Advance-com and NetPath:  A New Approach to EDI – Andrew Levin, Vice President of Sales

Andrew Levin opened his presentation with an overview of Advance-com’s history and mission.  He stated that Advance-com was founded in November of 2000.  This company provides e-transaction management services to mid-market retail, wholesale, distribution, grocery, and manufacturing companies.  The initial focus was on NetPath as an EDI solution.  NetPath enables companies to be EDI-compliant quickly and cost effectively.  NetPath was released in 4Q01 and NetPath for AccountMate LAN/SQL was released in 4Q02.

Andrew discussed the Value Proposition and also a case study that involved NetPath.  He demonstrated the functionality of NetPath as well.  Outlined below are some of the major topics that Andrew covered in his presentation.  Contact information is given at the bottom of this page.

It’s E-business or NO BUSINESS!!!

• Value chains of world’s largest companies rely on thousands of mid-market suppliers
• Driving cost out of their infrastructure is critical to large company success
• More and more, large companies are mandating electronic trading to all their suppliers
• Mid-market companies spend $1B/year for EDI software and service to comply

The mid-market dilemma

NetPath: A practical, cost-effective solution for mid-market EDI

NetPath: A practical, cost-effective solution for mid-market EDI

• An fully, outsourced EDI solution for mid-market companies
• Services
• All mapping, validation, testing
• Ongoing problem resolution, transaction management
• Support needed communications front-ends
• On-going upgrades for EDI standards
• Systems
• Creation and storage of business rules for both trading partners
• Translation, compression, encryption
• Software
• Communications and transformation interface for VAM LAN/SQL
• Available for Visual AccountMate (LAN and SQL), MAS90/200, ACCPAC Pro Series, Great Plains (in development), BusinessVision (in development), ALERE (in development), more planned…

NetPath Vertical Market Support 

Transaction Types

• Purchase Orders
• Invoices
• P.O. Acknowledgements
• Adv. Shipping Notices
• Creates UCC-128 Labels
• Remittance Notices
• Pricing Changes
• Sales Catalogs
• Planning Schedules

NetPath for AccountMate

• Works with VAM LAN, VAM SQL
• Runs on single PC or on a network
• Runs in MS Windows or NT environment
• Requires only a POP3 mailbox for inbound and outbound transmission
• Encrypts and compresses transactions for security, speed

NetPath Cost Structure

One-time Set-up fee

• Software installation and set-up at customer
• Set-up and installation on Advance-com servers
• All mapping, validation, testing for all transaction types and trading partners

Subscription fee

• Based on number of trading partners
• Covers all software upgrades, EDI enhancements, problem resolution, customer support

Transaction fee

• Based on number of transactions processed by Advance-com servers
• Cost per transaction drops as volume increases

A huge value proposition for the mid-market company

Increases Revenues:

• Protect key accounts
• Compete for new business

Decreases Costs

• Eliminate fines, chargebacks
• Save time, redirect resources
• No change to business processes
• Simple to use
• Rapid implementation (3 to 6 weeks)

NetPath vs. Web vs. Infrastructure: 

NetPath is cost-effective for mid-market companies:

Advance-com VAR Partnership Program

Objective: Build revenue-sharing “partnerships” with the AccountMate VAR community

• Generates on-going, incremental revenue stream to VAR over life of customer relationship
• Advance-com provides marketing toolkit (email, fax templates, cost analysis), sales collateral, sales support, proposal development for VARs
• VAR maintains customer relationship, on-going customer satisfaction

NetPath Benefits Your Customers

• Enables direct participation in EDI with their large trading partners
• Enables them to become a preferred supplier, capture new business
• No change to existing procedures
• Can be used by multiple departments
• Simple to learn, easy to use
• No investment in expensive software, no VAN contracts, no consulting fees
• Variable cost solution that moves with business volume

NetPath Benefits You

• Provides you a new recurring revenue stream
• Improves breadth of your product offerings
• Gives you a reason to contact your customer base and uncover new business
• Simple to learn, easy to use
• No investment in expensive software, no VAN contracts, no consulting fees
• Enables you to use EDI a prospecting tool with new customers

Andrew Lenin

Advance-com, VP Sales

Email:  alevin@advance-com.net

Phone:  508-634-1700

 Go back to the main AccountMate Summit 2003 page, or visit our home page featuring reviews of all the top products.