Cactus Commerce flattens the supply chain and connects Sony with its mid-tier dealers

Company Brief

Sony of Canada Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation, Japan, a world leader in the manufacture and marketing of electronic and computer products for consumer, business, electronic publishing and multimedia applications, on a global scale. The company has offices in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, with major distribution centres in Coquitlam, B.C., and Whitby, Ontario, and operates a network of 70 company-owned The Sony store/Maison Sony stores across Canada. Sony factory service centres are located in each office, with Authorized Service Depots in major centres across Canada.

Critical Issue

Sony Canada has effectively managed the electronic exchange of information with Tier 1 clients via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), and Tier 3 clients via an Extranet Web Storefront. Sony wanted to work more efficiently with its mid-tier dealers, to reduce the cost of sales and flatten the supply chain. Sony's long term goals were to move from a 'push' sales model to more of a 'pull' sales model which would include automating transactions through their dealers to receive Purchase Orders (PO), obtain sell-through data (POS results) and inventory information and transmit to the dealers PO validations (either acceptance or rejections with reasons), invoices. Also as part of the 'pull' sales model, Sony was interested in Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) for those clients whose sales constituted of at least 60% of Sony brand products.

Cactus Solution

To meet Sony's need for a cost-effective way to connect electronically with its mid-tier dealers, the Cactus/PwC Consulting team proposed SoftFusion™. SoftFusion provides an architecture that is based on Microsoft's BizTalk Server 2002 (BTS) and open standards such as XML and HTTP. In this scenario, BizTalk Server played the following three roles within Sony's firewall:

• Act as an XML-based messaging infrastructure
• Provide enterprise application integration (EAI) with Sony's SAP systems
• Implement the business logic and process flow required to support
the B2B connectivity and the EAI connectivity in a sustainable architecture

Solution Benefits

The BizTalk™ Adapter for SAP provided the integration mechanism between Sony's BTS gateway and Sony's SAP systems.

The Adapter also provided the mechanism to automatically discover the specific IDOC formats in a particular SAP implementation, and then automate the transformation of those IDOCs to and from XML. It allowed for the implementation of a generic and extensible interface between BTS and SAP.

Results

The system was implemented on time and on budget. Five mid-tier dealers were connected to Sony as part of the project and have been submitting their POs via this mechanism since mid-October. Sony predicts that this system will enable them to improve customer satisfaction while reducing the cost of taking and managing orders.

Who is Cactus Commerce

Cactus Commerce is an e-business software and services provider dedicated to helping companies bring more efficiency to their complex business processes with integrated B2B solutions that lay the foundation for the move towards RFID. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Cactus develops and delivers rapidly deployed, cost-effective and extensible TPI, GDS and RFID software solutions. Cactus complements its packaged software offerings with an array of professional services and unique industry expertise, enabling companies to take full advantage of their existing and future technology investments.

Cactus Commerce
35 Gamelin • Gatineau • QC • Canada • J8Y 1V4
T 819.778.0313 • 888.CACTUS.0 • F 819.778.6008

© 2005 Cactus Commerce Inc. All rights reserved. Cactus Commerce and “e-business. All business.” are trademarks of Cactus Commerce Inc.; Microsoft, Windows, and BizTalk are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other product and company names herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Version française disponible sur demande.

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