"EDI must not be seen as a black box. In order for B2B integration to be successful, specialist departments must have full EDI visibility within SAP."
Brau Union Österreich sells over 5 million hectolitres of beer in a year. This includes fifteen internationally renowned beer brands (such as Heineken, Desperados and Gösser), over a hundred beer varieties and 2,700 employees throughout Austria who supply beer to 49,000 customers and millions of beer lovers throughout the country. Over the years Brau Union has not only displayed a commitment to using the best raw materials, but also a willingness to embrace innovation… and it was this that prompted them to contact ecosio concerning improving their B2B integration processes.
For a brewery company of Brau Union’s size, the ability to exchange automated messages with supply chain partners is critical. It is also important that specialist departments can identify and resolve errors directly, without having to go through IT. ecosio’s EDI as a Service solution, which is deeply integrated into Brau Union’s SAP system, offers a future-proof, scalable and hassle-free solution. With this system in place, message exchange is not only faster, but also simpler and more transparent.
EDI AS A SERVICE:
A FUTURE-PROOF SOLUTION WITHIN YOUR EXISTING SAP SYSTEM
THE STARTING POINT
Prior to implementing EDI as a Service with ecosio, Brau Union was using a local converter for message conversion and a routing service provider for message transmission. To be prepared for the expansion of their EDI landscape, Brau Union wanted to upgrade their EDI solution. Specifically, they wanted a solution offering full end-to-end message visibility, as this would enable error sources to be identified immediately and correction times to be drastically reduced. As a supplier for all major retail chains, Brau Union also wanted to be able to react immediately to change requests and onboardings, etc. in order to keep customer satisfaction high. ecosio was able to help satisfy these desires through a combination of industry-leading technology, dedicated support, and flexible implementation.
THE MISSION? DEEP INTEGRATION
Brau Union was attracted by the prospect of integrating ecosio’s powerful EDI solution within their existing SAP system, as this approach would allow specialist departments to react to and resolve issues quickly, without having to go through IT. Instead of having multiple monitoring interfaces in SAP, in the EDI converter and in the EDI network, users now benefit from a single, central monitoring interface within their familiar SAP user interface.
0
VAN OR X.400 BOXES REQUIRED
1
CONNECTION TO ECOSIO: ALL EDI REQUIREMENTS COVERED
35%
TIME SAVINGS FOR BRAU UNION COMPARED TO PREVIOUS SOLUTION
KEY FACTORS
- Relief for IT – all EDI processes can be tracked directly by the specialist department in the ERP
- Independent problem-solving (e.g. resending messages) can be handled directly by the relevant department
- Full-text search possible across all documents and protocol metadata (file names, message IDs, etc.)
- Full visibility of the status of all exchanged messages in SAP in real time
FULL EDI CONTROL WITHIN SAP
One of the major reasons behind the migration project’s success is the popularity of the new system with the specialist departments, who particularly appreciated the many simple self-service functionalities. In Brau Union’s new solution not only are users able to see the message statuses in real time within their familiar SAP interface, they can also find specific EDI messages much more easily thanks to full-text functionality across all documents and protocol metadata.
RELIEF FOR INTERNAL TEAMS
With EDI as a Service, ecosio takes care of the entire coordination of the EDI project as well as the onboarding of all partners (with ecosio’s integration engineers updating Brau Union’s contact people throughout). During the course of the project, 50 EDI partners were taken over. This included not only classic processes such as orders, delivery notes and invoices, but also more specialised connections, such as the connection of a weighbridge. In addition to the migration of existing EDI partners, new partners are also connected on an ongoing basis.
SUCCESS STORIES
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