SUCCESS STORY
Global CPG company
Industry• Consumer Packaged Goods

Solutions• OpenText™ Business Network• OpenText™ B2B Managed Services

Results
Achieved a managed, optimized
end-to-end supply chain solution
Improved customer satisfaction
with a mobile order status app

Global CPG company transforms B2B
operations and customer service withOpenText Business Network

One of the world’s largest and fastest growing consumer goods companies
leverages OpenText to optimize supply chain operations and reduce costs“This is the lifeline tothe business. OpenText
provides ultra-highavailability to supportmission criticalbusiness functions.”
B2B Integration Manager

Managed 95% of EDIorders through theOpenText™ Business Network
Processed 70 million transactions
per year in one country alone

Global CPG company

Global CPG company transforms B2B operations and customer service with OpenText Business Network

Founded more than 100 years ago, this global Consumer Packaged
Goods Company (CPG) has become one of the world’s largest
food and beverage companies. Leveraging its global reach, it iscommitted to inspiring people to live healthier lives.
While the company is focused on its contributions to society, it mustalso ensure the profitability, agility and growth of the business. Toachieve operational efficiencies and reduce costs, the company
consolidated its aging, disparate B2B point solutions using OpenText™
B2B Managed Services, part of the OpenText™ Business Network
portfolio. It then improved customer service efficiencies with aninnovative mobile order status app, also built on the OpenText platform.

Improving supply chain operations with OpenText B2BManaged Services
Several years ago, the company faced an increasingly geographicallydispersed and complex B2B environment made up of fragmentedbusiness networks and solutions from approximately 20 providers.
To address this, the company replaced its home-grown solution for
global EDI (electronic data interchange) and partnered with OpenText
for a standardized, end-to-end solution that centralized businessinformation exchange for the thousands of retailers, suppliers andother business partners.
The company’s B2B integration manager with the supply chain
customer service team explained: “We needed to look for a partner
and that search ended up with OpenText. We realized that they
were exactly the partner we were looking for. OpenText is uniquely
able to keep stride with our pace of change with regards toinnovation and transformation for B2B and associated services.
OpenText also has a truly global footprint and operates in all themajor markets that we are positioned in.”

B2B Managed Services performs daily activities, such as mapping,testing and onboarding to establish connectivity with partners,
including customers, distributors, suppliers, logistics providers andfinancial institutions, with the entire solution hosted in the OpenText
integration cloud. The global CPG now has one of the mostadvanced and integrated B2B platforms in the industry, performing
billions of transactions globally.
OpenText manages approximately 95 percent of the global CPG’s
EDI orders, offering the company several important benefits,
including reduced costs and increased efficiencies associated withthe consolidation of its previously fragmented B2B technology.
“This is the lifeline to the business. OpenText provides ultrahigh availability to support mission critical business functions. If
the service failed, it would have a huge impact on our business.
That’s why we work together with OpenText to make sure that bothservices and support work at all times,” said the company’s B2B
integration manager.
The company also recognizes the benefits of global customer andtrading community support around the clock, including transaction
and systems monitoring, exception management and incidentmanagement. The B2B integration manager noted, “We have threehubs in Asia, Europe and America. We use what is called ‘follow
the sun’ support—24 hours a day it provides support for all theapplication processes. In fact, we have a number of markets,
especially in Europe, actually requesting full support from theOpenText side, which means even the business components arebeing managed by OpenText to reduce the cost on our side.”“Within a few months, 
we had thousands of sales
reps trying to get theirhands on the app. It simplified their work in terms of 
helping customers.”
B2B Integration Manager
Global CPG company

Global CPG company transforms B2B operations and customer service with OpenText Business Network

Creating an innovative order status application

Improved efficiency, transparency and information flow

The company recently turned its attention to another issue, customer
inquiries about order status. Customers did not have realtime visibility
into the status of their orders, and the tracing and tracking orderprocess was manual. It has more than 30 unique ERP instances andno single view into the back-end ERP system. As a result, customer
support and field sales were spending a great deal of time trying to
track down information manually.

The simple yet innovative app has improved customer satisfaction
and reduced manual workload and related inefficiencies. It provides
a single view into ERP information, enabling the company to run likea single business without requiring a massive ERP overhaul. Theglobal CPG can now meet customer expectations—full visibilityof order status without having to chase sales or customer service
for answers. In addition, the manual efforts of sales and customer
service has been greatly reduced.

The company sought a solution that would offer visibility into
order-based transactions and improve day-to-day engagement andcollaboration with the trading partner community. According to theB2B integration manager, “Our goal was to reduce the support costs
related to responding to these inquiries, as well as provide a better
solution to the customer in terms of availability of their orderdata. Originally, we envisioned this as a basic EDI component, butthen we realized that we needed to go a little bit further. OpenText
stepped in and suggested that they could help us with that.”
Using the Business Network platform, the company worked withOpenText to develop an application that offered realtime visibility into
order status, accessible via smartphone, tablet or desktop. Quickand easy to set up, users have full visibility into every order fromSAP, whether they were placed by phone, fax, email, online customer
portal or EDI. The app also provides information related to changes
in quantity and delivery times, while allowing filtering by status andother criteria.

“Within a few months, we had thousands of sales reps trying to
get their hands on the app. It simplified their work in terms ofhelping customers. For reps in the field, the connection to the SAP
system can sometimes be so slow that they can’t do anything forhours. With this app, they can access every order for a particularcustomer within seconds. It has really made an impact from theirperspective,” explained the B2B integration manager.
The company’s small and medium-sized customers were also
quick to adopt the free application, which requires very little
underlying technology. The solution now supports 8,000 users
across 30 countries.
Since the app was deployed, the global CPG has also seen adramatic drop in the number of customer calls inquiring about thestatus of orders. “In addition to so many other additional benefits,
we can clearly see that it does reduce the calls to customer service
about where the order is,” stated the B2B integration manager.

“In addition toso many otheradditional
benefits, wecan clearly
see that it
does reducethe calls tocustomer
service about
where theorder is.”B2B Integration
Manager

Global CPG company

Global CPG company transforms B2B operations and customer service with OpenText Business Network

Introducing an industry standard
Since the development of the order status app, similar applications
have begun to appear in the industry. The company’s customers are
now being asked by other suppliers to use their own applications.
As a result, the global CPG again turned to OpenText for assistance inbuilding the app on a multi-tenancy basis to allow other suppliers touse it. The goal is to see the order status app adopted as an industry
standard for retailers to engage with suppliers. Traditionally, retailers
may have to work through different supplier portals, but with manyof the company’s suppliers already connected to the BusinessNetwork, other consumer packaged goods companies could leverage
the same app to connect with their respective suppliers.

OpenText and the global CPG are now working to build a group ofsuppliers in Europe to promote the app as a best practice for orderprocessing. While the company is keen to work with other customers
to encourage further adoption of the app, the goal is to drive benefits
for the industry as a whole rather than just for itself. “We’re trying
to influence others to come on board with us in this. If you are acustomer of ours, or any other big supplier, you can now use thesame application. This is an important innovation that, together
with OpenText, we brought into the market,” concluded the B2Bintegration manager.
Looking to a future of continued innovation, the global CPG is working
with OpenText on other initiatives, including an executive dashboard
for operational insight into the B2B Managed Services platform.

About OpenText
OpenText, The Information Company,
enables organizations to gain insight
through market leading information
management solutions, on-premises orin the cloud. For more information aboutOpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTEX)
visit opentext.com.
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