Bandai are a leader in developing engaging, quality toys that capture children’s imaginative spirit and provide endless “Fun For The Future”. Bandai America Incorporated is the manufacturer and master toy licensee of some of the most popular brands in children’s toys and interactive entertainment today. The Bandai America brand family includes Dragon Ball®, Pretty Pixels™ and Tamagotchi®, among other boys’, girls’, preschool, and hobby product lines. Bandai America Incorporated is a subsidiary of BANDAI NAMCO Holdings USA Inc., an entity that resulted from the integration of Namco Ltd. and Bandai Co. Ltd. of Japan. Global interests encompass three strategic business units: Toys & Hobby, Video Games & Online Entertainment and Film & Music. The company is headquartered in El Segundo, California.
Over twenty five years ago, Bandai embarked on an EDI program to ensure maximum service to its highly valued customers, namely the Major UK retailers, many of whom demanded it as a condition of trade.
The journey started with the purchase of the robust Intercept-400 (i400) software which was purchased from GE before the management buyout of the product range by AdvanceFirst in its formative years. This enabled AdvanceFirst to provide the much needed continuation of support to Bandai and several hundred other such clients.
To enable the ease of communicating with their customers, whether VAN or AS2, Bandai subsequently purchased the then newly developed Advance Business Collaborator (ABC) product from AdvanceFirst to complement the popular i400 product.
Moving forward with the times, some years later, sticking with AdvanceFirst, who had more than proved themselves with the provision of a very high level of service for several years, Bandai went for a managed service. This is known as Advance Managed Outsourced Solutions (AMOS), which is now the flagship EDI solution for AdvanceFirst.
This progression has proven to be the correct way forward and has allowed for ease of connecting new trading partners, whilst releasing resources for other core projects and taking away the concerns of holidays and sickness for key personnel.
“We have enjoyed working with AdvanceFirst and receiving such a high level of service over the years, as well as their flexible way of working with us,” says Denise Knights, EDI Manager, “also the fact that prior to us having the managed service, they supported our systems remotely effectively managing it for us!” “Due to a company decision to move to an existing European wide EDI solution we are reluctantly moving away from AdvanceFirst,” continued Denise, “but felt it right and proper to state our confidence, trust and satisfaction with them before we move on!”.
