Shiseido Hong Kong Limited

“Given the growing diversity of products and brands, it is important for the division to maintain a smooth day-to-day operation, while continually improving communication efficiency and creditability to strengthen ties with our trading partners. ezTRADE is very helpful to the division's operation in this regard.” Phoebe Ng, Brand Director of Cosmetics and Personal Care Division

Background

As a Japanese pioneer of advanced technologies and innovations for beauty, Shiseido Hong Kong Limited ("Shiseido”)offers a variety of brands covering skincare, makeup, fragrance, professional hair and healthcare. In particular, the business of Cosmetics and Personal Care Division of Shiseido in Hong Kong has been growing in recent years, and has established partnerships with a wide range of chain stores in Hong Kong including Aeon, Mannings, Sa Sa, A.S. Watsons, etc. In the process of communicating with diverse trading partners, the division needs to process thousands of purchase orders (PO) and invoices every month. Among the massive number of transaction documents, part of them remained in hard copies and required the division to manually conduct data entry, data checking, paper invoices scanning and to create monthly payment statements in a silo web portal before processing the transaction with trading partners.  

The drawbacks with manual operation are evident - it leads to potential human errors and extensive time spent on manual work, increasing the possibility of missing documents and files. Likewise, with the low efficiency of paper work, it delays the communication between the division and its trading partners.

GS1 standards used or solution (s) / service (s) applied

• Global Trade Item Number (GTIN)
• ezTRADE

Solutions

In 2018, Cosmetics and Personal Care Division of Shiseido found that a number of its major trading partners have been utilising the ezTRADE platform for electronic ordering, invoicing and shipment notices. The division then decided to join this largest B2B EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) community in Hong Kong, implementing the simple and efficient electronic information exchange steps as below: 

1. Retailers (e.g. Sa Sa) send EDI PO to the division in Shiseido.
2. PO is integrated automatically into the system of the division. 
3. ezTRADE supports auto data checking, and the division only   needs to confirm the order and generate shipment notice via   the platform.
4. The system of the division can automatically send EDI invoice once the shipment is completed.

Apart from providing an environmental friendly solution for trading documents, ezTRADE also increases operation efficiency by enhancing the creditability and accuracy in communications with business partners. This allows the division to provide more agile responses. 

The business partners of the division are now using ezTRADE to ensure efficient and accurate transmission of the commercial documents, thus to improve the communication process with partners.

Benefits

With ezTRADE, Cosmetics and Personal Care Division of Shiseido enjoys the following benefits:

1. Unified messaging format with greater data accuracy and efficiency
2. Reduced the man-hours in data entry, data checking and invoicing
3. Swift deployment with easy-to-use interface that minimises manual processing

About the Company

The Shiseido Company is a global organisation with wholly-owned office in Hong Kong, overseeing businesses and operations in both Hong Kong and Macau. Established in 1962, Shiseido Hong Kong offers trusted brands with leading technology to meet the full complement of beauty needs, including brands from prestige, mass skincare, professional haircare and fragrance. Fiercely contemporary and innovative after over 145 years in business, Shiseido Company brands are now sold in over 120 countries and regions.