On April 19, 2019, CEDEX signed the first digital supply chain service contract with a Chinese supplier of IKEA, Sweden. This marks that CEDEX officially entered the retail industry and began to provide business collaboration services for the digital supply chain in the non-manufacturing sector.

During the Odette Annual Conference 2018 in Lille, France, Mr. Cheng Mingguang, CEO of CEDEX, and Mr. Hans Berggren, CEO of PipeChain, Sweden, reached a business cooperation agreement. This agreement emphasis that Pipechain would identify 30 international buyers among their current existing Swedish clients list and promote Pipechain/CEDEX digital supply chain solutions to those 30 buyers. Based on the shared information, Pipechain and CEDEX will work together to promote the direct EDI connection and business collaboration for their suppliers based on the Network Alliance (NA) platform.

The promotion was positively responded by Swedish buyers such as IKEA, Haldex and Boxon and their Chinese suppliers. IKEA hopes that Pipechain and CEDEX will assist IKEA in optimizing the digital supply chain business synergy globally, promoting the direct EDI connection for the suppliers, and willingly to select three Chinese suppliers as pilots suppliers.

To expand cooperation, Mr. Cheng invited Mr. Berggren to visit the factories of local suppliers in China. After more than three months of preparation, Pipechain team start their two-week trip to China by the end of March 2019. Pipechain and CEDEX have jointly visited Chinese suppliers of Volvo, IKEA, etc. to promote the digital supply chain and business integration.

 

During the trip to China, Mr. Tao Ye, project manager of CEDEX, and Mr. Wei Zhi, the implementation consultant of the company, together with Pipechain Global SME Sales Director Mikael Johansson and Miss Johanna Cheung have visited suppliers of IKEA furniture and Volvo cars in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai areas. The itinerary was from March 24, 2019, to March 30. The team has visited IKEA furniture supplier Enlong Industrial (Jiaxing) Co., Ltd., Leedarson Xiamen Energy-saving Lighting Group Co., Ltd., Faurecia Hangzhou Factory and Volvo Luqiao plant. On April 3, the team has attended the “C2M Supply Chain Innovation Seminar for Automotive Industry” held by the Information Service Committee of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers in Shanghai.

On April 4, Mr. Cheng and CEDEX colleagues met with Mr. Berggren and the Pipechain team in Beijing to sign a cooperation agreement. The agreement focuses on the first 30 potential Swedish buyers. Pipechain and CEDEX have agreed on the cooperation plan for providing digital supply chain data integration and business synergy for the local suppliers in China. According to the plan, the number of suppliers will expand from 200 to 1,000 in the following three years.