Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
Initially, there was no documentation in place, and we'd done a lot of customization for every partner. Liaison Technologies helped us get to a more standard model across the board. Even though people think that EDI is a standard process, it's really not. There is a lot of customization that goes into it, and we were able to get rid of some of it with Liaison Technologies' help.
We had around 40 projects for EDI 820 setups. Due to a process change recommended by Liaison Technologies, we no longer had to set those up. We were able to knock 40 projects off the queue in the span of a day.
We have decided to purchase their Liaison Athena solution in order to onboard our transportation and logistics carriers. Planning a futuristic look, we plan to use this solution in order to onboard all of the co-packers used in our production. The ultimate goal is to become fully electronic, and we wouldn't have been able to do this without Liaison Technologies' help.
How did Liaison Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?
Our project manager from Liaison Technologies did a very good job and was generally knowledgeable, so much so that we've requested to keep him on additionally.
What did you find most impressive about Liaison Technologies?
Having access to the LENS tool was a game changer for us. Our accounts payable or any other department in our business who wants access to EDI transactions or documents can do so without us having to dig through documents. We can simply set them up with an account, and because the information comes in a human-readable format, they don't have to worry about understanding the transactions and can simply look at an invoice as if it came in the mail. We've had savings around support labor.
Liaison Technologies has been able to support us within any issue that we've had. This has had a lot to do with our project manager pushing things for us.
Are there any areas Liaison Technologies could improve?
Because we didn't understand our environment after adding trading partners for a long time and not documenting the process, we gave Liaison Technologies the wrong number after getting a trading partner setup. As we dug into the project, we came to find out that the timeline was bigger than we initially said. Liaison Technologies had to pull in resources in order to help us meet deadlines.
At the same time, they were building maps for our company and were supposed to be testing them on their end, but some of that testing was missed. Nothing went to production, but we had to do some extra work after Liaison Technologies failed to make the tests. We called them out on it; Liaison Technologies accepted it, went back to the drawing boards, got additional resources, and fixed the problem. It hasn't happened again, and it's all in the past. There have been other little things here and there, but they were all typical project issues.
What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Liaison Technologies?
Clients need to make sure that they get their internal numbers correct before sending specs to Liaison Technologies. Quotes will be made on this, and if the client provides wrong information, Liaison Technologies can't be held accountable. We only have around 300+ trading partners, so we're not a huge partner by EDI standards, but still messed a number up.
Also, people should make sure that they, as a client, are driving the project instead of the supplier.
Liason Technologies is commended for reducing the time to on-board vendors and new clients by an entire week, which has made a major impact on the client's efficiency. Liason Technologies is recommended to enterprise clients.