Hubo realizes digitization and process optimization with suppliers thanks to EDI

Hubo has long opted for EDI from Descartes in order to remove manual work from the stores when processing orders. Their suppliers can choose integrated EDI or Go-webEDI, depending on the size of the company and the number of messages. Hubo creates a win-win for both suppliers and the retailer itself.

“The most important message in the process is that it is a win-win situation. It is a measure of investment, but once that investment has been made, it is about efficiency gains throughout the chain and on both sides. The supplier can deliver his products more quickly due to the fast communication, invoicing is faster, the transaction costs are lower, and so on.”

Stefan Draulans, CIO at Hubo

EDI has been the standard in retail for years. Hubo also found that EDI delivered a number of benefits for both the retailer itself and the suppliers. That is why Hubo wanted to go one step further to remove manual work from the stores and from the suppliers. The company wanted to encourage even more suppliers to use EDI to automate mutual communication. Descartes was approached for this project because of the good collaboration that had existed for years.

Hubo uses EDI for the processing of orders, shipping notes, invoices, return requests and payment advice.

In 2021, Descartes and Hubo set up a campaign to help the retailer inform suppliers. Through a tailor-made landing page, trading partners could follow a webinar and find the necessary information about EDI and the benefits for their operations. This resulted in a good number of connections for Go-webEDI, which is a good stepping stone to automation for companies that have little experience with it. In addition, a number of (larger) companies immediately opted for integrated EDI as a result.

“Currently, about 250 suppliers already use EDI. The intention is to also convert the remaining trading partners as much as possible. For the larger companies, EDI is also imposed on the purchasing side to speed up the processing at Hubo on the one hand and to achieve efficiency and avoid delays at the supplier’s side on the other hand,” says Stefan Draulans, CIO.

In the context of the webshop and especially for smaller suppliers, switching to Go-webEDI is an accessible option. “The certainty that everything is processed correctly and that there is no risk that an email will not be delivered or end up in the spam folder is a strong argument for trading partners to switch to Go-webEDI”, according to Leslie Laureyssens, EDI Coordinator .

“The most important message is that it is a win-win situation. It is a measure of investment, but once that investment has been made, it is about efficiency gains throughout the chain and on both sides. The supplier can deliver his products more quickly due to the fast communication, invoicing is faster, the transaction costs are lower and so on,” explains Stefan Draulans.

The cooperation with short response times is one of the reasons why Hubo chose Descartes instead of the previous partner to convert suppliers to a web-based EDI. “We have been a long-time customer of Descartes and are pleased with the way we work together. Moreover, it is a stable environment where outages and problems are minimal,” says Stefan Draulans.

In the future, other messages such as return instructions and status messages will be considered. In addition, a lot of attention continues to be paid to onboarding new suppliers. Partly because the market is evolving rapidly due to mergers, acquisitions, etc., and changes in ERPs on the supplier side, suppliers sometimes have to go through the onboarding process again. It remains a full-time occupation for the EDI Coordinator.

Process optimization - the order-to-cash and procure-to-pay processes are much more efficient.

Time savings - the entire ordering process takes considerably less time.

Increased efficiency - both Hubo and suppliers are gaining efficiency throughout the supply chain.

Lower error rate - eliminating manual interventions reduces errors.