Since 1 January 2009 TecCom owns 25 percent of SAS GOLDA. This strengthens the five-year partnership with GOLDA even further; it makes possible better service at low cost for the entire French auto replacement part market.

As of today the migration of all GOLDA customers to the TecCom platform is nearing completion so that soon all electronic ordering processes will be handled by the TecCom platform. In addition to online processes, such as express orders and availability inquiries, batch processes like stock orders will be provided.

For TecCom the challenge in the migration was in determining the functionality of the GOLDA platform and how GOLDA customers used it. Then the GOLDA model was mapped in the TecCom world. At the beginning of the cooperation two months were spent performing a detailed analysis of the electronic order processes of the individual companies in order to modify the TecCom platform to suit them. The goal was to develop a common uniform solution for the exchange of EDI messages.

Changing the ordering processes of the 800 GOLDA customers was not at all easy. Patrick Petit, managing director of GOLDA, and Thibaut Ferrand, TecCom project leader for GOLDA, agree that the technical challenges for this project were substantial due to the multiplicity of different message formats and standards.

TecCom charged an entire team of developers, analysts and system and network specialists with the interesting but difficult task of completing the migration successfully by working closely with GOLDA. According to Thibaut Ferrand, “The TecCom team had to accept the existing situation and propose a solution to GOLDA that met their expectations. That meant starting by providing the same services and then expanding them.”

From left to right: Patrick Petit (GOLDA managing director) with TecCom's man
in charge of the project Daniel Liesenfeld and project leader Thibaut Ferrand.

Now that the migration has almost been completed, Daniel Liesenfeld, responsible for the technical implementation of the project at TecCom, sees that the balance is positive. “We have learned a lot. Our experiences helped us to further develop both the TecCom system and our processes.” Thibaut Ferrand has praise for the growing depth of the relationship between GOLDA and TecCom through close cooperation to reach a common goal. ”It has become a real partnership.”

In the future GOLDA will offer additional products from TecCom. TecCMI will be modified for the French market. TecCMI, Collaborative Managed Inventory, supports traders and suppliers in the independent automotive part market who want to optimize their stock holdings through cooperation.

Claude Lotrian (claude.lotrian@teccom.eu) is available to answer any questions. You can learn more about GOLDA at www.golda.fr or by sending an e-mail to supportgolda@fiev.fr.