Implementation of Comarch EDI at Danone

About Danone

Danone is a leading global food company built on following business lines: Essential Dairy and Plant-Based Products, Waters and Beverages, and Specialised Nutrition. With products being present in around 130 markets, Danone segments generated combined sales of approximately EUR 25.3 billion in 2019. Danone’s brand portfolio includes international brands (Activia, Actimel, Alpro, Danette, Danonino, Danio, Evian, Volvic and Nutrilon/Aptamil, Nutricia) and local brands (Aqua, Blédina, Cow & Gate, Bonafont, Horizon Organic, Mizone, Oikos, Prostokvashino, Silk and Vega).

Challenges

As a global leader in the FMCG sector, Danone cooperates with lots of different suppliers, partners and customers. Many of them needed to exchange data electronically with Danone via a single, reliable system. Danone also wanted to eliminate paper documentation to improve data management and make cost and time savings. Danone made the decision to use Comarch Electronic Data Interchange platform not only because the company was pleased with other Comarch tools, but also because Comarch is an international provider which enables harmonization of EDI in many countries.

Solution

In order to address Danone’s needs, the Electronic Data Interchange platform was prepared and implemented in four countries in which company operates: Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.

The company decided to implement three EDI modules: Comarch EDI, Comarch EDI Tracking and Comarch EDI Archive.

These were in addition to Comarch WEB-EDI, which gives access to platform from mobile application level. The needs of both Danone and its business partners were connected with order to cash/order to bill processing, therefore company was interested in the deployment of four types of EDI messages:

Order
Order response
Dispatch advice
Invoice

There were a few levels involved in introducing this solution. First, all needs were investigated and all requirements of Danone and its partners were analyzed. After that, the contract was signed and the implementation process was started. During this stage, the correctness of all implemented communications (EDI flows) was tested which led to successful implementation of the platform. During the implementation process, Danone acquired lots of new partners, which were also connected via the system. Finally, in 2018, made additional changes to adjust the platform to meet a couple of new requirements from Danone.