Glossary You Are @ Home/ Glossary A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z V Validation To check whether a document is the correct type for a particular EDI system, as agreed upon by the trading partners, in order to determine whether the document is going to or coming from an authorized EDI user. Value-Added Network (VAN) A company that acts as a clearing-house for electronic transactions between trading partners. A third-party supplier that receives EDI transmissions from sending trading partners and holds them in a “mailbox” until retrieved by the receiving partners. Value Chain A series of activities, which combined, define a business process; the series of activities from manufacturers to the retail stores that define the industry supply chain. Value Chain Analysis The use of structured design methods to define information related to the activities performed by all partners across the entire grocery industry supply chain. Value Proposition What the hub offers to members. To be truly effective, the value proposition has to be two-sided: a benefit to both buyers and sellers. Vendor The manufacturer or distributor of an item or product line. Vendor Code A unique identifier, usually a number and sometimes the company's DUNS number, assigned by a Customer for the Vendor it buys from. Example: Foodlion buys Oreo's from Nabisco. Foodlion, for accounting purposes, identifies Nabisco as Vendor #76091. One company can have multiple vendor codes. Example: Welch's Foods sells many different products. Frozen grape juice concentrate, chilled grape juice, bottled grape juice, and grape jelly. Because each of these items is a different type of product, frozen food, chilled food, beverages, dry food, they may have a different buyer at Foodlion, requiring a different vendor code for each product line. Buyouts of company will sometimes cause a company to have different vendor codes. Nabisco bought out the Cream Of Wheat Company in 1962. Oreo's may belong to Vendor #76091 but Cream of Wheat may be Vendor #88372 because that was the Cream Of Wheat Company's vendor code and, at the time of the buyout, Foodlion chose not to update their buying system. Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI) The practice of retailers making suppliers responsible for determining order size and timing, usually based on receipt of retail POS and inventory data. Its goal is to increase retail inventory turns and reduce stock outs. Vertical Hub/Vertical Portal Serving one specific industry. These days seemingly everybody is vertical. Why? Conventional wisdom says the vertical business model beats the horizontal 90% of the time. Vertical portal websites that cater to consumers within a particular industry. Similar to the term "vertical industry", these websites are industry specific, and like a portal, they make use of Internet technology by using the same kind of personalization technology. In addition to industry specific vertical portals that cater to consumers, another definition of a vertical portal is one that caters solely to other businesses. > Viral Marketing Word of mouth that really gets contagious. The best way to build a brand. Back To Top