Moving towards a Green Future – SANYO Switches to EDI On-Demand from Crossgate

ATLANTA--Crossgate, Inc. announces that SANYO Component Europe GmbH, the leading supplier of industrial batteries for hybrid vehicles and other electronic automotive components, is switching its communications with business partners to the on-demand EDI service from Crossgate. Fully in line with its green "Think GAIA" corporate vision and effective immediately, SANYO will be switching to the B2B 360° Services "powered by SAP" from Crossgate, which are available as a subscription-based EDI service. With a single connection, the company will integrate to Crossgate's Business-Ready Network – the B2B network linking more than 40,000 connected business partners. SANYO will be using the platform to exchange data with globally active customers and suppliers in the automotive industry. The electronic trading requirements of their business partners are held in the Crossgate platform repository which simplifies mapping, on-boarding, and connectivity. This reusable repository of trading partner specific mappings greatly speeds up the connectivity and has already led to the smooth linkup of the first business partners this past August.

SANYO Component Europe GmbH has declared it its goal to accelerate the introduction of innovative and ecologically friendly technologies, and to become a leading supplier of industrial batteries for the automobiles of the future. To begin with, the batteries will be used in "hybrid vehicles", as they are known, but long-term plans foresee their use in purely electric cars too. SANYO markets its photovoltaics modules in Europe, an area of business that has already developed a strong foothold for itself. As a result of the rapidly growing portfolio of new customers, the up-and-coming company was on the lookout for a modern solution for its electronic communications with business partners. The previous solution, an in-house EDI middleware used solely for one process, was unable to meet the new and complex EDI requirements and was also highly cost-intensive to maintain.

EDI leadership in the automotive industry

"Since we had no expertise in EDI in the company itself, we were most interested in an on-demand solution," says Oliver Toll, Assistant Manager for the SAP Department of SANYO Component Europe GmbH. "Crossgate, a highly experienced provider of EDI on demand, impressed us with a complete offering. In addition, it maintains a B2B repository of reusable trading partner profiles from the automotive industry - partners that are also our customers. We can use this EDI asset as we grow and expand our business."

EDI on-demand

Crossgate's software-as-a-service approach (SaaS) - is a flat-fee EDI subscription service that does not require additional investments in hardware, software and maintenance. This IT consolidation was very much in SANYO's interest. With the on-demand B2B 360° services "powered by SAP" solution from Crossgate, the company is now able to connect to Crossgate's Business-Ready Network through just one interface, and immediately start exchanging electronic data with its business partners. SANYO will soon start processing other business processes via the Crossgate platform, optimizing collaboration with its suppliers and saving costs at the same time.

About SANYO Component Europe GmbH

In April 2004 SANYO Component Europe GmbH was established as a merger of SANYO Energy (Europe) GmbH, the SANYO Electronic Devices Marketing Office and SANYO Semiconductor Europe GmbH. Since then SANYO Component Europe represents in a unique combination products from various SANYO-Divisions in Europe. The product range includes now industrial and consumer-batteries as well as photovoltaic products - the classical products of SANYO Energy Europe - combined with electronic devices like capacitors or filters and semiconductor products from the Electronic Device and Semiconductor Divisions.

SANYO Component Europe is the exclusive SANYO sales channel for all these products in whole Europe. The headquarters is based in Munich, Germany. The company has subsidiaries Watford and Walton (Great Britain) and Chatou (France).

About Crossgate, Inc.

Crossgate offers the world's first Business-Ready Network, guaranteeing 100% integration of business partners, clients and suppliers. A single connection to the Network means electronic data exchange with any business partner regardless of their technical capability. In addition, Crossgate's B2B-360° Services powered by SAP provide clients direct access to all integrated business partners in the B2B transaction network via their SAP systems. With its legally compliant e-Invoicing Services, Crossgate also provides an innovative and 100% secure solution to cover the entire process of incoming and outgoing invoices, including signatures, global compliance monitoring, and secure automated long-term archiving. More than 40,000 business partners, representing over 10 industries, currently exchange documents and data via the Business-Ready Network.

Crossgate is represented at four sites in Germany, with operations in Atlanta, London, Milan, Paris, and AsiaPac. For more information, visit http://www.crossgate.com.

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