Midwest Sporting Goods Company Saves 25-30 Hours a Week with Arcus EDI
March 13, 2020 | by Jodi Abrams
A midsized sporting goods company in the US Midwest replaced its EDI service provider with Arcus, fully managed EDI from CONTAX. CONTAX set up all of the maps and connections on an accelerated timeline, and now handles mapping, onboarding and day-to-day support. The company is saving 25-30 hours a week.
At a Glance
The Customer
The customer is a midsized sporting goods company in the US Midwest with a focus on helping with injury prevention and recovery. With attention to its triple bottom line, it has been helping athletes for over 60 years. CONTAX had been a trusted partner to the company for many years.
The Challenge
The company had no one on staff to dedicate time to resolving EDI issues and implementing new trading partners, and the number of customers asking for EDI kept growing.
Working with its existing EDI provider on mapping changes and implementations took too long. Beyond the duration, the company's own team had to spend time understanding field-level details, turning its SAP IDocs into mapping guides for the vendor. New customer onboarding was taking much longer than it wanted. To keep up with its growth, the company needed a partner that would take on more of the work.
The Solution
The company chose Arcus, CONTAX's EDI managed service, to replace its provider. It already knew CONTAX, and CONTAX's understanding of SAP and EDI made the decision easy. Cost was a big selling point too: an all-in cost per document that was easy and predictable.
The migration was the part the company worried about most. It had many customers on EDI and many maps, with very little documentation about what they did. With the existing contract nearing its end, the timeline was accelerated.
Maps and connections
CONTAX set up all of the maps and connections with very little input from the company, which joined the project at user acceptance testing.
Live in a short time frame
The CONTAX team worked efficiently to go live before the previous provider's contract ended.
Onboarding and changes
The Arcus support team handles all of the mapping and onboarding for new customers, and all changes.
Day-to-day support
CONTAX works directly with the company's CSRs to resolve issues, takes the initiative on process improvements and stays on top of open items.
The Results
- 25-30 hours a week saved, time now put back into the business
- The company's involvement is minimal: guidance on specific business requirements and connecting CONTAX with customers for changes and onboarding
- All mapping, customer onboarding, changes and day-to-day support handled by CONTAX
- Confidence to keep up with onboarding new customers and changing EDI requirements
- An all-in cost per document that is easy and predictable
"The entire implementation and support team is outstanding. They are easy to work with and responsive, very down to earth, they know what they need, ask for it appropriately, follow-up when necessary. They are a wonderful group of people to work with"
Looking back on the project, the VP said: "It doesn't have to be so scary; you can switch providers easily with a great partner like CONTAX."
About Arcus
Arcus is a fully managed cloud EDI service from CONTAX for SAP and Acumatica customers. CONTAX handles partner setup, mapping, testing, monitoring and error resolution. Learn more about Arcus Cloud EDI and SAP EDI Integration.
About the Author
Jodi Abrams
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