GE Lighting, a Savant company
Intelligent lighting and smart home company delivers on time to millions of customers with streamlined order management from OpenText™ Active Orders
About GE Lighting, a Savant company
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Headquartered in:Cleveland, OH
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First founded:1876
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Footprint:North America
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Retails via:More than 55,000 locations
Summary
Challenges
- Previous order management solution made it difficult for suppliers to enter data.
- Data-entry delays reduced the accuracy of supply and demand forecasting, increasing fulfillment risks.
Solution
- Deployed a user-friendly order management solution.
- Onboarded suppliers to the new solution rapidly.
- Went live before the previous solution’s switch-off deadline.
Results
Boosted efficiency with supplier self-service
Helped increase on-time fulfillment by 10%
Strengthened supplier relationships
Challenges
- Previous order management solution made it difficult for suppliers to enter data
- Data-entry delays reduced the accuracy of supply and demand forecasting, increasing fulfillment risks
With origins dating back to the invention of the world's first light bulb, GE Lighting, a Savant company, has been a lighting leader for over a century. Today, the company is growing its suite of Cync™ smart home automation solutions, including smart lighting, plugs, cameras, thermostats and more.
To bring its lighting and home automation products to consumers around the world, GE Lighting, a Savant company, partners with a network of contract manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers across Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America. With dozens of trading partners located in seven countries, effective collaboration is crucial to ensure on-time deliveries for customers.
Rick Stalker, SAP technical product manager at GE Lighting, a Savant company, said, “We market our products to customers through our partnerships with leading online and brick-and-mortar retailers. For both online and in-store channels, we depend on accurate, timely information from our suppliers to forecast demand and orchestrate our fulfillment processes.”
Because many of its suppliers lack EDI capabilities, GE Lighting, a Savant company, leveraged an order management platform to allow them to exchange important documents such as purchase orders (POs), advance ship notices, and invoices via a web portal.
The previous order management platform made it very time-consuming for suppliers to share essential data, such as estimated shipping dates. The combination of long loading times for the web portal and an unintuitive front-end experience meant that the company’s sourcing team spent many hours a week fielding support enquiries from its suppliers.
Stalker continued, “Our suppliers were constantly asking for help, and we could not rely on our previous technology vendor to provide effective support, which increased the workload for our sourcing team. Crucially, our previous platform made it very difficult to get accurate data for our forecasts—increasing the risk of delivery delays to our customers and retail partners.”
Supplier collaboration in OpenText Active Orders contributed to a 10% improvement in on-time fulfillment this year—helping us to foster greater customer satisfaction.
Solution
GE Lighting, a Savant company, selected OpenText Active Orders—a cloud-based order management solution that enables 360-degree visibility for supplier and buyer transactions, including non-EDI trading partners.
Products deployed
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OpenText™ Active Orders
Comprehensive technology and enterprise services for buying organization end-to-end process automation through cloud-based order management
Deploying a user-friendly solution
After evaluating supplier management platforms from four leading vendors, GE Lighting, a Savant company, determined that OpenText Active Orders was the optimal fit for its global business.
“Our key criteria for the solution included good functional usability, end-to-end coverage of the procure-to-pay process, and full integration with our SAP ERP business systems,” recalled Stalker. “Active Orders met our needs in all these areas. We like that the solution makes it so easy for our suppliers to confirm receipt of POs, send shipment confirmations, and proactively update us about manufacturing issues that might cause delivery delays.”
He added, “The OpenText solution supports the entire lifecycle, from creating and confirming orders to shipping, invoicing and payment acknowledgement. OpenText and SAP are also strategic partners, which gave us the confidence that we could integrate OpenText Active Orders with our mission-critical SAP ERP applications.”
Onboarding partners rapidly
Working with GE Lighting, a Savant company, OpenText deployed and configured Active Orders, then onboarded its trading partners to the new platform.
“One of the biggest differences between our previous platform and Active Orders is how user-friendly the new solution is,” said Stalker. “The deployment project was very smooth, and OpenText helped us define the business rules for the new solution and run training sessions for our employees and trading partners. The OpenText team even ran onboarding workshops in our suppliers’ native languages, which was instrumental in helping all our partners get up and running quickly.”
Switching over on time
With the shutdown date for the existing order management platform fast approaching, OpenText helped GE Lighting, a Savant company, make the switch to Active Orders well ahead of the deadline.
“We went live with Active Orders on time, a full three weeks before the cutover date—a big achievement for a project with so many moving parts,” said Stalker. “The whole project went extremely smoothly, and the transition time we built into the plan helped to ensure that everything was running smoothly before we switched over to the new solution.”
OpenText is a vital B2B integration partner for us, and we are confident that Active Orders will continue to play a key role in helping us deliver on time to millions of customers every year.
Results
Today, GE Lighting, a Savant company, uses Active Orders to enable seamless integration with its global trading partners. The new solution empowers the company with faster access to supplier data—helping it to orchestrate its supply chain effectively.
Boosted efficiency with supplier self-service
In the past, technical support enquiries from suppliers were almost a daily occurrence and diverted the company’s sourcing professionals from their other key responsibilities. Thanks to Active Orders, the company can now let its order management platform fade into the background.
Stalker commented, “Our sourcing team used to spend hours a week assisting our suppliers with technical issues, but now, that’s all changed. The OpenText solution is so intuitive that we barely receive any support requests at all—empowering our team to focus on value-added activities.”
Increased on-time fulfillment
Every month, GE Lighting, a Savant company, uses the OpenText solution to send and receive more than 7,000 EDI files, including POs, order acknowledgments, remittance advices, and more. Because suppliers can now share information with the company more quickly and easily, GE Lighting, a Savant company, can ensure that its forecasts are based on accurate data.
“We’ve increased the number of on-time PO confirmations from our suppliers by 2%, which is important because POs and in-transit inventory are both factors in our forecasting model,” explained Stalker. “Supplier collaboration in OpenText Active Orders contributed to a 10% improvement in on-time fulfillment this year—helping us to foster greater customer satisfaction.”
Strengthened supplier relationships
With an efficient, cloud-based order management system at the heart of its business, GE Lighting, a Savant company, is also driving improvements to the supplier experience.
“As well as being extremely responsive for the end user, Active Orders offers a range of time-saving features that our suppliers greatly appreciate,” said Stalker. “For example, while our previous platform required repetitive manual work to enter invoices one by one, Active Orders allows suppliers to upload invoices in batches—saving them significant time.”
As it grows its smart home automation business, GE Lighting, a Savant company, can leverage its order management solution to facilitate clear and effective collaboration with its global suppliers.
Stalker concluded, “OpenText is a vital B2B integration partner for us, and we are confident that Active Orders will continue to play a key role in helping us deliver on time to millions of customers every year.”
