Welcome to the Autumn 2009 edition of Odette Outlook, which gives an overview of just a few of the things happening in the world of supply chain collaboration. The on-line services that were announced in our previous newsletter are now fully operational and can be accessed from our homepage, www.odette.org where you will find full details of each one.

Our new Business Entity Coding service, OSCAR, is featured in this edition.
Also featured this month is a new Odette best practice recommendation for e-Invoicing in the automotive supply chain which has been produced in response to changes in EU and national legislation, plus the latest update to the influential Global MMOG/Logistics Evaluation, which now has more functionality and a host of improvements which make it even more indispensable for companies seeking to improve their supply chain operations. We are also announcing the launch of two new automotive supply chain best practice recommendations based on EDI messaging and we bring you the results of an interview with PSA concerning their implementation plans for OFTP2.

Our Logistics Committee is busy working on its programme of projects for 2010 and our Technology Committee has just completed a very interesting survey of EDI and Portal usage amongst European OEMs and suppliers. This will be reported in full by the end of the year but, in this edition, you can a get brief look at the preliminary results.

As you know, we postponed our planned Odette25 event from November 2009 to June 2010. It was a hard decision to make and one that we have never had to face before, but everyone we spoke to agreed that it made sense in these difficult times. You’ll find more information on Odette25 in this newsletter.

I know how tough it has been for everybody this year but there are some positive signs emerging in the market and we hope that 2010 will be a better one for us all.

With best wishes,

John Canvin
Managing Director