Building the Foundation

It's no secret that consumer goods firms can maintain good relationships with its retailers and distributors through a smooth flow of communication. In light of recent UCCnet standards, however, many companies are now scrambling to adapt their foundation in EDI to emerging technologies based on extensible markup language (XML). To maintain an ongoing and productive business, companies are re-evaluating procedures for synchronizing data with customers who have had experiences ordering in the wrong quantities, stacking patterns and prices -- all of which stem from data laced with obsolete information.

Balancing Act
Kimberly-Clark Corporation -- a $14 billion global consumer packaged goods company in the market with such eminent brands as Kleenex tissue and Huggies diapers -- found that it was performing a balancing act between its foundation in EDI and emerging technologies based on XML.

While EDI was the quickest way to get started with synchronizing data among its many retail business partners, it could not solve all of Kimberly-Clark's B2B challenges nor could it handle all of the new trading partner mandates.

A Growing Need
Getting products on retail shelves quickly and efficiently is of paramount importance. In order to maintain strong ties with retailers and other customers, Kimberly-Clark realized it needed to secure a rapidly deployable and dependable solution to handle EDI and XML side-by-side.

"A lot of our business is still conducted through EDI, so a complete switchover to XML wasn't practical or cost-effective," says Phil Nickolai, manager, e-business infrastructure, Kimberly-Clark. "The need was especially acute in the face of growing customer mandates regarding UCCnet XML standards and amid the steadily gaining influence of XML-based solutions"

Making a Switch
Although Kimberly-Clark had augmented its classic EDI network with Internet-based EDI (EDI-INT), numerous challenges remained.

"On the consumer supply chain side, we had an ongoing business need to do a more effective job of synchronizing data with our customers," says Nickolai.

"UCCnet opened up the door to industry-standardized synchronization and eliminated most of the traditional problems associated with incomplete or outdated product information, both now and in the long run," he says.

However, Nickolai says he wanted to continue to take full advantage of UCCnet by switching the company's communication vehicle from EDI to XML, which would require a dependable technology partner.

Gaining a Partner
Based on Kimberly-Clark's long and successful relationship with Sterling Commerce, and the promise of the company's suite of business integration solutions that could handle various formats, protocols and communication standards, Nickolai said his company made the decision to leverage its relationship to implement something that would meet the business and technology needs. With the application solution selected, Kimberly-Clark embarked upon an aggressive six-week course of implementation, which was delivered on time.

"Now that we have been successfully in production for a year, we see significant value in being among the first major companies to implement data synchronization through UCCnet via XML," says Nickolai. "The e-business team also is looking for Gentran Integration Suite to help move forward other collaborative processes, including the ability to generate and deliver CPFR (collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment) XML schemas requested by major retail hubs.

Realizing the Return
Nickolai believes the return on investment has already been realized and as the company moves closer to price and promotion issues, it will be able to more accurately measure the long-term ROI.

"In addition, we are benefiting from cleaner data and the ability to manage our own attributes and data behind the firewall rather than manually using Web-based interfaces," says Nickolai.

"Increased visibility enables Kimberly-Clark to work on our own processes to ensure internal agreement on field definitions, and to be sure any such agreements are in line with what our customers expect -- all while minimizing duplication of effort," he continues.

In addition to these internal processes, Kimberly-Clark has also bolstered customer relationships and boosted sales. At least two customers already have reported dramatic drops in product code errors. The system also has sped up the process for new product introductions, which drives additional sales and the pace with which any "hot new product" gets into all the right locations.

Looking Beyond Data Synch
Kimberly-Clark can now meet the data synchronization challenges head-on through UCCnet, but is still looking at how other industry initiatives can increase its competitive edge, including CPFR.

An increase in the flow of communication and synchronization allows the new product introduction phase to shorten, driving additional sales and keeping retailers happy. At the end of the day, this is what matters most to a consumer goods company.