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(From front page)
Earlier today I sat in on a webinar showcasing an EDI testing service designed to facilitate a retailer’s on boarding or ‘ramping’ process. Being familiar with some of the initial work done in the industry around this concept I sat in and tried to be objective. Compared to the ones I have known/read about/dealt with in the past the slight nuances to Direct EDI’s model in contrast to the others – seems like it is well designed, with intuitive interfaces, a good business model, etc.
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In the past I didn’t want to sell testing services because I had seen some of the responses other companies had received. An understatement, I dreaded it and would have given up commission to NOT deal with it. Give me simple, straightforward integration and process issues! That was a few years ago and I immediately wondered what event had I missed in recent years that changed any of this.
Simple enough question to resolve. I went to my favorite EDI user group and simply asked: “Why would or wouldn't a manufacturer want to use this service?” Any idea how many responses we received in less than a 5 hour period? There were a few.
Words like “hate” and “despicable” were used. People made allegations that a few retailers are on the take and are to be blamed for the same simplemindedness that the testing company is for being thieving. Critical areas which 3rd party testing to date has failed have included: double charging, poor transition from test to production (Continued problems), incorrect and continually changing specs and so on. A symphony of scorn for the idea of 3rd party testing… to say the least I heard nothing but people opposed to the idea. I was glad to hear one EDI salesperson was also not in favor of the way testing services has been done in the past – and was hopeful for the opportunity to evangelize his company’s newly released solution. The sales person was from Direct EDI and had somehow heard about the conversation we were having in the User Group.
The ‘nuance’ to Direct EDI’s solution mentioned earlier is they are offering the service as I understand it with a couple of different pricing models. I don’t want to mischaracterize what I learned in the webinar but their models should accommodate every manufacturer’s requirement in that the retailer is encouraged to pay for it on a continual or ad-hoc (mandates/roll out) basis. It grabbed my attention and should make complete sense to anyone – easier billing, and better customer relations (For both retailer and 3rd party provider with the vendor community). The last benefit to this model is there is a true obligation put on the software provider to deliver a tool which works and customer service to back it up when or if there is a problem.
In the world of EDI testing services, this may be a first. I am not on the hook to test with them, but I am optimistic that these tools for automated testing are in fact everything they are purported to be. It can’t be unusual that one EDI company learned from other company’s mistakes.
It would be great to get Direct EDI to validate what I heard/learned in the webinar – just to make sure I understand the model properly. In the meantime you can read about their system here. It would also be great to hear what other people have to say about the idea of 3rd party testing and their experiences with it to date.
See the comments link below – click it and throw some ideas out to everyone.
Here is the webinar (Added 10/10/09) - check it out, then get engaged!
Also try us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/RetailEDI) or on Linkedin (RetailEDI).
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