Midlands Co-Operative Society selects Freeway Commerce to enhance e-commerce capabilities and efficiency of new back office system
Leading co-operative with over 170 food and non-food outlets to improve efficiency in its commercial relationships with its suppliers
 Freeway Commerce, an Inovis company, has been selected by Midlands Co-operative Society Ltd (Midlands Co-op), the largest regional society in the UK, to supply EDI solutions. Midlands Co-op is to use Freeway's Fully Managed EDI service, using their Spectrum Enterprise EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) software to enable faster and more accurate processing of orders, delivery notes and invoices. It is envisaged that this will lead to reduced errors and more accurate invoice matching and result in an enhanced level of service to its stores and customers.
Following an extensive review of the market, Freeway's solution was chosen over competitive offerings for its flexibility, ability to integrate with its new Aldata G.O.L.D. system and its value for money. Freeway scored 100% on all of the Society's selection criteria. Midlands Co-op chose a three year deal, including a fully-managed implementation and roll-out to its entire supplier base, using both EDI messaging and Web Forms as an on-line solution for smaller or more occasional suppliers.
The solution is hosted and managed off-site by Freeway, an important consideration for the Society. This means Midlands Co-op does not have to concern itself with managing the e-commerce platform, whilst benefiting from the automation of the full purchase to pay (p2p) processes, especially when implementing automatic Purchase Invoice Matching (PIM). The solution is fully scalable, allowing visibility of the supply chain documents throughout Midland Co-op's various departments, with reporting built in that will provide management information on the progress of the roll-out.
The new e-commerce solution will save the society considerable manual time, effort and cost by eliminating errors in re-keying order, delivery and invoice information. By providing web and EDI options for suppliers, Midlands Co-op will be able to insist that all suppliers trade electronically with them, helping them to achieve near 100% compliance with their entire supplier base.
Paul Kaye, Sales Director at Freeway Commerce commented: "We are delighted to be managing Midlands Co-op's system and roll-out project. As the largest regional Co-operative in the UK, their choice demonstrates the attractiveness of our managed service to the marketplace. We know our proven approach makes customers' lives easier. There are still retailers yet to fully embrace electronic trading, and with the latest technology there are greater opportunities to reduce costs."
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