Migration Made Easy: Switching VAN Providers Without the Fire Drills

he challenges presented by multiple Value-Added Networks (VANs) and managing diverse trading partners create barriers to the efficiencies promised by EDI. Multiple providers mean multiple points of failure with no one entity to hold accountable. Also, as trading communities grow, end-to-end supply chain visibility becomes an essential operational requirement. These concerns can be addressed through migration to Inovisworks. The Inovisworks VAN delivers the technology to meet multiple trading partner requirements and achieve complete supply chain visibility, which dramatically impacts your ability to effectively communicate across your entire trading community. This white paper is designed to outline the current challenges created by working with multiple VANs, highlight the new capabilities delivered by the next generation of EDI technology, discuss the factors involved in migrating to a single VAN solution and present the financial and operational improvements migration can deliver for your business. The topics included in this whitepaper are:I. The Challenges of Working with Multiple VANsII. Key Capabilities Delivered by Next-Generation EDI SolutionsIII. Key Factors When Selecting a Migration PartnerIV. Inovisworks: Next-Generation PerformanceThe Challenges of Working with Multiple VANsFor various business reasons, many companies have found themselves using multiple Value- Added Networks (VANs) to manage their supply chain operations. They may have one VAN for their supplier community, another system for their customers and yet another VAN that resulted from trading partner mandates. As EDI technology has progressed and trading partner expectations have increased, using multiple VANs creates a multitude of business challenges that place significant drag on supply chain efficiency.Lack of end-to-end supply chain visibilityMultiple VANs create multiple layers of communication that don’t provide a single point of visibility across your supply chain operations. Disparate systems can’t deliver comprehensive tools to manage a transaction from start to finish in real time. Without end-to-end visibility, your business loses the advantage of being proactive when exceptions occur, which in turn negatively impacts trading partner relationships and increases basic operating costs.The lack of complete visibility means you cannot communicate within your trading community with the speed and granular level of reporting data that have become the standard in today’s business environment.Increased cost of ownershipSupporting multiple VANs diverts time and financial resources away from operations because you must stay abreast of multiple standards, troubleshoot with different providers and maintain each system as a separate entity. Basic costs like maintenance contracts, support calls and licensing fees begin to add up when multiple systems are involved. Not to mention the fixed overhead costs of dealing each third-party VAN provider—even if the majority of your traffic is going through only one of your VANs. However, the greatest cost of ownership presented by multiple systems is the opportunity cost of missing out on the savings delivered by the increased efficiencies and new capabilities in next-generation EDI technologies.To address these challenges and meet the expectations of their trading partner communities, many companies are migrating to a next-generation EDI solution that consolidates multiple Value-Added Networks into one network.Key Capabilities Delivered by a Next-Generation VANThe performance of your trading community is an essential link to your own overall performance. However, successfully managing each part of the supply chain continuum can eat away at your time and take your focus off of new business initiatives. The next generation of EDI solutions delivers simplified access to key information and new tools that help you maximize that information to more efficiently manage your entire supply chain operations—from initial suppliers through to the end customer. The latest technology offers you new capabilities that will transform the way you manage your supply chain and communicate within your trading partner community.Comprehensive visibilityComprehensive supply chain visibility delivers instant online access to the status of a transaction at any point in the continuum (see Example 1). By always knowing where your transactions and documents are, you increase customer satisfaction through faster, more complete communications.