Retained important large customer as a result of being able to invoice directly to their back-end system and receive orders electronically Cash flow improvement as faster and more accurate invoicing to customers means they are more likely to receive and process invoices in time for the next payment cycle Increased efficiency and accuracy as the problem of product code matching has now been removed as this is handled automatically by the business integrator Customer service personnel freed up to provide better service by automating the order entry and invoicing process Future-proofed business development as new data formats can simply be transformed to the existing standard.

 

OfficeMax urgently needed to integrate with its largest customer’s financial system. Without knowing exactly how this could be achieved, it did know the job called for a powerful and flexible solution that could integrate them electronically with the customer’s supply chain.

OfficeMax is a large US company that is Australasia’s market leader in the office products sector. In October 2000 OfficeMax acquired Blue Star Office Products, Whitcoulls Office Products and other well-established brands for office products, technology, furniture and packaging.

The challenge

Having grown to dominate Australasia’s office products sector, OfficeMax faced an urgent requirement from one of their largest customers. OfficeMax was to help this major client streamline their purchasing and invoicing processes.

To satisfy this requirement OfficeMax needed to integrate its own invoicing application with this customer’s Ariba cXML based system. It was also required to electronically process a significant number of invoices on a weekly basis. The next phase of the project was to include electronic ordering, again using the cXML format required by this customer.

OfficeMax recognised early on that tight integration with their clients was becoming a competitive necessity, particularly with its larger customers.

OfficeMax also wanted to invest in a solution that could grow to accommodate additional customers without requiring substantial development or IT expenditure.

What it needed was a system flexible enough to handle a range of customer formats and back-end systems – one that could be rapidly implemented and configured. The new solution needed to be scalable, fast and easy to use, with deployment in weeks not months.

The OrderWare solution

To meet its largest customer’s requirement quickly and easily, OfficeMax selected Fusion.

The key driver for this decision was Fusion’s advanced business integration capability in a very wide range of other formats. Other suppliers and customers could be added with little or no change to the system or IT overhead.

Due to timing and budgetary considerations it was important to OfficeMax that Fusion was delivered as a turnkey solution, needing no further investment or software components to work. This would eliminate the need for expensive customisation or overhead from the technical team.

An additional advantage was the fact Fusion is intelligent enough to manage the complexities of the customer’s B2B interface. Fusion manages the structure of inbound traffic to that interface, unbundling consolidated invoices so that client systems can process them efficiently, all the while maintaining the integrity of the original transaction on OfficeMax’s systems.

OfficeMax considers this project a significant success. Invoices and credit notes are sent to their largest customers at least weekly. And electronic orders from these customers are accepted and processed in real time.

Technical summary

Fusion runs on a workstation class machine. Email is used to exchange XML documents with customers using the Ariba cXML standard.