[Advertorial] EDI had its initial success primarily in the B2B world. But the system has now also been successfully adopted in retail and e-commerce. This is also the case with Hubo. The hardware retailer found that EDI brought many benefits to both Hubo itself and its suppliers. To avoid manual work in order processing in stores, Hubo chose EDI from Descartes. Your suppliers can join integrated EDI or Go-webEDI. The result is a win-win situation for both the suppliers and the retailer itself.

A few years ago, Hubo used EDI to process orders, delivery notes, invoices, returns requests and payment advices. However, to make supplier collaboration more efficient, Hubo wanted to go one step further and encourage even more suppliers to use EDI to automate mutual communication. And Hubo also teamed up with Descartes for this assignment.

250 suppliers use EDI

In 2021, Descartes launched a campaign with Hubo to help the retailer inform its suppliers. Hubo partners were able to follow a webinar through a customized landing page where they received information about EDI and its benefits. This resulted in a good number of connections for Go-webEDI, which is a good step towards automation for companies that have little experience with it. In addition, some (larger) companies also immediately decided on integrated EDI.

“Around 250 suppliers currently use EDI. The aim is to convert the remaining trading partners as much as possible. In larger companies, it is also imposed on the purchasing side to, on the one hand, speed up the processing processes at Hubo and, on the other hand, to achieve efficiency and avoid delays for the supplier itself.” says Stefan Draulans, CIO at Hubo.

A win-win situation for Hubo and its partners

As part of the web shop and especially for smaller suppliers, switching to Go-webEDI is a sensible option. “The certainty that everything is processed correctly and there is no risk of an email not being delivered or ending up in the spam folder is a strong argument for trading partners to switch to Go-webEDI.” according to Leslie Laureyssens, EDI coordinator at Hubo.

The use of EDI creates a win-win situation. Companies that invest in it gain enormous efficiencies across the entire chain. Everything runs much more smoothly for both Hubo and its partners: the supplier can deliver its products faster due to fast communication, invoicing is faster and transaction costs are lower.

In the future, other messages such as return instructions and status reports will also be taken into account. In addition, close attention continues to be paid to onboarding new suppliers. Among other things, because the market is evolving rapidly due to mergers, acquisitions, etc. and changes in ERPs on the supplier side, suppliers also have to go through the onboarding process again. It remains a full-time job for the EDI coordinator

Loyal partner

Hubo now sees Descartes as a loyal partner. This is due to the rapid response with which Descartes can convert suppliers to EDI. Additionally, Descartes provides a stable environment where downtime and issues are minimal.

This is a commercial submission from Descartes. The publishers are not responsible for the content.