Munich, 16/07/2009 – SoftM AG, Munich and Comarch Software AG,  presented a new electronic data interchange (EDI) solution at a press conference in  today. The ECOD EDI solution has set new standards with its flexible technology, full service and reasonable price. It will spare customers the usual effort involved in EDI implementation, upgrading and administration, whilst considerably reducing costs. ECOD will be offered as an integrated solution for the SoftM Semiramis and SoftM Suite ERP systems and as a service for companies with third party systems.

EDI has been best practice in numerous industries for many years. Indeed, business relations between suppliers and car manufacturers are no longer conceivable without EDI and the associated industry standards. The same applies to relations between retail chains and their business partners. Companies which supply the major retail store chains must provide orders, dispatch notifications and invoices as EDI messages in the formats used by their customers. Generally, companies currently tackle this issue by installing converters which transform data into the appropriate formats, thus enabling data interchange with different business partners. Besides implementation expenses and personnel costs, licence and maintenance expenses are also incurred for software installed in-house.

Central Clearing Centre
SoftM and Comarch offer EDI as a comprehensive service. The innovative ECOD (Electronic Center of Documents) EDI solution supplied by Comarch Software AG simplifies and speeds up electronic data and document interchange between companies. The ERP system sends any raw data generated (invoices, dispatch notifications etc) to the ECOD platform in the Comarch data centre. These messages are converted here into the format required by the relevant business partners and sent to them through the preferred communication channels. ECOD customers therefore communicate with the central clearing centre rather than via fixed point-to-point connections. New business partners can be connected quickly and at no extra cost to customers. No in-house converters need to be implemented.

ECOD supports all current data formats (XML, EDIFACT, IDoc, Flatfile etc) and standards (GS1, AKH etc) as well as all relevant document types and message types (e.g. ORDERS, INVOIC, DESADV, RECADV). The EDI infrastructure of a company can be comprehensively consolidated with ECOD. Relations with all business partners and connections for overseas companies to their procurement and sales markets can be managed centrally.

In Eastern Europe and in particular in Poland, Russia, the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Hungary, Comarch has already established a leading market position. ECOD is currently used by 11,000 customers in 28 countries. Approximately 100 million business documents are exchanged each year via ECOD. Its clientele includes many major European retail chains (including Auchan, Carrefour and Real) as well as well-known branded companies (including Coca-Cola, Procter&Gamble und Sony).

A high level of security
The ECOD solution offers optimal security both in the Comarch data centre, which guarantees optimal availability and data security (class 4 data centre – the highest security category), and during the exchange of electronic documents between companies and the data centre. Communication can take place via the internet using the https security protocol with 128-bit encryption. Other direct, external communication technologies such as AS2, OFTP, (S)FTP, X.400 etc can be supplied to customers for industry-specific requirements.  The comprehensive range of support services includes commercial and technical monitoring (data monitoring), administration of the clearing platform and helpdesk functions in various languages. Revision-safe electronic archiving and electronic signatures can also be provided as additional services.

Integration in the SoftM ERP systems and third party solutions
ECOD is available as an integrated solution for the SoftM Semiramis and SoftM Suite ERP systems. The Java-based SoftM Semiramis ERPII software communicates with the ECOD platform via XML. Data exchange takes place via the SoftM Semiramis Business Integration Service (BIS), which enables data import and export based on a wide variety of standards.  The SoftM Suite ERP system, which is designed to run on the IBM System i platform, communicates with ECOD via data tables, which are created for data export or read and processed during import by SoftM Suite. Since ECOD supports a variety of processes during data interchange, all current ERP systems and individual solutions can be connected to the platform.

The main target groups for the new EDI package are SMEs involved in retail and industry, with a particular focus on suppliers of retail chains. In terms of industry, food and consumer goods manufacturers are the main target, whereas in the retail sector, a particular emphasis is placed on wholesalers and distributors, who play a vital role in the supply chain as intermediaries.

Price and distribution channels
ECOD has a transparent pricing system where costs are charged per transaction. The prices per document sent vary based on quantities. The price is €0.33 per document for volumes of 100 documents per month and €0.17 per document for 1,500 documents per month. ECOD is distributed via SoftM and the Semiramis partner network as well as via Comarch Software AG, which also supplies ECOD to other target groups.

Ralf Gärtner, Director of Marketing at SoftM AG states, "ECOD allows companies to act more flexibly within their supply chains. New partners can be integrated within the supply chain quickly and easily and EDI costs can also be significantly reduced with ECOD. Users of SoftM Semiramis and SoftM Suite who supply retail chains have the distinct advantage of being able to connect to the ECOD platform without incurring integration costs and connect to all major business partners on the retail side by EDI virtually from scratch."

Michael Ulbricht, ECOD business development manager in the EDI department of Comarch Software AG, adds: "Even in these difficult economic conditions, we believe that there are some outstanding market opportunities for our package, which is exceptionally competitive in technological and economic terms, as it takes the pressure off companies and improves their productivity, whilst reducing costs."