Sterling Commerce selected by ECN Group

Peter Dinham
Monday, 11 May 2009 11:30

IT Industry - Deals

Australasian outsourced B2B messaging solution provider, the ECN Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of New Zealand Post, has selected Sterling Commerce’s collaboration network (SCN) as its international value added network (VAN) connection.

Announcing the deal, Sterling Commerce’s managing director, Australia/New Zealand, Michael Vulcan, said the SCN global, on demand B2B network would make it easier for ECN’s customers to securely integrate trading processes and enhance process automation among their global trading communities.

Vulcan says global multi-nationals with regional operations in Australasia are facing lengthening supply chains, and Sterling Commerce “understands that companies are looking for a complete solution – an integrated, global B2B capability combined with local support and local capabilities.”

“With Sterling Commerce’s global reach, along with The ECN Group’s expertise in the Australasia B2B retail environment, regional companies gain access to a powerful solution that can accelerate the speed of secure electronic trading, streamline their operations, reduce their cost of doing business and ultimately reduce risk and increase revenues.” 

Michael Davey, general manager (Australia) for The ECN Group, said the company had reviewed several solutions but were “impressed with the scalability and proven expertise of the Sterling Collaboration Network.”

“This was confirmed when we interconnected to their network, as this was both a rapid and smooth transition and enabled us to continue offering a seamless service to our clients,” and, he added, “with Sterling Commerce, we have absolute confidence in our capacity to support our client’s business growth with a EDI trading network whose underlying technology has been successfully deployed for leading organisations around the world.”

According to Davey, the ECN Group’s specialised regional B2B network supports nearly 3,000 companies, including the region’s largest retailers.

“The company provides a cost effective means of connecting companies electronically to automate the exchange of business transactions including purchase orders, advance shipping notices (ASNs) and electronic invoices between suppliers and their trading partners.  By adding the Sterling Collaboration Network as the international VAN provider, this extends ECN Group’s global reach to over 90 public and private networks and access to over 30,000 trading IDs.”