Seres: Could you introduce Soparind Bongrain to us?
Lionnel Etienne - Soparind Bongrain is a family business made up of a number of separate companies.

Approximately 19,000 staff work in the business and we have some 80 plants worldwide. Although we are present on all continents, our business is originally French. We are split into two business lines: cheese products, a market on which we are amongst the world leaders (with brands such as Cœur de Lion, Caprice des Dieux, Saint Albray, Tartare, etc…) and other diary products, such as cream, butter, milk powders, etc… (with French brands such as Elle & Vire).

We supply the ‘eating out’ sector, BtoB and supermarkets and hypermarkets, with all the major French retail chains.

Seres: When and how was your tax-compliant electronic invoicing project started? What were the objectives?
L. Etienne – Within supply chain management, we are managing various projects with the same objective - improving process productivity. We had therefore already implemented EDI, labelling standards, label scanning, etc. several years previously, so as to improve administrative productivity and ensure that our processes were compliant with food industry traceability requirements.

Then, we were interested in tax-compliant electronic invoicing from the outset. As a founder member of ECR France and being involved in standards bodies (GS1), we worked on the drawing up of a manual on best practice and the use of tax-compliant electronic invoicing standards.

Our view at the time was that the distributor market had become sufficiently mature, and we used the fact that some partners were requesting it as the spur to start our own tax compliant electronic invoicing project.

But we did want to start this project with a tried-and-tested solution and with commercial partners entirely ready and likely to take full advantage of it.

We believe that tax-compliant electronic invoicing is a service that we offer to our customers because it is primarily them who will see significant financial benefits.

Seres: How was implementation of your project organised?
L. Etienne - Implementation took a relatively long time, it being a sensitive project implementing not only purely computerised processes, but with logistical, financial and legal aspects.

We therefore first of all conducted a study in order to decide whether or not to use an outsourced solution. We wanted to find out whether there was any benefit in outsourcing and whether using a third party was financially attractive. The outcome was positive, since financially an outsourced solution was more or less equivalent to an in-house solution, but in addition there were mature, tried-and-tested solutions on the market. We therefore took the view that it would be advantageous to use a company specialising in electronic invoicing.

Having selected the e-Facture solution, we launched a pilot with one Soparind Bongrain business unit and just one customer. This pilot enabled us to undertake some real housekeeping and to make great progress as regards the robustness of our information system, especially in terms of tax compliance.

After that, we started to roll out electronic invoicing in other business units.

Today, roll out is gradually progressing with certain brands. We only wanted to roll out tax-compliant electronic invoicing with those of our partners who were entirely ready and able to apply very thorough management to the area.

Seres: What results have you been able to see so far?
L. Etienne – Implementation of tax-compliant electronic invoicing enabled us to see us the work that we still had to do in-house, and also to enhance some aspects of the e-Facture service. We have now reached a very high level of requirements with Seres.

As regards the financial benefits, they are very marginal for us and we don't get many direct benefits (other than the cost of paper, postage and storage space), because we were already doing EDI invoicing before starting tax-compliant electronic invoicing. We did not therefore expect any financial savings from the project, but the important thing is that there are no extra costs.

The distributors benefit most, which is why we really view tax-compliant electronic invoicing as an additional service that we are able to offer them, and which enables us to develop better commercial relationships.

Seres: Why was Seres chosen as the service provider? What are the benefits of Seres’ solution compared with other solutions on the market?
L. Etienne -To select our service provider, we conducted a study of the best solutions on the French market - we had already decided to remain purely French.

We chose Seres for various reasons. Firstly, for reasons of commitments to tax compliance and certification. We wanted a solution that was legally faultless and entirely compliant with legislation. There are very few on the market because some get round the legislation. We conducted an audit on the Seres solution which backed up our selection of the e-Facture solution.

We also wanted to work with a service provider which was completely independent from our major retail chain customers.

In addition, as the Allegro operator, Seres is an experienced service provider.

Lastly, Seres is part of the French Post Office which is implementing a major strategy in terms of developing electronic interchange. The Post Office is demonstrating a real desire to offer advanced solutions as regards electronic transactions and we think that this is the right strategic direction to take.

In conclusion, I would say that tax-compliant electronic invoices is a good thing and it works well - But you need a solid solution and solid commercial partners!

Seres: Could you introduce Nestlé France to us?
D. Jaillard - Nestlé in France covers the following businesses: Nestlé France, Nestlé Waters France, Nestlé Purina Petfoods and Accessories, Nutrition, Nespresso France and Cereals Partners France. For Nestlé Group, France is the top market in Europe and second largest worldwide. A few key figures: 5,081 million euros turnover in 2007; 16,000 employees; 30 production sites; 5 research sites.

Seres: When and how did your project to implement an AS2 solution arise?
D. Jaillard - The project was first started in February 2008. It was part of the migration of all of our EDI applications for all businesses onto our centralised platform in Germany. We devised several stages. The first of these stages was to transfer the EDI application for the Nestlé Purina Petfoods and Accessories businesses. We therefore needed to find a service provider which would communicate in AS2 with our platform and which would provide a link with our non-AS2 customers, for whom it meant continuing to send and receive their messages without making any changes to their own configuration.

Seres: How was implementation of your project organised?
D. Jaillard – For this first stage, the main implementation phases were as follows:

• Define the specification,
• Establish and test the AS2 connection between Seres and our centralised platform in Germany,
• Compile a list of customers whose messages would pass through the AS2 gateway along with the data needed for configuration,
• Prepare to migrate the Allegro Purina mailbox hosted at a service provider onto the Seres platform,
• Initialise and configure the AS2 gateway and Allegro mailbox on the Seres platform,
• Test the interchange of messages between customer systems and our platform in Germany,
• Implement live.

Seres: What results have you been able to see so far?
D. Jaillard – Live running started on the scheduled date (July 2008) with no impact on our business. We have not seen any problems since, but we have seen improved reliability and performance compared with our previous solution.

Seres: Why was Seres chosen as the service provider? What are the benefits of Seres’ solution compared with other solutions on the market?
D. Jaillard – Seres was chosen because it met the criterion of being a solution that could be put in place quickly given our timescales, Seres being the owner of Allegro which made dealing with the legacy system easier.