The Perfect Blend
More so than large enterprises, midmarket companies continually suffer from the use of disconnected applications and systems throughout their enterprises and with trading partners. Without integration, customer data is replicated in multiple locations, creating unavoidable errors and omissions. Inventory status is often several days behind actual stock levels, which often leads to missed sales opportunities and delivery commitments that can't be met. In addition, productivity is reduced because employees must spend valuable time manually keying in redundant data.
NEED FOR INTEGRATION
Touting an impressive 160-year history procuring and blending teas, the Harris Tea Company is one of the largest blenders and packers of private label teas in North America with three production facilities in California, Georgia and New Jersey. The company also has a production facility in Kolkata, India. Harris Tea Company is driven by two principles: offer quality products and deliver strong customer support with impeccable responsiveness.
Touting an impressive 160-year history procuring and blending teas, the Harris Tea Company is one of the largest blenders and packers of private label teas in North America with three production facilities in California, Georgia and New Jersey. The company also has a production facility in Kolkata, India. Harris Tea Company is driven by two principles: offer quality products and deliver strong customer support with impeccable responsiveness.
But as sales grew over the years, Harris Tea Company's legacy and commercial applications were inhibiting its ability to efficiently process the orders it received from stores around the country--a common case for midmarket companies. For example, a 2006 Aberdeen survey showed more than 60 percent of respondents described their current supply chain processes as manual, spreadsheet-intensive and only partially automated.
In addition to improving communication with customers, Harris Tea Company also needed to streamline internal communications among its several facilities. The goal was to equip both management and the customer support team with accurate and real-time information regarding the status of customer orders and the inventory of products available in warehouses.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
With a desire to move information seamlessly throughout the enterprise, the logical next step for Harris Tea Company was to find an integration software company that could connect all of its applications to create a constant and reliable flow of information. Harris Tea Company wanted to ensure that any company interested in doing business with it could do so easily, regardless of its format for submitting orders. The integration software therefore needed to work with multiple data formats, including EDI, XML, HTML, flat files, among others.
With a desire to move information seamlessly throughout the enterprise, the logical next step for Harris Tea Company was to find an integration software company that could connect all of its applications to create a constant and reliable flow of information. Harris Tea Company wanted to ensure that any company interested in doing business with it could do so easily, regardless of its format for submitting orders. The integration software therefore needed to work with multiple data formats, including EDI, XML, HTML, flat files, among others.
After researching and evaluating the wide range of integration vendors, Harris Tea Company chose to partner with Boomi Software, primarily due to Boomi Software's experience in manufacturing integration. Other reasons for selecting Boomi Software included its demonstrated commitment to customer service and the product's ease of use and rich feature set.
Harris Tea Company quickly and easily deployed the Boomi Integration Platform and integrated the company's internal and external supply chains. The Boomi platform provided two benefits:
- All Harris Tea facilities could now communicate in real time.
- Harris Tea could now interact with its retail partners through whichever format the retailer's ordering system required.
STEEPED IN QUALITY
Today, using the Boomi Integration Platform, Harris Tea Company's procurement processes are faster and easier, customer service is more effective and the company as a whole is more productive.
Today, using the Boomi Integration Platform, Harris Tea Company's procurement processes are faster and easier, customer service is more effective and the company as a whole is more productive.
"Boomi delivered," says Meetesh Shah, chief information officer for Harris Tea Company. "Their product worked as advertised and their customer support team was exceptional. Because the product was easy to deploy and use, not only did we not need additional development help, we immediately began evaluating bigger and better ways to use their integration platform."
Now customers can submit orders in whatever format their ordering system generates. The orders are translated from X12 EDI to user defined formats and inputted into Harris Tea Company's ERP and warehouse management systems. This information can then be shared with the other applications used throughout the business, regardless of the data format. Customer service representatives can view an order immediately in the same system that tracks inventory levels.
"The true value of Boomi Software's integration offering is the visibility it provides. Within minutes of orders being received or products being shipped, we know where the customer order stands. This information is critical for Harris Tea, our vendors and retailers," says Ram Gangupanthulu, senior systems analyst for Harris Tea Company.
Harris Tea and its customers have constant visibility into which shipments are moving in and out of their facilities without spending long hours manually entering lot numbers into systems. Insight into the status of goods helps Harris properly plan how and when to produce, store and ship goods. Once an order is shipped, the integration system generates an EDI shipment statement for the ERP system.
"Our integration costs are down and our productivity is up," continues Gangupanthulu. "We communicate better with our suppliers and vendors, and management has a constant picture of inventory levels versus orders. Boomi Software's integration offering has given us a competitive advantage in a very competitive market." CG