the challenge

manage pricing, promotions, VMI and information requests for all your national accounts

National accounts are demanding closer relationships with their trading partners. Increasingly, manufacturers in the beverage alcohol space are being asked to do the heavy lifting of gathering pricing and promotional information from their distributors that sell to the outlet level, cleaning the data and then sending this data to the chain headquarters electronically in the chain defined format.

These requests range from sending pricing data for inclusion in Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) programs to participating in global data synchronization (GDS) in order to manage and share detailed product information.

National Account sales teams need to be able to communicate new authorization, promotions and special instructions to their distributors in real time and get
information back on what was actually executed. This trend is expected to accelerate for all large national players, including the leading on-premise retail outlets.


the solution

connectivity to distributors and
national accounts

eSkye enables suppliers to simplify and automate the processing and communication of pricing and promotion information to national accounts for VMI and national account price synchronization. Using eSkye’s tools, suppliers can quickly setup and modify any new product, promotion, and distributor support information. They can then communicate those details through their supply channel for execution against the product or promotion down to the retail level. All of a supplier’s distributors and national accounts should and can be managed within one application.

 

 

 

the technology

eSkye’s National Account Manager Module

As part of eSkye’s eChannel Management Suite™ (eCMS™), the National Account Manager Module provides suppliers with a simple Web-based interface to manage all their pricing and promotion details. EDI and XML integration and transport capabilities allow this information to be immediately sent to the supplier’s national account sales organization or to their distributors responsible for executing promotions. Additionally, this information can be accessed by individual retail outlets. In the case of off-premise retailers, the specific SKU pricing at the outlet level can be communicated automatically to the retailer’s internal systems for the creation of shelf tags.

EDI

So what is EDI and how can eSkye help improve my national account business? The answer is simple, EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is a widely-used technology for the automated exchange of documents between applications. It allows supply chain partners to exchange purchase orders, invoices and advance ship notices (see detailed list below) directly from one business system to the other, without human intervention. Proven advantages are fewer errors, lower administrative costs and faster order-to-cash cycles.

eSkye’s NAM application provides an easy and reliable solution to met your pricing and promotion needs via the latest in EDI technology. eSkye has been using EDI technology in our applications since 2001 and we continue to be on the cutting edge of newer technologies and formats. eSkye currently supports all X12 5010 transaction sets including:

  • 810 - Invoices
  • 824 – Application Advice Message
  • 832 – Product Catalog
  • 997 – Functional Acknowledgements
  • 850 – PO Process
  • 855 – PO Acknowledgement
  • 856 – Advance Ship Notice
  • 860 – Buyer PO Change Order Notification
  • 865 – Supplier PO Change Order Notification
   
 

 
copyright eSkye Solutions 2005