Benefits
of EANCOM®
EANCOM®
is a fully compliant UN/EDIFACT Subset.
Using
EANCOM® over a national standard allows companies to base their
EDI exchanges on the only truly international EDI standard covering
all industries. Today the UN/EDIFACT community covers all corners
of the world and businesses from many industries. Following you
will find a selection of the industries using the UN/EDIFACT standards:
| Agriculture |
Insurance
and Re-insurance |
| Automotive |
Paper |
| Banking |
Printing |
| Chemicals |
Public
sector purchasing |
| Consumer
goods manufacture |
Public
utilities (gas, electricity, etc) |
| Construction |
Retail |
| Customs |
Social
Security |
| Electronics |
Transport |
| Fishing |
Travel
and Tourism |
| Healthcare |
etc |
| Horticulture |
|
Consider
how complicated your life would be without a single EDI standard
if your company conducted business with a single company from each
of these different sectors. Each link could mean the use of a different
EDI standard, which in turn would require different processing rules.
It would be a mess!
UN/EDIFACT
provides the mechanism to break this complexity down by providing
a generic common framework in which companies can work to create
and exchange EDI messages. The use of UN/EDIFACT in an environment
that crosses one or more industry boundaries significantly reduces
the costs of EDI implementation because standard solutions, which
in many cases can be purchased off-the-shelf, may be applied to
all EDI links.
But
don't take our word for it, see what General Motors, one of the
world's largest automotive companies has said about this issue:
"General Motors has adopted a variety of EDI standards throughout
the world as the need to electronically exchange information with
our business partners evolved. In most cases, GM sectors implemented
domestic standards available in the country where business was being
transacted. Domestic standards such as ASC X12, VDA, and ODETTE
do not provide the true international EDI capability required to
support our supply chain globalization efforts.
Through GM's participation at various industry trade associations
and standard setting bodies, we have selected UN/EDIFACT as our
internationally capable corporate EDI standard."
Using
EANCOM® allows companies to benefit from the use of UN/EDIFACT
while also gaining from the detailed implementation guides that
allow UN/EDIFACT to be easily understood. Today there are no other
UN/EDIFACT implementation guidelines which offer so much to potential
users.
EANCOM®
is international and multi-sector in
application.
The EANCOM® manual is developed by an international body whose
members represent companies from all corners of the world. It incorporates
the business requirements of many different companies working in many
different environments.
Today
EANCOM® is being implemented on all of the world's continents.
It is being used to trade many different product types, among others:
| Agriculture |
Medical
devices |
| Agro-chemicals |
Metered
Services |
| Alcohol
beverages |
Music
industry |
| Automotive
- non-production parts |
Packaging
and materials supplies |
| Automotive
spare parts |
Perishable
foodstuffs |
| Books,
magazines, serials |
Pharmaceuticals |
| Carpets |
Public
Procurement |
| Catering
industry |
Shoes |
| Construction |
Sports
goods |
| Consumer
Goods |
Textiles |
| Do-it-yourself |
Transport |
| Electrical
Goods |
etc |
| Finance |
|
EANCOM®
supports international ECR applications
In a bid to improve value chain efficiency more and more companies
are turning to the ECR
philosophy as a way of lowering their costs while improving the services
they provide to the end customer. While the ECR concepts do not create
new technical standards to support value chain management strategies,
they do rely heavily on existing standards to provide companies with
the opportunities to work more efficiently.
The
key to effective ECR is the use of existing resources and sharing
information more efficiently. The exchange of business data between
trading partners using EDI
is fundamental in unlocking the potential of ECR. Exchanging data
directly between computer applications allows companies to automatically,
accurately and speedily understand the needs of their businesses,
and those of their trading partners. This means that all resources,
e.g., staff, computers, equipment, etc, are put to work in an efficient
manner which adds value to the business.
The
ECR concepts apply to companies of all sizes operating in all markets.
The only way that a company can maximize its investments in ECR,
and gain the competitive advantage it seeks, is to lever the power
of international standards.
For
ECR related data communication there is only one choice, EANCOM®!
Proof of the reality of this statement is the fact that ECR Europe
recommends only the use of EANCOM® for EDI exchanges that support
ECR applications, this is in an environment where national standards
exist in several European countries
The
cost of supporting and rolling out EDI standards
is reduced by using EANCOM®.
For companies operating in several countries, many challenges
need to be faced when implementing EDI
with trading partners across the organization. Perhaps one of the
least known challenges facing such companies is the use of international
EDI translation software with national standards. Invariably multi-national
companies try to standardize their operations wherever possible, and
the use of single translation tool across a company is common today.
