The e-Commerce Team is a newly developed group at ADM, created by combining the company's EDI team with its e-ADM Team. The mission of this new group is to provide the company's business partners with efficient methods in which to conduct business. These value-added electronic services make it more convenient and profitable to do business with ADM.

The "e-Commerce aggressor" thought process is new at ADM - the company has always been driven by its business partners' needs and requests. It is now actively targeting groups and organizations and pursing e-Commerce relationships. This is not only with customers and suppliers, but within the company. The e-

Commerce team is able to evaluate requests for e-Commerce relationships and then turn them over to the appropriate technical team (EDI or e-ADM) for setup. As more requests come in, the teams will continue to grow. The e-Commerce team also works directly with ADMWorld.com, the corporate Web site.

The ADM e-Commerce team has established aggressive goals for the coming fiscal year. Successfully meeting these goals will increase ADM’s already substantial EDI savings by over $300,000.

• Increase AP ACH payments to vendors
• Increase Grain ACH payments to vendors
• Increase inbound ACH payments from customers
• Start receiving ACH payments in Canadian dollars
• Increase Sales EDI transactions (inbound POs, outbound ASNs or Invoices)

The adoption and acceptance of the new e-Commerce team has been swift and strong. One of the roles of the e-Commerce team is education on electronic commerce options available at ADM. Each division of ADM is being engaged separately and offered team services such as presentations and informational meetings. These discussions are being well received and are a substantial portion of the basis for the aggressive goals that have been established. To insure success and cooperation, the team has requested and received buy-in from each facet of the business unit for each division. e-Commerce savings have been somewhat understated in the last few years and there has been an increased level of excitement generated company-wide by the cost savings associated with our electronic functionality.

ADM has been an active EDI proponent for over 20 years and has recently migrated to a new EDI translator, EDI Complete from 1 EDI Source. This translator is server based and provides for in-house AS2 communications - one of the company's first methods to save its trading partners money.

ADM made a decision that it did not want any of its trading partners to incur special fees associated with doing business with it. The company also has a secure FTP site to which its trading partners can FTP their EDI data. This helps eliminate any type of charge associated with a VAN or the utilization of AS2.

The new EDI translator also has an "ANY TO ANY" file conversion ability. This will give ADM the opportunity to open its data to flat files or XML as well as EDI, while continuing to utilize the same mapping structures and EDI programs. This is another way that ADM continues to open up possibilities for automated communication. This one in particular allows large and small trading partners alike to reap the benefits of an electronic relationship in a cost efficient manner.

ADM is committed to the success and growth of EDI as demonstrated by the formation of the e-Commerce team and the dedication of resources necessary to provide the best, well-rounded technical EDI service possible.

The company continues to service its 350+ trading partners for EDI POs, Invoices, ASNs, PO changes, ACH, etc. In the years ADM has been in the EDI business it has continued to apply innovative thinking to fully integrate all aspects of EDI documents.