SPS Commerce & Lagardère Travel Retail: A Full-Service EDI Success Story
If you have ever made a purchase at the airport, chances are you have bought something from Lagardère Travel Retail. Operating in 34 countries on five continents, Lagardère is one of the sector’s global leaders. The organization is a major player in all areas of travel retail: travel essentials, duty-free, fashion and foodservice.
Lagardère was not new to EDI, however, the company relied on an expensive, on-premise solution that required significant in-house IT resources. In 2017, they partnered with SPS Commerce for a seamless transition to a full-service EDI and vendor onboarding solution that better met their needs. Today Lagardère leaves the details of EDI operations to the SPS expert team. The result? Decreased monthly costs, increased service and less work for Lagardère and its vendor community.
- Customer Type:
Retailer - Industry:
Travel - Headquarters:
Mascot, Australia
- SPS Product(s):
Community, Fulfillment - ERP:
Microsoft Dynamics NAV - Customer Since:
2017
Time for a New EDI Partner
Lagardère had been doing EDI but knew that it was time for a change. “We had seen the value of EDI for many years but we were ready to embrace a cloud-based solution that required fewer internal resources,” said Shaun Stanyer, information systems director at Lagardère Travel Retail. By outsourcing the daily EDI operations of their business to SPS Commerce, Lagardère freed up IT resources to support other priorities.
The SPS Commerce Fulfillment solution offered the retailer a cloud-based, scalable EDI technology, complemented by a team of experts to manage the company’s trading relationships. This change allowed the retailer to future-proof their EDI program and benefit from predictable monthly costs.
No Supply Chain Disruption
Implementation had a very clear objective: no disruption. Stanyer stated, “A critical part of the EDI project was that our vendors were not affected during the migration and wouldn’t notice any fundamental changes.” The last thing Lagardère wanted was a disruption in the supply chain.
SPS Commerce’s team handled the deployment with professionalism and industry knowledge, bringing proven processes and talented EDI experts to manage the entire project. “We were happy with the way the project was handled and felt it was smooth,” said Stanyer.
Outsourcing Vendor Onboarding & EDI Management
Lagardère has noticed numerous benefits since migrating to SPS Commerce Fulfillment. First, the in-house team no longer has to handle tedious tasks, such as EDI monitoring and support. Shanyer said, “We were basically our own EDI help desk with our previous system. SPS experts now look after a lot of the work on our behalf. Internally this has freed up a lot of our time and resources as we are no longer directly involved in managing our EDI program.”
Second, Lagardère is “exceptionally happy with the outsourcing model,” said Stanyer. The former EDI process relied heavily upon internal resources to onboard a new vendor. Since SPS has taken over the vendor onboarding process, his team spends minimal time in this area. “It has allowed new vendors to be onboarded a lot faster,” stated Stanyer. Finally, Lagardère has seen “monthly costs decrease and service levels increase.”
The Interviewee:
Shaun Stanyer, Information Systems Director
The Challenge:
Implement a flexible and scalable EDI solution with no disruption to the current vendor base.
The Solution:
Outsource to SPS Commerce to take advantage of their cloud-based solution and expertise.
The Results:
Decreased fulfillment costs and increased service levels.
“We were basically our own EDI helpdesk with our previous system. SPS experts now look after a lot of the work on our behalf. Internally this has freed up a lot of our time and resources as we are no longer directly involved in managing our EDI program.”
– Shaun Stanyer
Additional References
Read more about full-service EDI and other stories of how we’ve helped businesses optimize their supply chains and increase sales.
