About SPS Commerce

Today’s retailers have already driven down costs across their organizations. The next step is to look beyond their walls and identify new initiatives that they can implement by teaming with their trading partners. In this podcast supply chain expert, Jim Frome, shares how vendor scorecarding and collaboration are being used to identify a current performance and establishing a plan to improve the relationship over time.

In this podcast, SPS’ David Verette discusses the growth in direct-to-consumer or drop-ship fulfillment models that enable retailers to expand their product assortment without adding inventory. Whether a vendor wants to sell its product through a traditional retailer’s ecommerce site or partner with an e-tailer, they must meet certain visibility and electronic trading requirements. You’ll hear insight into how to easily meet these requirements using SaaS solutions like SPS’ carrier portal and trading partner directory.

SPS Commerce's Chief Strategy Officer, Jim Frome, shares his top three predictions of how retailers, suppliers, distributors, logistics companies and others in the retail supply chain will achieve new efficiencies and cost savings in 2011. He details how these organizations are advancing their e-commerce strategies, rethinking their transportation spend, and more.

In this podcast Mike Gray, Chief Operating Officer at SPS Commerce, defines the cloud and discusses how to leverage today’s internet accessible applications. He explores the differences and uses of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS applications and offers advice for supply chain executives looking at cloud computing applications. Specifically he addresses the importance of selecting the right cloud computing provider based on their technology, security, company viability, performance and customer service. Read Mr. Gray’s related ZDNet article on cloud computing.

 

SPS Commerce’s Scott Bolduc shares how an increasing number of retailers are taking control of their shipping costs by managing their freight routing, a function traditionally performed by their vendors. Retailers are using the latest logistics EDI transactions, namely the EDI 753 and EDI 754 transactions, with their in-house Transportation Management System (TMS) or with their 3PL to build loads more efficiently to their distribution centers and/or stores and lowering their shipping costs. During this podcast, Mr. Bolduc discusses this trend in the retail supply chain and gives examples of retailers using the logistics EDI transactions leveraging an on-demand EDI service with their suppliers and 3PLs.

 

Retailers and suppliers alike can reap the value of cloud computing in their supply chains, while leveraging and/or migrating their existing on-premise systems. As a provider of cloud services, SPS Commerce is seeing a rise in its implementations of its EDI and supply chain applications with pure play cloud computing ERP systems, such as NetSuite, as well as other ERP solutions such as SAP and Microsoft Dynamics that are adopting more cloud-oriented capabilities. SPS’ Jim Kieley discusses the value of cloud services in the supply chain; how organizations can move applications, such as EDI, to the cloud; and the critical questions organizations should be asking of their cloud application providers.

 

Retailers and suppliers alike can reap the value of cloud computing in their supply chains, while leveraging and/or migrating their existing on-premise systems. As a provider of cloud services, SPS Commerce is seeing a rise in its implementations of its EDI and supply chain applications with pure play cloud computing ERP systems, such as NetSuite, as well as other ERP solutions such as SAP and Microsoft Dynamics that are adopting more cloud-oriented capabilities. SPS’ Jim Kieley discusses the value of cloud services in the supply chain; how organizations can move applications, such as EDI, to the cloud; and the critical questions organizations should be asking of their cloud application providers.

 

Today’s manufacturers are looking inside their warehouses for new ways to create agility and provide value to the bottom line. Warehouse managers are tasked with complying with increasingly complex retail requirements for order fulfillment, including packing guidelines. In this podcast, Eric Chaffee, SPS Commerce’s Director of Product Management, discusses how suppliers are addressing these challenges, with streamlined order fulfillment processes for their retail customers and more efficient picking and packing operations. Mr. Chaffee also shares how organizations such as Roxbury Technologies are using SPS’ Scan and Pack service to achieve better results from their warehouse.