Implementing
national solutions in translation software designed to support international
standards is never easy. Invariably the translation software will
have to be manipulated in such a way as to ´trick´ the
software into thinking that it is handling a message conforming
to the international rather than national standard. Each time a
multi-national company establishes EDI links with partners in a
country where national standards are used, this manipulation will
have to take place.
Of
course each time this happens it adds to the cost of EDI implementation.
Take the example of Energizer, a multi-national company in the truest
sense of the word. Energizer is implementing national EDI standards
today, using an international EDI translation package, with trading
partners in Spain, France, and the United Kingdom (to name but three
countries). Their experiences on this issue are as follows:
"The development costs for national standards is double or
triple the cost of using an international EDI standard. One reason
for this is that National EDI Translation Software packages can
handle national standards well, but for multi-national companies
using national standards with a multi-national or a 'Global' EDI
Translation Software Package it is difficult. Another reason is
that multi-national Value Added Networks (VANs) can implement EANCOM®
documents easier than national EDI Standard documents because of
the more standardized enveloping segments."
EANCOM®
represents a single face to internal
applications.
For companies implementing EDI, the
programming of the interface between the EDI messages and the internal
applications can represent the most significant part of implementation
cost and effort. The accuracy of this mapping exercise ensures that
the correct data is transferred to the correct place within the receiving
application.
Experience
has proven that the task of mapping multiple EDI standards to internal
applications increases proportionally with each different EDI standard
used. The use of EANCOM® substantially reduces this additional
cost and allows you to map generically to your applications regardless
of the trading partner. Let's see what Woolworths Australia have
to say about this issue:
"Vendors and their EC providers will find they can replicate
the application-integration efforts across their major trading partners
through the use of EANCOM® 1997. More trading partners will
be able to trade with Woolworths because EANCOM® has provided
a common business imperative at a lower integration cost."
EANCOM®
supports the globalization of trade. Every day we
see the barriers to trade disappearing at an increasing rate. We hear
of more and more companies extending their operations from a national
base to international operations. In a situation where a company moves
into three other countries, all of which already have national EDI
standards, what standard should be used?
It
is not reasonable to expect that the company moving into the new
countries will impose the national standard of its home country
on the companies operating in another country. Equally, it is not
reasonable for the company moving into new markets to be expected
to adopt and implement the national standards of each of the countries
into which it is moving. The only solution to this problem is to
use EANCOM®.
EANCOM®
provides companies already operating in several countries, or companies
expanding their operations into other countries, with an immediate
standard solution that supports national and international trade.
In Germany, Karstadt AG, who trade with companies all over the world,
say the following:
"When first implementing EDI Karstadt AG used the SEDAS EDI
standards, which were used extensively for invoicing in Germany
in the 1980's. However, because Karstadt AG trades with companies
all over the world, an international EDI solution was required.
When EANCOM® became available it was apparent that there was
no future in maintaining the national SEDAS standard but to commit
to using EANCOM® which supported all of the modern business
processes not support by SEDAS. KARSTADT AG successfully completed
its migration from SEDAS to EANCOM® in 1998."
EANCOM
is available in 21 languages The United Nations publishes
the UN/EDIFACT directories in English. While EANCOM® is also published
in English, EAN·UCC and the EAN
Numbering Organizations
have recognized the fact that when EANCOM® is distributed across
the world, from Beijing to Buenos Aires, English alone may not be
enough for the software developers to implement the standard correctly.
It
is for this reason that the EAN Numbering Organizations have been
translating all or part of the EANCOM® manual now since its
first publication. At the end of 1998 the EAN International annual
survey on Electronic Commerce activity reported that EANCOM®
was available in the following 21 languages:
|
Czech
|
Japanese
|
|
Chinese
|
Korean
|
|
Danish
|
Norwegian
|
|
English
|
Polish
|
|
French
|
Portuguese
|
|
German
|
Romanian
|
|
Greek
|
Serbian
|
|
Hebrew
|
Slovak
|
|
Hungarian
|
Spanish
|
|
Icelandic
|
Swedish
|
|
Indian
|
|
In
addition to providing translations of the EANCOM® manual, the
EAN·UCC network also provides local language support for
companies implementing the standard, a service that has proved very
valuable to the EAN member companies.
EANCOM®
has already a user base of over 30,000 companies
world wide.
"There is no replacement for experience". This is particularly
true in the area of information technology in general and the implementation
of standards in particular.
At
the end of 1998, figures in the EAN International Electronic Commerce
Activity report showed that over 30,000 companies across the world
were using EANCOM®. This figure represents the largest installed
UN/EDIFACT user base anywhere in the world! At the end of 1999 the
number of EANCOM® users outnumbers the total number of users
of national standards for the first time.
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