A long-term solution that works
August Storck KG is in good hands thanks to ecosio’s routing and mapping experts
August Storck KG, founded in 1903, is a sweets manufacturer headquartered in Berlin with additional production sites in Germany. The company’s brands and products – including Nimm2, Merci, Toffifee, and many more – are known and loved in over 100 countries. Today, over 5,000 employees worldwide contribute to the success of Storck’s brands.
In 2012, after performing considerable market research, August Storck KG chose ecosio to be its EDI provider. ecosio was just introducing the new and highly innovative EDI platform ecosio Integration Hub to the market, and Storck made use of the many advantages of this modern and flexible infrastructure right from the beginning. Storck and ecosio have enjoyed an excellent business relationship ever since.
Flexible data exchange replaces paperwork
Jens Kriese, from August Storck KG’s department of business process technology & EDI processes, says: “Once a company reaches a certain size, optimizing electronic business processes is a must in order to ensure connection with business partners and service providers. Without EDI, you end up drowning in paper.”
Kriese: “That’s not the way business works anymore. The only way to guarantee quick and smooth delivery for our clients is by using EDI.”
“We used to have an X.400 connection with a different provider”, says Kriese, “It was expensive and prone to disruptions. Only a few partners were connected using AS2. ‘Missing data’ was a frequent occurrence with some of our European partners, and investigation with our old provider was cumbersome and rarely produced clear error reports.”
A partner company recommended ecosio, and when the offer promised savings compared with their current X.400 provider, Storck was interested.
Perfect routing with ecosio
Routing with ecosio means transmitting electronic data in any format to the ecosio Integration Hub – ecosio’s own cutting-edge development – and from there to other EDI partners. This means a company needs only ONE connection to reach ALL of its EDI partners. The connection to the ecosio Integration Hub can be made using SFTP, AS2, OFTP2, RESTful API or an EFEX-Client. EDI partners can be reached using any common protocol, including AS2, X.400, SFTP, OFTP2, IMAP/SMTP, Web Services or HTTPS. ecosio monitors EDI message exchange and ensures seamless, continuous connections between business partners. Storck uses AS2 to connect with the ecosio Integratiuon Hub, which it uses to reach all business partners in the X.400-network.
The successful conversion process
Marco Zapletal explains that configuration efforts at Storck were to be kept at a minimum, so as not to impede the converter changeover that was happening at the same time. Additionally, the conversion had to be implemented in various partner countries. Jens Kriese says, “We converted our X.400 partners ‘in packages’ according to country, which allowed us to inform our partners specifically about the conversion dates and coordinate internal controls. Ever since, data has been seamlessly transferred from ecosio to Storck using AS2.” In the meantime, Storck has transferred all incoming and outgoing EDI processes to AS2, and stopped using X.400 connections altogether. “Instead of an endless number of X.400 partners, we now have one single AS2 partner: ecosio – this significantly simplifies our monitoring. From our perspective, the conversion process – even with our international partners – was seamless!”
The ecosio Integration Hub includes real-time monitoring of the current status of all EDI exchange processes. Additionally, the ecosio Integration Hub offers an API interface that makes it possible to integrate complete end-to-end monitoring in a company’s system, and thus allows the company to maintain complete control of its EDI messages.
ecosio’s comprehensive package
Cooperation with ecosio brings a variety of advantages: in comparison with initial contracts with X.400, Editel, etc., Storck saves significantly on transmission costs. Upon request, suppliers can be directly connected. In case of network difficulties, there is only one partner to contact, and everything happens faster, easier, and more cost-effectively. Costs can be reduced by up to 40%. But Storck was also satisfied with ecosio’s service: “Since Marco Zapletal was our one central contact partner, we could communicate our wishes and requirements simply and directly. Reponses were always quick and precise.”
Today, almost four years into cooperation, the business relationship works as smoothly as ever. Jens Kriese explains why he is happy to recommend ecosio: