December 25, 2025 • 43 mins
Orders don’t move without clean data. We go deep with Jonathan Kish, SVP at Orderful, to reveal why EDI still runs global retail, where it quietly breaks omnichannel performance, and how modern teams can turn a tangle of maps and testing into a fast, reliable growth engine. From empty shelves to OTIF deductions, the symptoms are familiar; the root causes live in outdated mapping, slow retailer testing cycles, and inventory that never syncs across stores, marketplaces, and drop ship networks.
Jonathan explains how retailers standardize on EDI specs and why that foundation won’t vanish just because APIs are popular. He breaks down the documents that matter: 850s for POs, 856s for ASNs, 204/210 for freight, 810 for invoices, and 997 acknowledgments, and shows where small errors become big penalties. We explore the onboarding bottleneck that delays first purchase orders by months, plus the ripple effects on cash flow, vendor scorecards, and customer promise dates. Real case studies highlight how a single JSON-style integration and automated validations can migrate hundreds to thousands of partners in weeks, not quarters, without rewriting code per retailer.
We also look ahead. As agentic shopping grows and real-time inventory promises are made in chat, search, and social, the margin for data errors shrinks. Jonathan shares how AI-driven validation and captured testing “tribal knowledge” can compress EDI cycles from months to days, and eventually hours, while web-based EDI opens a simple path for smaller suppliers to trade without engineers or per-transaction fees. If you care about omnichannel reliability, faster vendor onboarding, and fewer chargebacks, this conversation is a practical blueprint for turning EDI from a drag into an advantage.
If this helped clarify your EDI strategy, follow the show, share it with your ops and IT teams, and leave a quick review so others can find it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:08):
I want to clarify that this podcast is distinct
from my responsibilities as aprofessor in the CMM Walton
College of Business.
Nonetheless, it aligns with myaspiration to provide practical
insights to professionals andbusiness by showcasing companies
and people that can enhance yourability to manage, lead, and
strategize and marketeffectively and the retail value
(00:30):
chain.
And now without further ado,let's get into the exciting
episode.
I have with me today JonathanKish.
He is senior vice president atOrderful.
And he has a tremendous uhexperience background in
logistics and technology.
(00:51):
But Orderful is solving a reallyimportant problem for many
industries.
But I was particularlyinterested because of its
relevance to omnichannelretailing.
And it's relevant not just toretailers, but also to suppliers
of retailers and carriers andother logistics types of service
(01:13):
providers.
So, Jonathan, thank you so muchfor taking time to be with me
today.
I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
Yeah.
We've known each other for acouple of years, Matt.
Great uh great to be a guest onthe podcast.
So, Jonathan, you know, um it'sreally interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (01:31):
Most people in the retail value chain, and I'm
saying that very broadly, aredependent on EDI, and yet most
of them, especially at verysenior levels, don't really know
what it is.
And now that they're trying toadapt to the omnichannel world,
whether they be a retailer or asupplier or a carrier or other
(01:55):
service provider, many times thesenior people aren't aware of
how much it's impeding theirsuccess in omni-channel
excellence.
And um, I know you know inNorthwest Arkansas, it's a
really big deal, uh, but I amalways surprised how many uh
teams I talk to that aren'taware of the importance of EDI
(02:16):
or even that it's occurringwithin their company.
So they don't know that that'swhat's slowing them down.
And one thing that's reallyinteresting about it, Jonathan
you know, uh Northwest Arkansas,of course, we have over 1,500
suppliers here, a lot ofcarriers, service providers.
And of course, Walmart.
Walmart has stated, you know,their purpose statement says
(02:37):
Walmart is a people-led,tech-powered, omni-channel
retailer dedicated to helpingpeople save money and live
better.
And it's really interesting.
So suppliers then have to reallyjoin into that purpose
statement.
And they don't realize in a lotof cases that their EDI, because
they're not aware of it, ishurting their ability to move
(03:01):
forward, both from a costperspective and from a on-time
delivery perspective, and frommany other uh perspectives.
So if you wouldn't mind justgiving a quick brief overview of
what EDI is before we get intowhat orderful does.
SPEAKER_00 (03:16):
Yeah, and it's it's funny.
I've I spent about 15 years onthe logistics e-commerce side
before I joined Orderful.
So the only thing I really knewdeeply about EDI was that it was
difficult.
Um having said that, it's it'sbeen around since the 1960s.
It was actually developed by theUS military as a way to send and
(03:38):
receive data.
But from uh from a holisticbackground, if you think about
the fact that every majorretailer in North America,
Europe, Asia is sending andreceiving data in three
different ways.
Uh, the first is still, believeit or not, asynchronous purchase
orders and carrier information.
It could be over email fax, etcetera.
(04:00):
The second is something that isobviously more modern, which is
APIs.
But the third, and that's wherewe specialize, is EDI
information that's sent betweenWalmart, Target, et cetera, and
their suppliers.
Uh and I was surprised to learnwhen I joined Ortiful that it's
uh it's a$15 billion industry inNorth America alone, and it's a
(04:20):
$50 billion industry globally.
And that's just on the softwareand people that are used to
power the transactions that gobetween said retailer and said
supplier.
But when you think about, andand you know Walmart, you know,
as good as anyone who doesn'twork there, there's probably,
you know, hundreds of millions,if not billions of dollars of
(04:43):
software and people that havebuilt up their supplier-buyer
network over decades.
But really, what's in a purchaseorder, what's in a shipment,
right?
You're talking about potentiallytrillions of dollars annually
that are sent and receivedbetween these retailers and
their suppliers uh over EDI.
So it's it's it's uh it's amassive way that folks trade.
(05:04):
Um, I would say it's somethingsuppliers like to run away from
instead of run towards.
SPEAKER_02 (05:10):
It's funny, I if you would have asked me back in the
90s, because when I had mysoftware company back in the
90s, I struggled with EDI aswell.
And um, you know, this was thetime that the World Wide Web
just came out, and um, you know,things were moving so fast.
(05:30):
And if you would have asked meback then, do you think EDI is
still gonna be a big problem,you know, in 30 years, I would
have said people won't know whatEDI is in 30 years.
So, you know, in a world of APIsand real-time platforms, why
does EDI still matter so much?
SPEAKER_00 (05:49):
Yeah.
I I get that question from themarket, from customers, etc.
If you first think about likewhat is an EDI requirement or an
EDI spec, it's specificallydesigned for one retailer and
their supplier community in avarious flow.
(06:09):
So take Target, for example.
They might have one EDI spec forprocure to pay.
But when it comes to freight topay on their transportation
side, that's going to be anentirely new requirement that's
set up by them for theircarriers to follow.
So think about that at oneretailer multiplied times every
(06:30):
single retailer.
And what I mean by that is whenpeople think why is EDI going to
be around or why is it not goingaway, it's because it would take
every major company that sendsand receives EDI data to decide
they're no longer going to dothat over the same time horizon.
(06:51):
And that's when I go back towhat I said earlier.
There are hundreds of millions,billions of dollars of software
and people that have gone intobuilding these transactions, but
there's trillions of dollarsthat is inside these EDI
transactions, and it representsa huge risk to make any changes
to the supply chains on theretail side.
SPEAKER_02 (07:13):
Boy, the military had no idea what they were
starting, did they?
Uh so so Jonathan, um, you know,what are some of the hidden ways
poorly constructed and managedor executed EDI shows up in the
omnichannel environment?
SPEAKER_00 (07:34):
Yeah, so let's first let's look at it from two
lenses.
First, on the on the retailside.
So how it shows up is you mighthave a network of hundreds,
thousands.
If you're one of the largestretailers, tens of thousands of
suppliers.
And your onboarding team can nolonger scale as you add new
(07:59):
trade, what we call tradingpartners every single year.
So the first way it shows up forthem is I have a team of 12
people to manage 2,000suppliers.
But as I add my 100th, 200th,300th supplier to that, I need
to continue to scale humanbeings to answer the testing
questions from my suppliers.
(08:20):
The second is, and this oneapplies both to the supplier and
the retailer, bad data showingup.
So everybody knows whatchargebacks are in Walmart.
They're known as OTIFs on theshipping side.
These are errors that can occurbecause supplier A is sending
invalid data on what theretailer is asking them to send.
(08:42):
And so, because of that, theretailer has to either mark up,
you know, their purchase orderto account for these predicted
uh chargebacks.
Or obviously for the supplierwhose margins are razor thin,
these are surprises that thatthey get at the end of a quarter
from their trading partnerbecause they didn't adhere to
what they were asking them toreceive.
(09:03):
And then the third, you know,piece that shows up is on the
supplier side specifically,especially for those brands that
are even, you know,billion-dollar brands who
started on the e-commerce sidebut are starting to add those
retail wholesale tradingpartners for the first time.
It's taking forever to stand upthose integrations.
(09:24):
So take Liquid Death, who's oneof our customers.
They obviously are a newer, youknow, a newer brand when it
comes to food and bev.
For them to stand up a newgrocer without order flow, it
was taking anywhere from eightto 20 weeks to go live.
And where that shows up is yoursales team, your account
(09:44):
management team has negotiated anew agreement with a retailer,
but you have to wait two, threequarters to receive that first
purchase order.
So it's cutting off thelifeblood of your business
because it's taking so longtechnically to get through
testing with the retailer.
Wow, that that's remarkable.
SPEAKER_02 (10:01):
You know, you and you think about it um from a
retailer's perspective too.
Um, you know, EDR often slowsdown their onboarding of
vendors, new vendors, theirability to draw uh communicate
from a drop ship perspective orto send inventory updates.
(10:24):
Um so would you mind discussingthat just a little bit and the
prevalence of that?
SPEAKER_00 (10:31):
Yeah, so if you if you think about, you know, a a
retailer, take uh take a Kohl's,for example.
So they have their 1P divisionwhere they're doing their
procure-to-pay uh for theirstores, but they also have a
drop shipping division on theirwebsite.
And obviously the folks who aredrop shipping for them have
(10:52):
their own 3 PLs that are usuallybeing uh used to fulfill the
goods on behalf of said supplierfor coals.
And so anywhere during that datathat's set and received, where
potentially the supplier doesn'tknow that this has to be said
and sent in pounds instead ofounces, that's an error that
(11:13):
could come up, A, in thechargeback like we said earlier,
or B, when it comes to inventorylevels.
If your 3PL as a supplier in thedrop shipping division doesn't
know exactly how many SKUs, howmany, what your inventory levels
are, you might accept a purchaseorder from a large retailer.
(11:33):
But then when somebody goes tobuy a good on your website, you
might not have the rightinventory levels.
So you're gonna have a poorcustomer experience, either with
your retail partner or with youronline buyer, because those that
information is not syncing inreal time.
And that's what having poordata, whether it be API, again,
those asynchronous orders or EDIreally comes into play and hurts
(11:56):
folks.
SPEAKER_02 (11:57):
I remember um, and I may get the number rolling here,
but when I first moved toNorthwest Arkansas, there was a
lot of um suppliers, especiallybig suppliers, engaged in uh
something called vendor-managedinventory, which was where uh
the supplier would monitor thewarehouse inventory levels.
(12:19):
And um then based on the currentinventory levels at their
customer, they would um theywould ship, make shipments, you
know, orders.
And um and I think it was the856 warehouse withdrawal that
they would look at, you know, tofigure out how much inventory is
(12:41):
left, because they knew how muchthey shipped in.
So I could see in that situationum how an 856 would be really
important warehouse withdrawals,but there's other uh EDI uh
transaction types that areimportant in Omni Channel.
What are some others?
SPEAKER_00 (13:01):
Well, the the lifeblood of a lot of businesses
is the 850, right?
And so that purchase orderthat's sent by the retailer to
the to the supplier is um that'sthat's the best document, I'm
sure, for most of our customers.
Um that's an important one.
The 810 on the on the freightside, the 204, the 210, right?
(13:21):
How carriers send and receiveloads and tenders to said
shipper retailer are also kindof lifeblood documents on that
side as well.
Um and then another big onethat's that's kind of not always
thought about is the functionalacknowledgement, right?
So uh I receive a purchaseorder, I have to tell the
retailer that this purchaseorder has been received by my
(13:44):
company, and that's uh the 997.
SPEAKER_02 (13:46):
And um, you know, thinking about this from a SaaS
platform perspective, yeah,where you're trying to deal with
lots of retailers, lots oflogistics connections,
suppliers, et cetera, et cetera.
Um, what's the experience likefor a SaaS platform trying to
support all that?
SPEAKER_00 (14:05):
That's a great question.
Um I mean, it's something I'vebeen working on with our with
our partners and customers overyou know the four years that
I've been here.
But if you think of if you thinkof a SaaS platform, they're
built on solving a specificproblem for a specific vertical.
Uh take a merge, right?
(14:25):
One of our portfolio, one ofyour portfolio companies, also
one of our customers, they're anamazing uh freight-to-pay as
well as supply chain platformfor shippers and carriers in
that space.
They're not EDI experts.
And so they're buildingeverything with their product
around APIs, which is howeverybody builds everything.
And then when they see an X12spec for the first time from a
(14:49):
shipper, or if they see anEtifax spec in Europe from a
shipper, your developers atthese platforms don't know what
to do because you've got folkswho have gotten computer science
degrees from Stanford, Cal, etcetera.
Um, you're not learning theselanguages anymore.
And so it becomes a technicalgap for these platforms to fill.
(15:12):
I don't have folks who canunderstand the actual language
of X12 and Etifact, or I don'thave folks that, you know, we
can get up to speed fast enoughon this.
And then the other piece isthese platforms don't even want
to become experts in this.
It's already hard to become anOMS, right?
It's already be hard to become aTMS and separate yourself from
(15:33):
the hundreds and thousands ofTMSs that are out there.
This is something that orderfuland not just us, right?
There's a lot of public, large,publicly traded companies that
have tried to solve EDI fordozens of years.
We've put hundreds of millionsof dollars of you know
infrastructure and people intosolving this problem.
(15:54):
Um, it's not something that likea newer nascent vertical
software provider wants to goout and necessarily solve on
their own.
SPEAKER_02 (16:02):
Jonathan, how does a retailer or a platform get stuck
with legacy EDI?
And what does it take to unwindthat?
SPEAKER_00 (16:12):
So how you get stuck is because you don't think
there's another way.
Right?
If if you think of the the threeways that a platform or a
retailer will will kind of buildEDI integrations.
The first is kind of legacyon-prem mapping software.
You know, and there's largeacronyms that that do that
(16:35):
historically.
The second is there's middlewarecompanies that have kind of EDI
mappers built into them.
And then the third is there'sprofessional service companies
that use one of those twomethods to to send and receive
those EDI transactions on behalfof someone.
But what happens is you startdoing this.
And no matter which of thosethree paths you true you choose,
(16:58):
the true kind of statement isthere's a map that has to be
built between every singleretailer and transaction type
that a supplier has to send andreceive.
That map could take someoneanywhere from six to twenty
hours to build, but it has to bebuilt on a per trading partner
(17:18):
per transaction type.
And then the second is it takesanywhere from, like I said
earlier, four to twelve weeks toget through EDI testing with
these legacy providers.
And so, you know, you say, howdo people get stuck?
If you have one or two tradingpartners, that's not a problem.
Right.
But if you have a hundred, twohundred, three hundred trading
(17:40):
partners and you're a supplier,and each of those trading
partners have four documenttypes, well, all of a sudden you
have 1,200 maps that you have inyour ERP, your OMS, your TMS.
It looks like spaghetti code.
Um, I think we're going to talkabout how people can kind of get
out of that later, but that'show they get themselves into
(18:01):
that situation.
Um and I I I to kind of put anend to that, I think it's
because of what I said earlier.
No matter what solution they'vechosen historically, there's
that map that's being built,every single trading partner and
transaction type.
Very interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (18:19):
There's so many things in business where you see
how decisions that were madevery early continue to haunt
industry and the world later.
It's it's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (18:32):
I I think that statement is true, but I also
think like technology is goodfor a given time, right?
There's a five to seven yearcycle on you know, vertical
technology that comes in anddisrupts.
So, you know, those on-premmapping products were amazing in
the late 80s, early 90s.
And I think the middlewarecompanies, they were very, very
(18:56):
ubiquitous, but also they solveda problem in the early 2000s,
late 2000s.
Um the only real reason we knewhow to solve this problem is
because our CEO, Eric Kaiser,was actually a systems
integrator, uh, taking retailersand brands uh from on-prem ERPs
to the cloud uh in the early2010s.
(19:18):
And when he was building theseintegrations, he realized at the
end of them what I said earlierwas true.
It was an engineering event,every trading partner
transaction type, and what hewas handing over to his
customers wasn't scalable.
So it took him having to likeget in this problem, looking at
those transactions, going livehundreds and thousands of times
(19:39):
to know there could be adifferent way to to solve it.
SPEAKER_02 (19:42):
You know, I'm thinking about um drop shipping,
3PL orchestration.
And you know, um a lot of timesit it's it's really easy for us
to think about how EDI canimpede speed.
Cycle time.
(20:03):
And and that's so important.
Uh it's m it's probably moreimportant now from a competitive
perspective than it was a fewyears ago.
Um but in addition to eroding uhtime, cycle time, it also erodes
trust.
Because you know, trust is builton competence.
Can you do what you say you'regonna do?
(20:26):
Um do you have integrity to dowhat you you have promised to
do?
And do you have our bestinterest in mind?
I think that you know, withcompanies stuck with legacy uh
EDI, this can make them lookincompetent.
They may have everything elsefine, but it can really make
them look incompetent or maybelack integrity.
(20:50):
You wouldn't think somethinglike that could, but it it does.
SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
And it can also cost them relationships with
retailers, it can cost thempurchase orders, right?
Like if you become a problemsupplier for a retailer, if your
product is good enough, theretailer is still going to sell
it.
But um, as you know, how manynew protein bars do you see on
the shelves when you go to thegrocery store?
All of these brands are tryingto stand out and they all have
(21:16):
great messages.
You know, the room for error isvery minimal to get on a shelf
in those grocers, right?
Like you have to deliver, youhave to have a great product,
yes, but you also have to bereliable for the retailer.
You know, you mentioned the 3PLtoo.
If you're a brand, you don'tthink about this because you're
not fulfilling those ordersyourself.
(21:37):
But if I use, I'm not going toname any names, but if I use a
3PL, and that 3PL is usingoutdated EDI technology to send
and receive those orders,whether I want to improve things
or not, I'm reliant on thesoftware that my partner has
chosen to send and receive that900 series uh set from from my
(22:00):
from myself to to said shipperor retailer.
So, like you said, there's a lotof layers where errors can
occur.
Some are in your control, someare out of your control.
SPEAKER_02 (22:09):
You know, um one thing that's becoming really
important.
I don't know if you've heard, umweek before last, there was a
big announcement um that Walmarthad um formed a partnership with
OpenAI.
Um, and so you know, you can besearching on ChatGPT and buy
(22:35):
directly from Walmart.
It's it's a big it was a bigannouncement.
Um, and it really fits in withWalmart's omni channel purpose,
you know, because they want toallow shoppers to shop however
they want, and clearly peopleare starting to shop more um
through uh through um AI thanjust through Google search bars
(22:58):
and things like that.
The world's changing veryrapidly.
But sometimes things under thehood, and and we also are
talking, right, all theseretailers are talking about
agentic shopping, where you knowyou don't have to actually do
it, especially for items thatyou replenish frequently for
your pantry or yourrefrigerator.
(23:21):
Agents can can do it for you.
Um and it's wonderful.
You know, it's a great timesaver.
I think people are going to movemore and more to that.
But I think people often forgetthat, well, wait a minute, this
is all assuming that yourinventory updates across the
channels are available.
(23:42):
Um what are your thoughts onthat?
Is that true?
SPEAKER_00 (23:44):
Is that an issue or not?
I think that's true, and that'san issue.
I mean, I have an opinion onthat though.
Uh a few years ago, TikTokshops, right, kind of came to
the scene.
Yeah.
And I'm trying to think of howto say this, but anyone who
could sell on TikTok shops didwhat they had to do to sell on
(24:05):
TikTok shops because that'swhere that's where the demand
was.
And so, you know, I think whatyou're saying does cause a
concern for those folks that arethat are worried about those
inventory levels.
And again, call it like buyerefficacy when you're buying
something.
Is it there?
You know, the thing with withOpenAI, though, and all of the
(24:25):
AgenTick engines, they're gonnahave the demand.
And so I'm I'm sure that there'sgonna be some chaos, but folks
are going to figure out a way toovercome that just because the
demand is there.
SPEAKER_02 (24:36):
Talking about orderful a little bit, what's
the core product insight thatsets you apart?
SPEAKER_00 (24:44):
Yeah, I think from a from a vision standpoint, we've
been talking about uh the fournines, right, that we're looking
to solve for customers.
So uh we've taken EDI onboardingfrom 12 months to nine days.
Now you want to take it to ninehours, nine minutes, and then
nine seconds.
The core problem we're goingabout fixing is yes, we believe
(25:07):
EDI, you know, the actual mapbuilding is an art is an
outdated process.
But when it comes to fixing theproblem, you have to fix EDI
onboarding because that's wherethe delays occur for customers.
Interesting.
So, do you have any customersuccess stories?
We have hundreds.
(25:28):
Uh just uh let's let's gothrough a couple though.
First on the supplier side.
So G3 is one of the largest uhapparel companies um in North
America, and they were on alegacy van and legacy mapping
tool uh in the first half oflast year.
They're migrating to a new ERP,a SaaS ERP, for the first time
(25:50):
in their company's history.
And they had, you know, a littlenorth of 400, 500 suppliers or
400, 500 retailers that they hadto take from the prem to the
cloud.
And so with orderful, they wereable to move uh 450 or so of
those retailers over to our EDIsolution.
(26:12):
I think it was 92 days, and theywere able to do that because we
decouple the map buildingprocess of EDI and the EDI
testing.
So with us, uh a supplier justhas to integrate one transaction
type, and then they can onboarddozens, hundreds, thousands of
retailers on that singletransaction.
(26:34):
And then you're doing testingwhen you're ready to do testing.
Um, so G3 is uh a great exampleon the supplier side.
Um on the retail side, we've gotuh one of the you know top 30,
35 retailers in America thatwere again on a legacy van
(26:55):
provider.
They had to migrate 2,000 oftheir suppliers over to
orderful, and they were able todo that in nine months.
Um, again, mainly because onthat side, they were able to
send 2,000 trade requests totheir supplier community.
And orderful's product was ableto validate what Coles was
(27:17):
asking their suppliers to sendthem in real time and get them
through the the testing processin you know hours instead of
days.
SPEAKER_02 (27:26):
You're lucky you're not with me because I actually
have come down with a little bitof a cold, I think.
Maybe not.
It's either an allergy or cold.
SPEAKER_00 (27:34):
I had it, I had it last week.
It's brutal.
Yeah, it's brutal.
SPEAKER_02 (27:38):
Well, okay, let's um let's go on.
Um, can I should I ask you aboutthe one map per partner?
Yeah.
So we we wait, so let me let meask you.
So, Jonathan, how do youeliminate the one partner one
map per partner problem?
SPEAKER_00 (27:56):
So I mentioned earlier that people are building
EDI maps on a per tradingpartner per transaction type.
Great companies can build thosemaps in six to eight hours.
Many companies take 15 to 25hours to build those maps.
That is how everyone else hashistorically built integrations.
(28:20):
With orderful, what we've doneis similar to Stripe with
payments or Twilio withcommunications, we have our
customers build one integrationto a simple JSON schema.
It looks like an API.
So any developer that looks atour API docs will say, I know
exactly what to do there.
It's a hundred lines of code orless.
(28:41):
And on that single transactiontype integration, a supplier can
build that into their ERP,develop that into their TMS,
develop it that into their OMS,and not have to touch their code
when they add another retailer,because we've covered all retail
guidelines in our simple uh APIschema that we've developed.
(29:06):
We did that by going throughwith our team in AI every
retailer guideline over the lastfive years.
So because we've seen what everyguideline looks like, and
because we've been AI firstsince the company started, we've
been able to know exactly whatare the core, you know,
(29:28):
fundamental line items that thatthese retailers are asking their
suppliers to send them.
SPEAKER_02 (29:32):
That's exciting.
Um, one product I'd like to askyou about is your web EDI
product.
And could you explain that alittle bit, but also talk about
how that can help retailers anddealing with less technical
suppliers?
SPEAKER_00 (29:52):
These are these are the folks who have the hardest
time trading for the first time.
So I'm uh I'm a small supplier.
Maybe I use a buying group inBentonville, Arkansas to help me
get into Walmart for the firsttime.
Now the hard part comes, I haveto get that data to the
retailer.
And so they might not have theability to develop an API or or
(30:17):
develop EDI at this time.
And so they need a web-basedsolution that they can receive a
purchase order, send ASNs totheir trading partner.
And that's when our Web EDIfulfillment offers uh our brands
to do for the first time.
Uh the great thing there is um,especially for the the core
retailers, we're able on thatproduct to get our brands live
(30:42):
in two weeks or less.
It's also the only product inEDI that a brand can use without
talking to a sales rep.
So they can go up, sign up, andtrade data with a retailer uh
for the first time.
Um, we have a very clean pricingmodel as well.
It's$189 a month.
We don't charge you fortransactions.
(31:03):
It's the perfect solution for abrand trading EDI uh for the
first time.
That's exciting.
SPEAKER_02 (31:10):
Um I mean, you know, there's a lot of innovative
products coming online, and sothis could really be good for
the economy as a whole, gettingmore trade going.
SPEAKER_00 (31:25):
You know, and it it it it'll be, we've seen it,
right?
So we launched the product twoyears ago.
Um, it's it's a solution thathas been in the space for you
know probably 10-15 years, thatnon-integrated EDI solution.
But what our brands are tellingus after using this for the
(31:45):
first time, if they've usedanother solution, is we can't
believe how cost effective itis, and we can't believe how
quickly we can trade with aretailer, right?
Like being able to sign up onyour own without talking to a
sales rep, being able to say, Iwant to trade with retailer ABC,
doing that and getting throughtesting without having to talk
(32:06):
to anyone.
Um they they love the speed andthey love the simplicity in the
model.
SPEAKER_02 (32:12):
You know, anyone who's dealt with EDI directly,
especially, knows these problemsare just everywhere.
It's so frustrating.
Um, and people that work in EDIactually doing the work a lot of
times want to get out of it asquick as they can.
Um but uh so given all that andthe performance issues, why
(32:34):
don't more companies invest infixing the problems of EDI?
SPEAKER_00 (32:39):
I think some, I mean, and this is only you know
on the on the folks that I'vetalked to over the years.
I think one, people don't peoplehave been burned by some of
those legacy providers.
And so they may have alreadyswitched from an on-prem, you
know, EDI software company to aprofessional service company.
(33:00):
And it hasn't changed theexperience for them.
It still takes forever, it'sstill a huge cost.
So I think the first is theydon't know there's a better way.
I think unfortunately the secondis there's the perception that
EDI was a sunk cost.
So yes, it was very painful toget these integrations with our
trading partners in place.
(33:21):
But it's a pain that happened.
And and now I'm on to anotherproblem I have to solve in my
business.
Resources are are limited atevery brand and retailer that I
speak to.
Uh, those are the kind of thetwo main things that I see.
SPEAKER_02 (33:36):
So if I were a CIO involved in ERP migration, what
advice would you give to meabout EDI modernization?
Should about yeah, regardingtiming or just anything you
think would be good for me toknow?
SPEAKER_00 (33:55):
That what people are telling you that it's something
you have to run away from, orit's something you have to
decouple with your your broaderERP migration, that's all a lie.
You know, I have seen hundredsof customers go live on the same
day with NetSuite, with Infor,with SAP, with Microsoft
(34:17):
Dynamics, and Orderful as theirEDI solution.
And, you know, last week I wastalking to the CFO at Everyman
Jack.
His name is Steve Fox.
He's a great guy.
And he sent me a screenshot onthe day they went live with
NetSuite and Orderful.
Um, on the exact same day, uh,we actually had a day to spare,
and he was like, he was like, Ican't believe we made this
(34:39):
timeline.
And even during the buyingprocess with him, you know, they
had about 50-something tradingpartners.
They had to buy, build NetSuite, and get those trading
partners into Netsuite in ahundred days.
I was completely confidentduring the buying cycle because
I know what our product can do,because we're decoupling the
risk of the map in the ERP tothe trading partner testing.
(35:03):
We're the only company that cando both of those parts of EDI at
the same time.
SPEAKER_02 (35:09):
There's a quote from Sam Walton that I really love
and it applies to so manybusinesses, and that is there's
only one boss, the customer, andhe can fire anyone from the
chairman on down.
And, you know, we see that itsometimes takes time, but
customers in the end are theboss.
(35:30):
Um and so customer experience atomnichannel is really important.
How could you talk a little bitabout um explain the importance
of EDI in the context ofomnichannel scale, uh partner
agility, and customerexperience?
SPEAKER_00 (35:48):
Yeah.
So let's let's talk about thethe end customer first, right?
Like how many times, and it'sit's happening less and less,
but especially you know, comingout of COVID and depending on
the storms that are happening,do you go into a grocer's and
you see, you know, shelves areempty?
Well, shelves are empty for acouple of reasons.
The first could be trucks didn'tget there because of delay, but
(36:12):
the second is uh maybe purchaseorders didn't have enough lead
time on them.
You know, maybe the suppliersdidn't have enough time to
fulfill what they were actuallybeing asked to send, to, to, to
send to them.
Um, on the customer side, right?
Again, when you think of thosedigitally native brands that are
omnichannel, so they have theirown Shopify or Big Commerce
(36:34):
store, but they're also sellingin a large retailer.
I might buy something onlinetoday and it says it's gonna be
there in three to five days.
But if those inventory levelsare off because said brand just
received an order for a thousandt-shirts from one of the largest
retailers, and my 3PL didn'tsync that with my Shopify or Big
(36:55):
Commerce store, yes, I'm stillgonna get what I ordered, but it
could take anywhere from two tofive weeks instead of five days
or less.
And that's gonna make me upset.
I might not buy from that brandsite again.
And so going back to having thedata be real time, like have
looking at where you sell youritems and where people buy your
(37:16):
items more holistically, it'sit's a necessity for brands
today.
That's great.
SPEAKER_02 (37:22):
So I know you've you're so deep into this and so
knowledgeable.
Um if if all of the companieswere involved in using EDI,
shippers, carriers, logisticservice providers, on and on and
on, if you knew that they wereall going to watch this, what
(37:47):
misconception would you like toclarify for them about EDI?
SPEAKER_00 (37:52):
I mean, I think I think the first is again, I said
it earlier, like if you talk tosomeone in the space about EDI,
they're going to have a painfulvisceral reaction.
And it it doesn't have to bethat way.
Um, you know, there aresolutions out there that can
meet your EDI requirementswithout your company having to
(38:16):
throw human beings at theproblem or become experts um in
a technology that you don't wantthem to focus on.
I think that's that's the bigthing is like EDI doesn't have
to be painful.
You know, it's painful because,you know, of either how you set
up those integrations or set upthat team on your side, talk to
(38:38):
us.
Um talk to us.
And and at the very least, whenfolks talk to Orderful, they say
one of three things.
They can't they say, I can'tbelieve you know this company
built this solution.
I can't believe this companythis solution hasn't existed
before.
And then of course the third isthey say they don't believe it's
real.
But um, again, we let ourcustomers speak for us, right?
(38:59):
You can look at uh what IvanRamirez said on on LinkedIn, and
maybe we could attach the wecould attach his post to this,
to this show.
But he calls us the Ferrari ofEDI, right?
Another example, we were able tohelp him and the Hirschbach team
move 150 shipper integrationsover.
You know, I think that one was11 months.
(39:20):
Um, and and he'll sing ourpraises without us even without
us even asking.
And and he's one of you knowmany customers that will tell
you this is a different way tosend and receive EDI data.
It's it's worth checking out.
That's great.
SPEAKER_02 (39:34):
Okay, Jonathan.
Um briefly, I'd like to talkabout the future of EDI a little
bit.
What's next?
And can EDI be fully integrated?
Will that ever happen?
Fully automated, I should say.
SPEAKER_00 (39:49):
I think there's two main pain points in EDI.
There's the mapping pane, andthen there's the testing pane.
So we've talked a lot aboutsolving the mapping.
And we at Orderful believe we'veeliminated EDI mapping.
So that's 50% of the problem.
The other 50% is theasynchronous back and forth
between a retailer and a shipperand their trading partner.
(40:12):
That's something that lives inpeople's heads.
It lives in emails.
It lives on Zoom and phonecalls.
It's tribal knowledge.
That's something that is verydifficult to solve, but the
company that solves that willwin long term.
We're doing some things rightnow from a data standpoint and
(40:34):
from an agentix standpoint toget a lot of that asynchronous
behavior into our product, a lotof those retailer and shipper
scenarios into our product.
SPEAKER_01 (40:44):
Talk to us a year from now, but we will have
eliminated EDI testing in 12 to18 months.
That's impressive.
SPEAKER_02 (40:52):
Now, I want to disclose that I am an investor
in Orderful.
I mean, I was so impressed witheverything.
Um the people the plus Ipersonally have experienced uh
the problems of EDI, so I knewit was an issue.
Um I was surprised there hadn'tbeen more progress made in the
(41:13):
world.
So I was happy to see Orderfulhad made that progress, but I
was really impressed with yourengineering team as well.
And um what are they innovatingbehind the scenes now?
SPEAKER_00 (41:29):
Well, I I'm impressed by them too.
It's you know, our CTO peers isone of the reasons I I came to
orderful.
Um, you know, before I I beforeI talk about like what they're
they're innovating on, you cantell you can tell what people
believe at a startup by how longengineers have been at the
company.
On average, our engineers havebeen here for three and a half
(41:51):
years.
They're great people, andthey're not here for charity.
They're here because they'resolving the testing and mapping
problem with EDI and they seethe opportunity that's ahead
with orderful.
Um, but it's something I'mreally proud of is their tenure.
Um, and so recently we're we'rewe've released Mosaic, which is
our, which is that simple APIschema that has eliminated EDI
(42:15):
mapping.
Um but what we said earlier wasgetting those testing scenarios
and getting that asynchronouscommunication, getting it in a
core data source andunderstanding how to eliminate
testing.
That's the problem that they'reworking on right now.
SPEAKER_01 (42:31):
And I'm I'm smiling talking about it.
Um and yeah, let's let's talk inin 12 to 18 months.
SPEAKER_02 (42:39):
Well, Jonathan, this has been great.
Um, thank you for sharing yourincredible experience and
knowledge with us about EDI.
I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00 (42:48):
Yeah.
Great, uh great to talk to you,Matt.
I want to clarify that this podcast is distinct
from my responsibilities as aprofessor in the CMM Walton
College of Business.
Nonetheless, it aligns with myaspiration to provide practical
insights to professionals andbusiness by showcasing companies
and people that can enhance yourability to manage, lead, and
strategize and marketeffectively and the retail value
(00:30):
chain.
And now without further ado,let's get into the exciting
episode.
I have with me today JonathanKish.
He is senior vice president atOrderful.
And he has a tremendous uhexperience background in
logistics and technology.
(00:51):
But Orderful is solving a reallyimportant problem for many
industries.
But I was particularlyinterested because of its
relevance to omnichannelretailing.
And it's relevant not just toretailers, but also to suppliers
of retailers and carriers andother logistics types of service
(01:13):
providers.
So, Jonathan, thank you so muchfor taking time to be with me
today.
I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
Yeah.
We've known each other for acouple of years, Matt.
Great uh great to be a guest onthe podcast.
So, Jonathan, you know, um it'sreally interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (01:31):
Most people in the retail value chain, and I'm
saying that very broadly, aredependent on EDI, and yet most
of them, especially at verysenior levels, don't really know
what it is.
And now that they're trying toadapt to the omnichannel world,
whether they be a retailer or asupplier or a carrier or other
(01:55):
service provider, many times thesenior people aren't aware of
how much it's impeding theirsuccess in omni-channel
excellence.
And um, I know you know inNorthwest Arkansas, it's a
really big deal, uh, but I amalways surprised how many uh
teams I talk to that aren'taware of the importance of EDI
(02:16):
or even that it's occurringwithin their company.
So they don't know that that'swhat's slowing them down.
And one thing that's reallyinteresting about it, Jonathan
you know, uh Northwest Arkansas,of course, we have over 1,500
suppliers here, a lot ofcarriers, service providers.
And of course, Walmart.
Walmart has stated, you know,their purpose statement says
(02:37):
Walmart is a people-led,tech-powered, omni-channel
retailer dedicated to helpingpeople save money and live
better.
And it's really interesting.
So suppliers then have to reallyjoin into that purpose
statement.
And they don't realize in a lotof cases that their EDI, because
they're not aware of it, ishurting their ability to move
(03:01):
forward, both from a costperspective and from a on-time
delivery perspective, and frommany other uh perspectives.
So if you wouldn't mind justgiving a quick brief overview of
what EDI is before we get intowhat orderful does.
SPEAKER_00 (03:16):
Yeah, and it's it's funny.
I've I spent about 15 years onthe logistics e-commerce side
before I joined Orderful.
So the only thing I really knewdeeply about EDI was that it was
difficult.
Um having said that, it's it'sbeen around since the 1960s.
It was actually developed by theUS military as a way to send and
(03:38):
receive data.
But from uh from a holisticbackground, if you think about
the fact that every majorretailer in North America,
Europe, Asia is sending andreceiving data in three
different ways.
Uh, the first is still, believeit or not, asynchronous purchase
orders and carrier information.
It could be over email fax, etcetera.
(04:00):
The second is something that isobviously more modern, which is
APIs.
But the third, and that's wherewe specialize, is EDI
information that's sent betweenWalmart, Target, et cetera, and
their suppliers.
Uh and I was surprised to learnwhen I joined Ortiful that it's
uh it's a$15 billion industry inNorth America alone, and it's a
(04:20):
$50 billion industry globally.
And that's just on the softwareand people that are used to
power the transactions that gobetween said retailer and said
supplier.
But when you think about, andand you know Walmart, you know,
as good as anyone who doesn'twork there, there's probably,
you know, hundreds of millions,if not billions of dollars of
(04:43):
software and people that havebuilt up their supplier-buyer
network over decades.
But really, what's in a purchaseorder, what's in a shipment,
right?
You're talking about potentiallytrillions of dollars annually
that are sent and receivedbetween these retailers and
their suppliers uh over EDI.
So it's it's it's uh it's amassive way that folks trade.
(05:04):
Um, I would say it's somethingsuppliers like to run away from
instead of run towards.
SPEAKER_02 (05:10):
It's funny, I if you would have asked me back in the
90s, because when I had mysoftware company back in the
90s, I struggled with EDI aswell.
And um, you know, this was thetime that the World Wide Web
just came out, and um, you know,things were moving so fast.
(05:30):
And if you would have asked meback then, do you think EDI is
still gonna be a big problem,you know, in 30 years, I would
have said people won't know whatEDI is in 30 years.
So, you know, in a world of APIsand real-time platforms, why
does EDI still matter so much?
SPEAKER_00 (05:49):
Yeah.
I I get that question from themarket, from customers, etc.
If you first think about likewhat is an EDI requirement or an
EDI spec, it's specificallydesigned for one retailer and
their supplier community in avarious flow.
(06:09):
So take Target, for example.
They might have one EDI spec forprocure to pay.
But when it comes to freight topay on their transportation
side, that's going to be anentirely new requirement that's
set up by them for theircarriers to follow.
So think about that at oneretailer multiplied times every
(06:30):
single retailer.
And what I mean by that is whenpeople think why is EDI going to
be around or why is it not goingaway, it's because it would take
every major company that sendsand receives EDI data to decide
they're no longer going to dothat over the same time horizon.
(06:51):
And that's when I go back towhat I said earlier.
There are hundreds of millions,billions of dollars of software
and people that have gone intobuilding these transactions, but
there's trillions of dollarsthat is inside these EDI
transactions, and it representsa huge risk to make any changes
to the supply chains on theretail side.
SPEAKER_02 (07:13):
Boy, the military had no idea what they were
starting, did they?
Uh so so Jonathan, um, you know,what are some of the hidden ways
poorly constructed and managedor executed EDI shows up in the
omnichannel environment?
SPEAKER_00 (07:34):
Yeah, so let's first let's look at it from two
lenses.
First, on the on the retailside.
So how it shows up is you mighthave a network of hundreds,
thousands.
If you're one of the largestretailers, tens of thousands of
suppliers.
And your onboarding team can nolonger scale as you add new
(07:59):
trade, what we call tradingpartners every single year.
So the first way it shows up forthem is I have a team of 12
people to manage 2,000suppliers.
But as I add my 100th, 200th,300th supplier to that, I need
to continue to scale humanbeings to answer the testing
questions from my suppliers.
(08:20):
The second is, and this oneapplies both to the supplier and
the retailer, bad data showingup.
So everybody knows whatchargebacks are in Walmart.
They're known as OTIFs on theshipping side.
These are errors that can occurbecause supplier A is sending
invalid data on what theretailer is asking them to send.
(08:42):
And so, because of that, theretailer has to either mark up,
you know, their purchase orderto account for these predicted
uh chargebacks.
Or obviously for the supplierwhose margins are razor thin,
these are surprises that thatthey get at the end of a quarter
from their trading partnerbecause they didn't adhere to
what they were asking them toreceive.
(09:03):
And then the third, you know,piece that shows up is on the
supplier side specifically,especially for those brands that
are even, you know,billion-dollar brands who
started on the e-commerce sidebut are starting to add those
retail wholesale tradingpartners for the first time.
It's taking forever to stand upthose integrations.
(09:24):
So take Liquid Death, who's oneof our customers.
They obviously are a newer, youknow, a newer brand when it
comes to food and bev.
For them to stand up a newgrocer without order flow, it
was taking anywhere from eightto 20 weeks to go live.
And where that shows up is yoursales team, your account
(09:44):
management team has negotiated anew agreement with a retailer,
but you have to wait two, threequarters to receive that first
purchase order.
So it's cutting off thelifeblood of your business
because it's taking so longtechnically to get through
testing with the retailer.
Wow, that that's remarkable.
SPEAKER_02 (10:01):
You know, you and you think about it um from a
retailer's perspective too.
Um, you know, EDR often slowsdown their onboarding of
vendors, new vendors, theirability to draw uh communicate
from a drop ship perspective orto send inventory updates.
(10:24):
Um so would you mind discussingthat just a little bit and the
prevalence of that?
SPEAKER_00 (10:31):
Yeah, so if you if you think about, you know, a a
retailer, take uh take a Kohl's,for example.
So they have their 1P divisionwhere they're doing their
procure-to-pay uh for theirstores, but they also have a
drop shipping division on theirwebsite.
And obviously the folks who aredrop shipping for them have
(10:52):
their own 3 PLs that are usuallybeing uh used to fulfill the
goods on behalf of said supplierfor coals.
And so anywhere during that datathat's set and received, where
potentially the supplier doesn'tknow that this has to be said
and sent in pounds instead ofounces, that's an error that
(11:13):
could come up, A, in thechargeback like we said earlier,
or B, when it comes to inventorylevels.
If your 3PL as a supplier in thedrop shipping division doesn't
know exactly how many SKUs, howmany, what your inventory levels
are, you might accept a purchaseorder from a large retailer.
(11:33):
But then when somebody goes tobuy a good on your website, you
might not have the rightinventory levels.
So you're gonna have a poorcustomer experience, either with
your retail partner or with youronline buyer, because those that
information is not syncing inreal time.
And that's what having poordata, whether it be API, again,
those asynchronous orders or EDIreally comes into play and hurts
(11:56):
folks.
SPEAKER_02 (11:57):
I remember um, and I may get the number rolling here,
but when I first moved toNorthwest Arkansas, there was a
lot of um suppliers, especiallybig suppliers, engaged in uh
something called vendor-managedinventory, which was where uh
the supplier would monitor thewarehouse inventory levels.
(12:19):
And um then based on the currentinventory levels at their
customer, they would um theywould ship, make shipments, you
know, orders.
And um and I think it was the856 warehouse withdrawal that
they would look at, you know, tofigure out how much inventory is
(12:41):
left, because they knew how muchthey shipped in.
So I could see in that situationum how an 856 would be really
important warehouse withdrawals,but there's other uh EDI uh
transaction types that areimportant in Omni Channel.
What are some others?
SPEAKER_00 (13:01):
Well, the the lifeblood of a lot of businesses
is the 850, right?
And so that purchase orderthat's sent by the retailer to
the to the supplier is um that'sthat's the best document, I'm
sure, for most of our customers.
Um that's an important one.
The 810 on the on the freightside, the 204, the 210, right?
(13:21):
How carriers send and receiveloads and tenders to said
shipper retailer are also kindof lifeblood documents on that
side as well.
Um and then another big onethat's that's kind of not always
thought about is the functionalacknowledgement, right?
So uh I receive a purchaseorder, I have to tell the
retailer that this purchaseorder has been received by my
(13:44):
company, and that's uh the 997.
SPEAKER_02 (13:46):
And um, you know, thinking about this from a SaaS
platform perspective, yeah,where you're trying to deal with
lots of retailers, lots oflogistics connections,
suppliers, et cetera, et cetera.
Um, what's the experience likefor a SaaS platform trying to
support all that?
SPEAKER_00 (14:05):
That's a great question.
Um I mean, it's something I'vebeen working on with our with
our partners and customers overyou know the four years that
I've been here.
But if you think of if you thinkof a SaaS platform, they're
built on solving a specificproblem for a specific vertical.
Uh take a merge, right?
(14:25):
One of our portfolio, one ofyour portfolio companies, also
one of our customers, they're anamazing uh freight-to-pay as
well as supply chain platformfor shippers and carriers in
that space.
They're not EDI experts.
And so they're buildingeverything with their product
around APIs, which is howeverybody builds everything.
And then when they see an X12spec for the first time from a
(14:49):
shipper, or if they see anEtifax spec in Europe from a
shipper, your developers atthese platforms don't know what
to do because you've got folkswho have gotten computer science
degrees from Stanford, Cal, etcetera.
Um, you're not learning theselanguages anymore.
And so it becomes a technicalgap for these platforms to fill.
(15:12):
I don't have folks who canunderstand the actual language
of X12 and Etifact, or I don'thave folks that, you know, we
can get up to speed fast enoughon this.
And then the other piece isthese platforms don't even want
to become experts in this.
It's already hard to become anOMS, right?
It's already be hard to become aTMS and separate yourself from
(15:33):
the hundreds and thousands ofTMSs that are out there.
This is something that orderfuland not just us, right?
There's a lot of public, large,publicly traded companies that
have tried to solve EDI fordozens of years.
We've put hundreds of millionsof dollars of you know
infrastructure and people intosolving this problem.
(15:54):
Um, it's not something that likea newer nascent vertical
software provider wants to goout and necessarily solve on
their own.
SPEAKER_02 (16:02):
Jonathan, how does a retailer or a platform get stuck
with legacy EDI?
And what does it take to unwindthat?
SPEAKER_00 (16:12):
So how you get stuck is because you don't think
there's another way.
Right?
If if you think of the the threeways that a platform or a
retailer will will kind of buildEDI integrations.
The first is kind of legacyon-prem mapping software.
You know, and there's largeacronyms that that do that
(16:35):
historically.
The second is there's middlewarecompanies that have kind of EDI
mappers built into them.
And then the third is there'sprofessional service companies
that use one of those twomethods to to send and receive
those EDI transactions on behalfof someone.
But what happens is you startdoing this.
And no matter which of thosethree paths you true you choose,
(16:58):
the true kind of statement isthere's a map that has to be
built between every singleretailer and transaction type
that a supplier has to send andreceive.
That map could take someoneanywhere from six to twenty
hours to build, but it has to bebuilt on a per trading partner
(17:18):
per transaction type.
And then the second is it takesanywhere from, like I said
earlier, four to twelve weeks toget through EDI testing with
these legacy providers.
And so, you know, you say, howdo people get stuck?
If you have one or two tradingpartners, that's not a problem.
Right.
But if you have a hundred, twohundred, three hundred trading
(17:40):
partners and you're a supplier,and each of those trading
partners have four documenttypes, well, all of a sudden you
have 1,200 maps that you have inyour ERP, your OMS, your TMS.
It looks like spaghetti code.
Um, I think we're going to talkabout how people can kind of get
out of that later, but that'show they get themselves into
(18:01):
that situation.
Um and I I I to kind of put anend to that, I think it's
because of what I said earlier.
No matter what solution they'vechosen historically, there's
that map that's being built,every single trading partner and
transaction type.
Very interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (18:19):
There's so many things in business where you see
how decisions that were madevery early continue to haunt
industry and the world later.
It's it's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (18:32):
I I think that statement is true, but I also
think like technology is goodfor a given time, right?
There's a five to seven yearcycle on you know, vertical
technology that comes in anddisrupts.
So, you know, those on-premmapping products were amazing in
the late 80s, early 90s.
And I think the middlewarecompanies, they were very, very
(18:56):
ubiquitous, but also they solveda problem in the early 2000s,
late 2000s.
Um the only real reason we knewhow to solve this problem is
because our CEO, Eric Kaiser,was actually a systems
integrator, uh, taking retailersand brands uh from on-prem ERPs
to the cloud uh in the early2010s.
(19:18):
And when he was building theseintegrations, he realized at the
end of them what I said earlierwas true.
It was an engineering event,every trading partner
transaction type, and what hewas handing over to his
customers wasn't scalable.
So it took him having to likeget in this problem, looking at
those transactions, going livehundreds and thousands of times
(19:39):
to know there could be adifferent way to to solve it.
SPEAKER_02 (19:42):
You know, I'm thinking about um drop shipping,
3PL orchestration.
And you know, um a lot of timesit it's it's really easy for us
to think about how EDI canimpede speed.
Cycle time.
(20:03):
And and that's so important.
Uh it's m it's probably moreimportant now from a competitive
perspective than it was a fewyears ago.
Um but in addition to eroding uhtime, cycle time, it also erodes
trust.
Because you know, trust is builton competence.
Can you do what you say you'regonna do?
(20:26):
Um do you have integrity to dowhat you you have promised to
do?
And do you have our bestinterest in mind?
I think that you know, withcompanies stuck with legacy uh
EDI, this can make them lookincompetent.
They may have everything elsefine, but it can really make
them look incompetent or maybelack integrity.
(20:50):
You wouldn't think somethinglike that could, but it it does.
SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
And it can also cost them relationships with
retailers, it can cost thempurchase orders, right?
Like if you become a problemsupplier for a retailer, if your
product is good enough, theretailer is still going to sell
it.
But um, as you know, how manynew protein bars do you see on
the shelves when you go to thegrocery store?
All of these brands are tryingto stand out and they all have
(21:16):
great messages.
You know, the room for error isvery minimal to get on a shelf
in those grocers, right?
Like you have to deliver, youhave to have a great product,
yes, but you also have to bereliable for the retailer.
You know, you mentioned the 3PLtoo.
If you're a brand, you don'tthink about this because you're
not fulfilling those ordersyourself.
(21:37):
But if I use, I'm not going toname any names, but if I use a
3PL, and that 3PL is usingoutdated EDI technology to send
and receive those orders,whether I want to improve things
or not, I'm reliant on thesoftware that my partner has
chosen to send and receive that900 series uh set from from my
(22:00):
from myself to to said shipperor retailer.
So, like you said, there's a lotof layers where errors can
occur.
Some are in your control, someare out of your control.
SPEAKER_02 (22:09):
You know, um one thing that's becoming really
important.
I don't know if you've heard, umweek before last, there was a
big announcement um that Walmarthad um formed a partnership with
OpenAI.
Um, and so you know, you can besearching on ChatGPT and buy
(22:35):
directly from Walmart.
It's it's a big it was a bigannouncement.
Um, and it really fits in withWalmart's omni channel purpose,
you know, because they want toallow shoppers to shop however
they want, and clearly peopleare starting to shop more um
through uh through um AI thanjust through Google search bars
(22:58):
and things like that.
The world's changing veryrapidly.
But sometimes things under thehood, and and we also are
talking, right, all theseretailers are talking about
agentic shopping, where you knowyou don't have to actually do
it, especially for items thatyou replenish frequently for
your pantry or yourrefrigerator.
(23:21):
Agents can can do it for you.
Um and it's wonderful.
You know, it's a great timesaver.
I think people are going to movemore and more to that.
But I think people often forgetthat, well, wait a minute, this
is all assuming that yourinventory updates across the
channels are available.
(23:42):
Um what are your thoughts onthat?
Is that true?
SPEAKER_00 (23:44):
Is that an issue or not?
I think that's true, and that'san issue.
I mean, I have an opinion onthat though.
Uh a few years ago, TikTokshops, right, kind of came to
the scene.
Yeah.
And I'm trying to think of howto say this, but anyone who
could sell on TikTok shops didwhat they had to do to sell on
(24:05):
TikTok shops because that'swhere that's where the demand
was.
And so, you know, I think whatyou're saying does cause a
concern for those folks that arethat are worried about those
inventory levels.
And again, call it like buyerefficacy when you're buying
something.
Is it there?
You know, the thing with withOpenAI, though, and all of the
(24:25):
AgenTick engines, they're gonnahave the demand.
And so I'm I'm sure that there'sgonna be some chaos, but folks
are going to figure out a way toovercome that just because the
demand is there.
SPEAKER_02 (24:36):
Talking about orderful a little bit, what's
the core product insight thatsets you apart?
SPEAKER_00 (24:44):
Yeah, I think from a from a vision standpoint, we've
been talking about uh the fournines, right, that we're looking
to solve for customers.
So uh we've taken EDI onboardingfrom 12 months to nine days.
Now you want to take it to ninehours, nine minutes, and then
nine seconds.
The core problem we're goingabout fixing is yes, we believe
(25:07):
EDI, you know, the actual mapbuilding is an art is an
outdated process.
But when it comes to fixing theproblem, you have to fix EDI
onboarding because that's wherethe delays occur for customers.
Interesting.
So, do you have any customersuccess stories?
We have hundreds.
(25:28):
Uh just uh let's let's gothrough a couple though.
First on the supplier side.
So G3 is one of the largest uhapparel companies um in North
America, and they were on alegacy van and legacy mapping
tool uh in the first half oflast year.
They're migrating to a new ERP,a SaaS ERP, for the first time
(25:50):
in their company's history.
And they had, you know, a littlenorth of 400, 500 suppliers or
400, 500 retailers that they hadto take from the prem to the
cloud.
And so with orderful, they wereable to move uh 450 or so of
those retailers over to our EDIsolution.
(26:12):
I think it was 92 days, and theywere able to do that because we
decouple the map buildingprocess of EDI and the EDI
testing.
So with us, uh a supplier justhas to integrate one transaction
type, and then they can onboarddozens, hundreds, thousands of
retailers on that singletransaction.
(26:34):
And then you're doing testingwhen you're ready to do testing.
Um, so G3 is uh a great exampleon the supplier side.
Um on the retail side, we've gotuh one of the you know top 30,
35 retailers in America thatwere again on a legacy van
(26:55):
provider.
They had to migrate 2,000 oftheir suppliers over to
orderful, and they were able todo that in nine months.
Um, again, mainly because onthat side, they were able to
send 2,000 trade requests totheir supplier community.
And orderful's product was ableto validate what Coles was
(27:17):
asking their suppliers to sendthem in real time and get them
through the the testing processin you know hours instead of
days.
SPEAKER_02 (27:26):
You're lucky you're not with me because I actually
have come down with a little bitof a cold, I think.
Maybe not.
It's either an allergy or cold.
SPEAKER_00 (27:34):
I had it, I had it last week.
It's brutal.
Yeah, it's brutal.
SPEAKER_02 (27:38):
Well, okay, let's um let's go on.
Um, can I should I ask you aboutthe one map per partner?
Yeah.
So we we wait, so let me let meask you.
So, Jonathan, how do youeliminate the one partner one
map per partner problem?
SPEAKER_00 (27:56):
So I mentioned earlier that people are building
EDI maps on a per tradingpartner per transaction type.
Great companies can build thosemaps in six to eight hours.
Many companies take 15 to 25hours to build those maps.
That is how everyone else hashistorically built integrations.
(28:20):
With orderful, what we've doneis similar to Stripe with
payments or Twilio withcommunications, we have our
customers build one integrationto a simple JSON schema.
It looks like an API.
So any developer that looks atour API docs will say, I know
exactly what to do there.
It's a hundred lines of code orless.
(28:41):
And on that single transactiontype integration, a supplier can
build that into their ERP,develop that into their TMS,
develop it that into their OMS,and not have to touch their code
when they add another retailer,because we've covered all retail
guidelines in our simple uh APIschema that we've developed.
(29:06):
We did that by going throughwith our team in AI every
retailer guideline over the lastfive years.
So because we've seen what everyguideline looks like, and
because we've been AI firstsince the company started, we've
been able to know exactly whatare the core, you know,
(29:28):
fundamental line items that thatthese retailers are asking their
suppliers to send them.
SPEAKER_02 (29:32):
That's exciting.
Um, one product I'd like to askyou about is your web EDI
product.
And could you explain that alittle bit, but also talk about
how that can help retailers anddealing with less technical
suppliers?
SPEAKER_00 (29:52):
These are these are the folks who have the hardest
time trading for the first time.
So I'm uh I'm a small supplier.
Maybe I use a buying group inBentonville, Arkansas to help me
get into Walmart for the firsttime.
Now the hard part comes, I haveto get that data to the
retailer.
And so they might not have theability to develop an API or or
(30:17):
develop EDI at this time.
And so they need a web-basedsolution that they can receive a
purchase order, send ASNs totheir trading partner.
And that's when our Web EDIfulfillment offers uh our brands
to do for the first time.
Uh the great thing there is um,especially for the the core
retailers, we're able on thatproduct to get our brands live
(30:42):
in two weeks or less.
It's also the only product inEDI that a brand can use without
talking to a sales rep.
So they can go up, sign up, andtrade data with a retailer uh
for the first time.
Um, we have a very clean pricingmodel as well.
It's$189 a month.
We don't charge you fortransactions.
(31:03):
It's the perfect solution for abrand trading EDI uh for the
first time.
That's exciting.
SPEAKER_02 (31:10):
Um I mean, you know, there's a lot of innovative
products coming online, and sothis could really be good for
the economy as a whole, gettingmore trade going.
SPEAKER_00 (31:25):
You know, and it it it it'll be, we've seen it,
right?
So we launched the product twoyears ago.
Um, it's it's a solution thathas been in the space for you
know probably 10-15 years, thatnon-integrated EDI solution.
But what our brands are tellingus after using this for the
(31:45):
first time, if they've usedanother solution, is we can't
believe how cost effective itis, and we can't believe how
quickly we can trade with aretailer, right?
Like being able to sign up onyour own without talking to a
sales rep, being able to say, Iwant to trade with retailer ABC,
doing that and getting throughtesting without having to talk
(32:06):
to anyone.
Um they they love the speed andthey love the simplicity in the
model.
SPEAKER_02 (32:12):
You know, anyone who's dealt with EDI directly,
especially, knows these problemsare just everywhere.
It's so frustrating.
Um, and people that work in EDIactually doing the work a lot of
times want to get out of it asquick as they can.
Um but uh so given all that andthe performance issues, why
(32:34):
don't more companies invest infixing the problems of EDI?
SPEAKER_00 (32:39):
I think some, I mean, and this is only you know
on the on the folks that I'vetalked to over the years.
I think one, people don't peoplehave been burned by some of
those legacy providers.
And so they may have alreadyswitched from an on-prem, you
know, EDI software company to aprofessional service company.
(33:00):
And it hasn't changed theexperience for them.
It still takes forever, it'sstill a huge cost.
So I think the first is theydon't know there's a better way.
I think unfortunately the secondis there's the perception that
EDI was a sunk cost.
So yes, it was very painful toget these integrations with our
trading partners in place.
(33:21):
But it's a pain that happened.
And and now I'm on to anotherproblem I have to solve in my
business.
Resources are are limited atevery brand and retailer that I
speak to.
Uh, those are the kind of thetwo main things that I see.
SPEAKER_02 (33:36):
So if I were a CIO involved in ERP migration, what
advice would you give to meabout EDI modernization?
Should about yeah, regardingtiming or just anything you
think would be good for me toknow?
SPEAKER_00 (33:55):
That what people are telling you that it's something
you have to run away from, orit's something you have to
decouple with your your broaderERP migration, that's all a lie.
You know, I have seen hundredsof customers go live on the same
day with NetSuite, with Infor,with SAP, with Microsoft
(34:17):
Dynamics, and Orderful as theirEDI solution.
And, you know, last week I wastalking to the CFO at Everyman
Jack.
His name is Steve Fox.
He's a great guy.
And he sent me a screenshot onthe day they went live with
NetSuite and Orderful.
Um, on the exact same day, uh,we actually had a day to spare,
and he was like, he was like, Ican't believe we made this
(34:39):
timeline.
And even during the buyingprocess with him, you know, they
had about 50-something tradingpartners.
They had to buy, build NetSuite, and get those trading
partners into Netsuite in ahundred days.
I was completely confidentduring the buying cycle because
I know what our product can do,because we're decoupling the
risk of the map in the ERP tothe trading partner testing.
(35:03):
We're the only company that cando both of those parts of EDI at
the same time.
SPEAKER_02 (35:09):
There's a quote from Sam Walton that I really love
and it applies to so manybusinesses, and that is there's
only one boss, the customer, andhe can fire anyone from the
chairman on down.
And, you know, we see that itsometimes takes time, but
customers in the end are theboss.
(35:30):
Um and so customer experience atomnichannel is really important.
How could you talk a little bitabout um explain the importance
of EDI in the context ofomnichannel scale, uh partner
agility, and customerexperience?
SPEAKER_00 (35:48):
Yeah.
So let's let's talk about thethe end customer first, right?
Like how many times, and it'sit's happening less and less,
but especially you know, comingout of COVID and depending on
the storms that are happening,do you go into a grocer's and
you see, you know, shelves areempty?
Well, shelves are empty for acouple of reasons.
The first could be trucks didn'tget there because of delay, but
(36:12):
the second is uh maybe purchaseorders didn't have enough lead
time on them.
You know, maybe the suppliersdidn't have enough time to
fulfill what they were actuallybeing asked to send, to, to, to
send to them.
Um, on the customer side, right?
Again, when you think of thosedigitally native brands that are
omnichannel, so they have theirown Shopify or Big Commerce
(36:34):
store, but they're also sellingin a large retailer.
I might buy something onlinetoday and it says it's gonna be
there in three to five days.
But if those inventory levelsare off because said brand just
received an order for a thousandt-shirts from one of the largest
retailers, and my 3PL didn'tsync that with my Shopify or Big
(36:55):
Commerce store, yes, I'm stillgonna get what I ordered, but it
could take anywhere from two tofive weeks instead of five days
or less.
And that's gonna make me upset.
I might not buy from that brandsite again.
And so going back to having thedata be real time, like have
looking at where you sell youritems and where people buy your
(37:16):
items more holistically, it'sit's a necessity for brands
today.
That's great.
SPEAKER_02 (37:22):
So I know you've you're so deep into this and so
knowledgeable.
Um if if all of the companieswere involved in using EDI,
shippers, carriers, logisticservice providers, on and on and
on, if you knew that they wereall going to watch this, what
(37:47):
misconception would you like toclarify for them about EDI?
SPEAKER_00 (37:52):
I mean, I think I think the first is again, I said
it earlier, like if you talk tosomeone in the space about EDI,
they're going to have a painfulvisceral reaction.
And it it doesn't have to bethat way.
Um, you know, there aresolutions out there that can
meet your EDI requirementswithout your company having to
(38:16):
throw human beings at theproblem or become experts um in
a technology that you don't wantthem to focus on.
I think that's that's the bigthing is like EDI doesn't have
to be painful.
You know, it's painful because,you know, of either how you set
up those integrations or set upthat team on your side, talk to
(38:38):
us.
Um talk to us.
And and at the very least, whenfolks talk to Orderful, they say
one of three things.
They can't they say, I can'tbelieve you know this company
built this solution.
I can't believe this companythis solution hasn't existed
before.
And then of course the third isthey say they don't believe it's
real.
But um, again, we let ourcustomers speak for us, right?
(38:59):
You can look at uh what IvanRamirez said on on LinkedIn, and
maybe we could attach the wecould attach his post to this,
to this show.
But he calls us the Ferrari ofEDI, right?
Another example, we were able tohelp him and the Hirschbach team
move 150 shipper integrationsover.
You know, I think that one was11 months.
(39:20):
Um, and and he'll sing ourpraises without us even without
us even asking.
And and he's one of you knowmany customers that will tell
you this is a different way tosend and receive EDI data.
It's it's worth checking out.
That's great.
SPEAKER_02 (39:34):
Okay, Jonathan.
Um briefly, I'd like to talkabout the future of EDI a little
bit.
What's next?
And can EDI be fully integrated?
Will that ever happen?
Fully automated, I should say.
SPEAKER_00 (39:49):
I think there's two main pain points in EDI.
There's the mapping pane, andthen there's the testing pane.
So we've talked a lot aboutsolving the mapping.
And we at Orderful believe we'veeliminated EDI mapping.
So that's 50% of the problem.
The other 50% is theasynchronous back and forth
between a retailer and a shipperand their trading partner.
(40:12):
That's something that lives inpeople's heads.
It lives in emails.
It lives on Zoom and phonecalls.
It's tribal knowledge.
That's something that is verydifficult to solve, but the
company that solves that willwin long term.
We're doing some things rightnow from a data standpoint and
(40:34):
from an agentix standpoint toget a lot of that asynchronous
behavior into our product, a lotof those retailer and shipper
scenarios into our product.
SPEAKER_01 (40:44):
Talk to us a year from now, but we will have
eliminated EDI testing in 12 to18 months.
That's impressive.
SPEAKER_02 (40:52):
Now, I want to disclose that I am an investor
in Orderful.
I mean, I was so impressed witheverything.
Um the people the plus Ipersonally have experienced uh
the problems of EDI, so I knewit was an issue.
Um I was surprised there hadn'tbeen more progress made in the
(41:13):
world.
So I was happy to see Orderfulhad made that progress, but I
was really impressed with yourengineering team as well.
And um what are they innovatingbehind the scenes now?
SPEAKER_00 (41:29):
Well, I I'm impressed by them too.
It's you know, our CTO peers isone of the reasons I I came to
orderful.
Um, you know, before I I beforeI talk about like what they're
they're innovating on, you cantell you can tell what people
believe at a startup by how longengineers have been at the
company.
On average, our engineers havebeen here for three and a half
(41:51):
years.
They're great people, andthey're not here for charity.
They're here because they'resolving the testing and mapping
problem with EDI and they seethe opportunity that's ahead
with orderful.
Um, but it's something I'mreally proud of is their tenure.
Um, and so recently we're we'rewe've released Mosaic, which is
our, which is that simple APIschema that has eliminated EDI
(42:15):
mapping.
Um but what we said earlier wasgetting those testing scenarios
and getting that asynchronouscommunication, getting it in a
core data source andunderstanding how to eliminate
testing.
That's the problem that they'reworking on right now.
SPEAKER_01 (42:31):
And I'm I'm smiling talking about it.
Um and yeah, let's let's talk inin 12 to 18 months.
SPEAKER_02 (42:39):
Well, Jonathan, this has been great.
Um, thank you for sharing yourincredible experience and
knowledge with us about EDI.
I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00 (42:48):
Yeah.
Great, uh great to talk to you,Matt.
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