EDI for the health and beauty sector

Transalis works with some of the world’s leading Health & Beauty brands, helping them transform processes and maximise efficiency.

As the preferred provider of EDI for Health & Beauty, the supply chain automation specialist is proving pivotal to ‘electronic enablement’ of frictionless business.

So what are the challenges and opportunities that Transalis helps brands address and why has it become such a favourite?

With Covid impacting so heavily on in-store shopping, brands have increasingly strengthened their direct-to-consumer trading models, offering more online routes to engage and purchase:

• Recent research by the global management consultancy McKinsey points to a rise in product and technology developments such as DIY and nail colour kits as examples of the industry’s ability to adapt.
• Increasingly prevalent digital channels bring with them an opportunity to streamline operations across trading networks. The goal is to maximise efficiencies and achieve frictionless businesses wherever possible.

Many Health & Beauty brands are now prioritising the opportunity to share inventory and sales data to enable a smoother and more cost-effective supply chain operation. Coupled with this is a growing recognition of the importance of having real-time trading data at your fingertips.

Transalis eDI™ connects businesses to their trading partners to implement, enhance and optimise the benefits of automation and integration.

EDI for health and beauty businesses can absorb data in any format from any source and translate it to integrate with back-office systems.

EDI for health and beauty: two case studies

Transalis has provided fully-scalable, cloud-based EDI solutions to both e-commerce company The Hut Group and transatlantic beauty brand Space NK. Read more: What health and beauty brands should look for in an EDI solution.

Both have been supported to remove any reliance on legacy EDI systems while improving their engagement with trading partners.

The Hut Group

By adopting Transalis eDI™, the Hut Group was able to optimise their technical resources whilst also improving their relationships with suppliers and customers, with the management of B2B electronic enablement for 1,000 suppliers.

Space NK

For Space NK, moving from an expensive, legacy EDI platform to far better process management and optimisation through Transalis eDI™ produced an immediate cost saving of £60,000. Read more: How Space NK cut £60,000 a year by leaving its VAN.

Chris Wakeham, Space NK’s Global IT Director, said:

“It took only one week to onboard the first partner with Transalis as EDI provider. After that, it snowballed quickly, initially with large retailers such as Bloomingdales, Harrods and Selfridges, but soon to customer interactions and other vendors. Now we could see the benefits of trading with more partners over EDI. It enabled far better engagement with our trading network. It became much easier to onboard multiple vendors and customers. There are benefits to all parties in a trading relationship when you implement EDI integration.”

Beauty brand favourite

A key reason why Transalis is a favourite provider of EDI for Health and Beauty is summed up by Chris:

“It’s a relationship based on trust,” he explains.

“That’s the biggest difference between them and other providers. I trust the team. If I have a question, I speak to them directly and they always provide the right answer. They don’t play games with you. They provide good customer service and they are always looking forward. They made it as seamless as possible to integrate EDI into our internal systems and I continue to find it easy to work with them. I don’t know any other providers who make it this easy. A lot of businesses believe EDI is complex and they need an expert in house to use it, but with Transalis the need for knowledge about integration stops with them because they output in a user-friendly format. Transalis removed barriers and overheads and got us away from the crusty, old-fashioned view of EDI. Their solution takes out all the headaches of EDI.”

Customer first

Putting the customer first has been the approach of Transalis for years.

It means being committed to the best client outcomes at all times. That includes making it easy to onboard partners across your trading network. To achieve this, Transalis provides a fully managed onboarding programme featuring training, guides and on-going technical support.

There is also a choice of product bundles designed to meet the differing needs of Health & Beauty companies for solutions that assist frictionless business.