Although experienced in electronic trading, Travis Perkins plc’ previous on-premise EDI solution was both complex, and expensive to maintain. Since moving to the TrueCommerce EDI managed service for trading with its customers and suppliers, Travis Perkins plc has been able to free up internal resources to focus on more strategic activities.
With a proud heritage that can be traced back over 200 years, Travis Perkins plc is one of the UK’s leading distributors of materials to the building, construction and home improvement markets.
Historically, Travis Perkins plc had relied on a third party, in-house EDI solution to support the majority of EDI traffic. The development and support of the solution was provided by a small team of internal EDI specialists. Whilst initially fit for purpose, over time the solution became increasingly difficult to support and failed to offer the scalability that was required as the company continued to grow.
“After a review of our electronic trading processes it was decided that an outsourced solution was more appropriate to our requirements,” said Mark Elvy, IT Development Manager at Travis Perkins plc. “It was felt that the internal resources required to support and maintain an EDI solution in-house could be redeployed to more value-added activities.”
The Solution
Following an extensive RFP process Travis Perkins plc selected TrueCommerce’s EDI solution, OneTime, which is delivered as a fully managed service.
“The decision to outsource our EDI requirements to TrueCommerce was made based on a number of criteria, firstly TrueCommerce demonstrated a good understanding of the issues we were facing and offered us a strong technical solution. They also showed a pragmatic and flexible way of working that the project team felt comfortable with and demonstrated a positive ‘can do’ attitude.” continued Elvy.
As part of the transition process, the TrueCommerce managed service team completed the onboarding of customers and suppliers for Travis Perkins plc, including the end-to-end communications with its trading partners, the mapping of all document types and the testing of all messages.
“The transition was smooth thanks to the thorough testing process supported by TrueCommerce. Over 1,000 customers and suppliers were moved seamlessly on to the TrueCommerce platform,” said Elvy. “The amount of complexity inherent in our previous solution was not obvious to us at the outset of the project, however TrueCommerce supported Travis Perkins plc in working through the challenges we faced.”
Benefits
Travis Perkins plc now benefits from TrueCommerce’s fully scalable EDI managed service that harnesses the power of the TrueCommerce global trading partner platform. As a fully outsourced solution, Travis Perkins plc no longer requires internal software or hardware for EDI purposes and instead the company benefits from TrueCommerce’s first-class infrastructure.
Since moving to TrueCommerce, Travis Perkins plc has been able to concentrate on managing the demand for EDI services across the business, leaving TrueCommerce to manage the EDI platform, day-to-day support and on-boarding of new trading partners.
Jerry Quinn, Senior Sales Manager at TrueCommerce Europe, commented, “As a result of switching to our managed solution, Travis Perkins plc no longer needs to worry about the diverse range of technical standards, data formats, and communication and security protocols that it previously had to manage internally and can instead focus on more strategic activities.”
Travis Perkins plc now benefits from a robust and reliable EDI solution for trading with both its customers and suppliers. Perhaps most importantly given the problems experienced with the company’s previous EDI solution, Travis Perkins plc now has a fully scalable and future proof EDI solution that will meet both the company’s current and future requirements.