Oppenheimer Companies

• Free customer service team and accounting staff to perform business-critical tasks
• Automates the exchange of EDI 810/880 and EDI 850/875 documents with over 60 major grocery retailers
• Frees customer service staff to focus on higher-value activities

At Oppenheimer Companies, Inc., “The customer comes first; everything else follows.” This philosophy has been a recipe for success across a diverse range of divisions that includes food service, branded and private label food products, logistics, commercial development and property management.

Prior to 2014, Oppenheimer Companies faced significant hurdles with its existing EDI provider. New customers were being delayed 6-8 weeks or longer before EDI document setup was complete and individual technical issues commonly required 2-3 weeks to solve. For a company which depended on its customer service and timely issue resolution, their EDI partner was becoming a liability rather than an asset. When searching for a new partner, Oppenheimer was also looking for a solution which would integrate with their Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP system.

Blair Christensen, EDI and Database Administrator, describes the complex and time-consuming order processing workflow with their prior, standalone EDI system:

“One of our IT staff built a Microsoft Excel workbook with macros to generate invoices. We would enter the invoice number from our business system, click a button and the workbook would generate a tab-delimited file. This was then sent manually via an FTP client to our EDI VAN, which would translate it and send it to the customer.”

The ordeal did not end there.

“To process an order, we’d receive a similar file through our VAN, and an Excel-built parser would put the information into our database,” recaps Mr. Christensen. “Then we would manually run a custom-coded integration to pull the information into Microsoft Dynamics GP, where we could finally make use of it.”

Now, with TrueCommerce, EDI 810 and EDI 880 invoices are automatically generated and transmitted directly from Dynamics GP. Likewise, EDI 850 and EDI 875 purchase orders flow straight into Dynamics GP with no human intervention.

“The cost and time savings with TrueCommerce have been huge,” asserts Mr. Christensen. “Instead of a turnaround time of 3 to 5 minutes per document, we can now process a batch of documents in 15 to 20 seconds.”

Oppenheimer currently has about 60 EDI trading partners which include many of the major North American grocery retailers like Krogers, WinCo, ALDI and Loblaws. The company receives approximately 40 to 50 EDI transactions per day, with more during seasonal peaks.

More Prepared for What’s Next: Capturing Market Share with Exceptional Customer Service

Oppenheimer Companies uses electronic data interchange (EDI) primarily within its Peak Foods division, which produces a full line of frozen whipped toppings under the truwhip brand. In the past several years, Peak Foods has established almost 100% dominance of the US and Canadian markets for frozen store brand whipped toppings, supplanting an entrenched competitor.

“Our customer service level was what enabled us to take the market from the competition—they couldn’t meet retailers’ schedules and we have never failed to meet them,” explains Mr. Christensen.

Another significant differentiator that is supported by Peak Foods’ accelerated order processing is an improved made-to-order manufacturing capability. Shipping a just-made product to the customer faster means it has a much longer shelf life.

“The time and effort we save on order processing with integrated EDI plays a critical role in ensuring we can always deliver for our customers on time,” Mr. Christensen emphasizes.

More Supported: TrueCommerce Gets “Full Marks” for Responsiveness

“I’m on a first-name basis with many of the TrueCommerce customer support staff and they are outstanding,” relates Mr. Christensen. “I also appreciate how quick and easy it is to access them and get positive results.”

Oppenheimer Companies especially values the urgency with which the TrueCommerce support team tackles their issues.

“If my issue is time-sensitive I not only get ‘same-day service’—often my problem is resolved within 30 to 40 minutes from the time I call in,” Mr. Christensen notes. “I’m very, very pleased with the level of service that we’re getting from TrueCommerce Support. I give TrueCommerce Support ‘full marks,’ and I recommend TrueCommerce to other companies like ours.”