Woodmansterne EDI Services from Coliance

UK’S leading greeting card manufacturer Woodmansterne – Optimises their supply chain operations with a managed service from Coliance.

About Woodmansterne

Woodmansterne cards are leaders in their field and renowned as the UK’s leading publisher and manufacturer of greeting cards.

Recently featured on the BBC’s – “Inside the factory.” Woodmansterne are a third generation, card company and the foremost supplier of greeting cards to independent retailers in Britain through their printing site in Watford and distribution centre in Milton Keynes. Supplying around 30 million cards a year, they are one of the UK’s leading greeting cards manufacturers. The Greeting card market in the United Kingdom is worth GBP1.7billion with the purchase of 900 million cards at Christmas time alone. To meet this demand Woodmansterne offers a range of nearly 3,000 distinctive designs to retailers throughout the United Kingdom.

Initial Situation

COSTLY AND UNRELIABLE LEGACY SOFTWARE LACKED FLEXIBILITY

Up until 2020 Woodmansterne were reliant on technology that was difficult to maintain and inflexible to their requirements to onboard new partners and services. In addition, the software was tied into a vendors Value Added Network (VAN) which provided limited options for communicating with their customers and added data charges. Woodmansterne needed an alternative to their existing EDI solution but had to ensure their new software was compatible with their supply chain partners.

The Objective

FINDING A STREAMLINED AUTOMATED SYSTEM THAT COVERED THE ENTIRE BUSINESS MODEL

Woodmansterne needed an intelligent automated system that would streamline the delivery of their Orders and Invoices to their partners. The system needed to be flexible, adapting to the ongoing demands of their expanding business. In addition, it needed to provide status monitoring with adaptable mapping for the onboarding of new partners without high maintenance costs and constant updates required.

Solution

COLIANCE INTRODUCED A NEW SYSTEM THAT INSURED AGAINST OUTAGES AND SECURED WOODMANSTERNE’S REPUTATION AS A RELIABLE VENDOR.

Woodmansterne engaged Coliance who were already providing maintenance to their existing solution. Coliance proposed that Woodmansterne did not need to purchase new software but could effectively move to Coliance’s Managed Service called Agora.

Key Benefits

Woodmansterne staff no longer waste important man hours maintaining an outdated legacy system. They are able to focus on new innovations to deliver their high quality product to customers.

  • Constant monitoring of the status of Orders
  • Alerts of failed orders
  • Detailed break-down of item failures
  • Automated replays of failed orders
  • Multiple built-in options for Communications transport such as AS/2, SFTP and VAN
  • Flexible mapping options for onboarding new partners or the creation of new documents.
  • Removal of costs of maintaining their own infrastructure and applying updates
  • Reliable, secure cloud-based solution

Key Figures

  • Constant monitoring of the status of Orders
  • Onboarding new partners is now done in hours instead of weeks
  • A five-fold reduction in their data charges
  • A 20% increase in productivity of their IT staff now released from time consuming maintenance and operational duties.

CONCLUSION AND TESTIMONIAL

Woodmansterne staff no longer waste important man hours maintaining an outdated legacy system. They are able to focus on new innovations to deliver their high quality product to customers.

“We have recently started using Coliance (previously we were with another vendor). I have worked with several EDI providers over the years, and Coliance have been the best and most reactive. They have been excellent at every step, and I cannot recommend them highly enough”

Vas Chrysostomou – Head of IT

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