the switch. Reliability has a cost that also needs to be factored in. Small clients don't often get a break on price with the big guys. Price, reliability, service. Personally, I like Easylink. They are available by phone and their prices are competitive. Easy to interface. but I have clients on ICCNet, GXS, Inovis, etc. Earl Wertheimer mailto:earlw%40spe-edi.com http://www.spe-edi.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix.Yahoo! Groups Links [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix.Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
