Woodstream, a provider of pet, lawn-care, and animal-friendly brands such as Perky-Pet, SaferBrand, Victor, Havahart, and the newly-acquired Dr. T's Nature Products, has decided to utilize EXTOL International's Business Integrator to streamline its communication and integration processes.
The company decided it was time to improve its business-to-business (B2B) communication, application-to-application (A2A) integration, and automation of internal processes and deployed EXTOL's business integration technology solutions with the result that it has achieved productivity and accuracy benefits both inside and across enterprise borders.
Retailers of all sizes and configurations carry Woodstream products, from big box retailers and home improvement giants such as Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Lowe's and Home Depot, to hardware chains such as Ace, True Value and Do-It-Best, to "mom and pop" and specialty retailers. The company sells to more than 1,000 customers, representing over 100,000 retail outlets.
Woodstream's B2B needs went far beyond simple transaction automation via EDI. They needed an automated way to accept and integrate formats such as spreadsheets, flat files, and XML. The company also pinpointed a need for A2A integration to automate and synchronize sharing of data between isolated applications, processes, and platforms for better reporting and more efficient internal business operations.
They selected the EXTOL Business Integrator (EBI) to give its IT team an easy-to-manage business integration functionality beyond EDI. "We knew that EXTOL had the potential to be a key product for our future growth," said Barry Mowrer, director of IT for Woodstream." Its flexibility and any-to-any mapping make it a tool for any number of important IT projects."
Point-of-Sale (POS) data from many retailers comes into Woodstream's iSeries Server. Using EBI's automated mapping tools, Woodstream created the processes that validate and aggregate the information. Their sales team can now easily spot consumer buying trends by product and by region, identify proper order levels for retailers, and better manage their customers' product selections and store-level promotions.
Woodstream was able to increase the availability of its new Web ordering system, and automate the integration between Web site orders and their back-end applications and processes. When an order comes in from the Web site, from an EDI-enabled partner, or on a spreadsheet attached to an email, it automatically flows through PRMS, which sends data to a warehouse management system in the distribution centers.
"Our orders aren't touched by human hands until it's time for pick and pack in the distribution centers," said Mowrer. "We've got the system so finely tuned that most orders ship within a day or two, go into transit, and reach their final destination three or four days after that."
About EXTOL International, Inc.
EXTOL International, Inc. is a leading provider of B2B integration application software for the mid-sized enterprise. EXTOL enables companies to exchange and integrate transactions and documents, regardless of form or format, between their applications and those of their partners. The EXTOL Business Integrator is an integration platform for electronic commerce applications including EDI, AS2, XML, UCCnet and the integration and management capabilities required to take full advantage of supply chain functionality. For more information, visit http://www.extol.com/.
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