To be honest, it sounds more like a business relationship problem rather than a programming problem; how good is your relationship with this vendor? All of the solutions below are creative and may solve the immediate problem, but does it cause more problems in the long run? Does the vendor understand that you are relying on a daily batch of this data, and are they committed to maintaining this non-standard format?

On the other hand, have you considered using DTS with an ActiveX script to transform the first column? Not sure if it will provide you with the speed you need, but it might be comparable. How much data per night are you talking; couple thousand rows or a couple million?

HTH,

Stu