Thanks to EDI, No Fairytales can invest time and resources in optimization

At the beginning of 2023, scale-up No Fairytales chose Descartes’ EDI to automate the ordering process. The customer base – retailers in the Netherlands and Belgium – required communication via EDI. Meanwhile, the entire process with orders, invoices and DESADV runs via EDI. This frees up time to further optimize the supply chain.

“Thanks to the use of EDI from Descartes in our order process, everything now runs faster and more efficiently. At No Fairytales we are convinced that we have chosen a future-oriented solution that supports our growth.”

Pieter Verspeek, Supply Chain Manager

As a startup with a small team, the entire ordering process from orders to invoicing was initially carried out manually. Over time, market momentum created a need for automation. No Fairytales wanted to become a supplier to major retailers. In order to achieve this, as a company you must meet the requirement of retailers to send orders and invoices with EDI. That is why No Fairytales made the choice to set up an EDI connection with their customers. The goal was to automate all manual messaging of all customers via EDI.

Pieter Verspeek, Supply Chain Manager says: “After issuing a tender, Descartes was chosen because of the combination of expertise, the Descartes Global Logistics Network™ (Descartes GLN™) with thousands of international trading partners and the cost structure. At No Fairytales we are convinced that we have obtained a future-oriented solution.”

The team got to work and in a few months all order traffic from approximately all customers was set up via EDI (orders, invoices and DESADV messages). In addition, No Fairytales has also made a connection with a distributor who receives their orders via EDI and then sends the orders to customers. The distributor can now also send the DESADV directly to the customers via EDI.

Slightly later than the EDI project, No Fairytales chose to start a Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) process. This went quickly and flexibly thanks to the knowledge gained from the EDI implementation. “Setting up the VMI process was crucial to becoming a supplier to our largest customer, so this step was of great importance to us. The impact of this transition is that we can work so more efficiently: we have been able to outsource the management of the VMI flow to our distributor, which gives us more time for further optimization of our supply chain,” says Pieter Verspeek.

The introduction of EDI into business processes has been important to reduce manual work and have more control, but also to enable company growth. In addition, there is of course the time savings thanks to automation, which in turn allows the organization to focus on other aspects of the business.

No Fairytales is very pleased with the collaboration with Descartes: everything went smoothly in terms of timing and expertise, both on the coordination side of the tender and on the implementation process.

Regarding the evolution of the EDI usage, Pieter Verspeek says: “There is no immediate growth in messaging in sight in the coming months, but thanks to the connection via EDI, No Fairytales now has more room to look at other optimization projects such as outsourcing logistics to other parties and thus improve efficiency.”

Greater flexibility - Thanks to EDI there is room for further process optimization.

More efficient processes - The order process is faster and more efficient thanks to automation.

More focus on business-critical processes - By removing manual work, the focus can be on other aspects of business operations.

Strengthened market position - With EDI, No Fairytales has been able to profile itself as a retail supplier and growth is within reach, for example in other regions.