Read how Ambu effectively streamlined onboarding, created visibility for EDI support, reduced manual labor & errors.
EDI mapping sounds easy enough. But the swift growth of a B2B network can make onboarding diverse trading partners even more complex for already busy integration teams. After setting their sights on aggressive expansion - Danish healthcare company, Ambu began product export to distribution partners across over 20 additional countries. This breadth of growth came with an increasingly complex network of global suppliers, customers – and the need to be technically compliant with each one of them. So, they turned to Link.
Along with a new roster of clients in the single-use medical device industry, came the heft of new business expectations. As Ambu evolved as a company, their teams understood they needed a solution robust enough to handle their growth, and flexible enough to meet the needs of international customers and suppliers.
After planning to onboard new partners in several of the most competitive markets worldwide, including Germany, Spain, and the UK – came the task of setting them all up in Link. Before that, Ambu’s technical teams had to define the formats each partner would use to trade globally as well as build mappings to transmit data. Already well-versed in the pros and pitfalls of EDI implementation, the teams decided to take on a different approach to developing EDI mappings - unlocking rapid onboarding capabilities.
“We wanted to move away from our previous platform after seeing a potential in Link to do all our mappings internally – which means quicker deliveries. EDI setup with partners normally takes such a long time, we knew we had to streamline that process. Link allowed us to do that which is a huge benefit for Ambu right now.” – Jannik Grube, EDI Manager, Ambu
Ambu’s teams were faced with potentially having to redevelop and rebuild all their mappings in a brand-new system - which is usual when migrating to a new EDI platform. Instead, they were able to reuse their existing mappings in Link – ultimately moving away from a platform where mappings were only visible on the solutions’ back end - to achieving full visibility for EDI support teams and front-line staff.
With all Spain-based partners successfully setup in Link, the Ambu teams have set their sights on full B2B integration with their global trading partners in Italy, Germany, France, the UK, and the US.
After setting up customized error messages as well as a data group structure to fit the validation processes of each respective country, Ambu teams can now define which global trading partners are able to view and influence specific data sets and transactions.
“So far, we’ve seen a huge decrease in the amount of manual labor needed to support our partners and we have much more clean data to work with. Another benefit is seeing the number of errors we had with our previous solution dropping significantly. And even the types of errors we get now, people working in our sales territories can solve them independently.” says Jannik Grube
Ambu’s teams are now working on optimizing the way they use Link to process data needed for different sales territories as well on building a custom portfolio of implementation guides for trading partners– outlining the different formats Ambu can now use to transmit data and do business. “Because of Link, we’re ultimately more prepared to do business around the world and continue helping people with our products.” – Jannik Grube