 

Vendor scorecarding is becoming more prevalent in today’s retail supply chains. In this podcast, Jim Frome shares how retailers and suppliers are using scorecards to improve their margins and reduce the amount of inventory each must carry. By first understanding the baseline performance of the supply chain by product and by vendor, merchandisers and suppliers can co-develop plans to improve performance. The end goal for all trading partners is to reduce the amount of inventory they carry without worrying about losing sales. Mr. Frome explores how to measure key performance indicators (KPI), such as fill rates and on-time deliveries, capture the information needed from the retailer's or supplier's systems to monitor and analyze these KPIs, and leverage today’s vendor scorecarding tools to build collaboration and trust within the supply chain.

 

Today’s CPG suppliers are finding that POS data can improve their purchasing and inventory carrying decisions. In this podcast, Mr. Novak speaks to this growing trend in retail and how vendors can advance their existing demand planning process by synchronizing POS data from their numerous retail customers and integrating it into their existing Oracle, SAP or other demand planning system. The result is more timely information and an improved demand plan.

 

As retailers and suppliers minimize inventories across the supply chain, one input that is increasing in use is retailers’ Point-of-Sale data that can be used by consumer goods organizations’ sales and supply chain departments to improve their decision making.

In this podcast, David Novak shares how this type of supply chain intelligence can improve an organization’s visibility to inventory across multiple retail customers. SPS’ Trading Partner Intelligence collects POS data across retailers and provides an aggregated view by location, item and more. This information is especially useful to sales departments during new product introductions, as well as those managing seasonal items or items with a high cost of return goods.

 

In the past year, the adoption of the Advance Ship Notice (ASN) by grocers and their supply chains grew. In this podcast, SPS’ Jim Frome explores the market condition driving this growth, the advantages the ASN provides to the grocery retailer, and tips on how to successfully roll out the ASN to a vendor community.

While the grocery industry has typically lagged behind other retail sectors in its use of the ASN, this market segment is catching up quickly due to advanced technology and competitive pressure. The good news for grocers is that most of their suppliers are now equipped with EDI systems that can create and deliver an ASN, a dramatic shift from a few years ago, and many are already doing ASNs with customers in another retail segment.

 

Retail expert, David Verette from SPS Commerce, explores how hundreds of retailers are effectively providing Point-of-Sale (POS) data to their vendors through third-party hosted analytic services. Compared to retailer portals, these SaaS services provide vendors with a more comprehensive view of their supply chain across multiple retail customers, and retailers can provide the same information to vendors at lower cost. Today's vendors are proactively looking for these types of solutions to effectively use their retail customers’ POS data to improve their vendor performance.

 

Jim Frome, SPS' Chief Strategy Officer, shares why today's retailers and suppliers expect their international trading partners, including sourcing companies and factories, to deliver the same level of visibility and information on import orders as those fulfilled domestically. This podcast discusses how companies can quickly and cost-effectively achieve this level of B2B integration using today’s SaaS solutions. Suppliers can now connect with global partners in Asia with ease, with EDI services that address the unique needs of global data integration, including data filtering, document forwarding and security.

 

David Novak, SPS' Executive Vice President of Business Development, shares how today's 3PLs can better position themselves to acquire new business by leveraging Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or outsourced supply chain services to broaden their offerings. SaaS solutions, such as EDI, provide also proven capabilities at predictable costs to ensure that logistics providers can extend a competitive bid while still ensuring a profit.

 

SPS' Chief Strategy Officer, Jim Frome, explores why dozens of retailers are choosing to launch vendor enablement programs during this down economy. Retailers need to make their supply chains more efficient by better connecting with their trading partners. Unfortunately, these programs are not easy to execute internally so many look to SaaS providers, like SPS, to manage it on their behalf using their trained staff, proven best practices, and existing relationships with numerous suppliers.

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SPS' President and CEO, Archie Black, discusses the company's recent growth and why SaaS services are so attractive to retailers in today's down economy. Today's retailers are realizing the efficiencies SPS' services provide today and in the future as they respond to market changes when the economy turns.