• Running a successful EDI project needs the right EDI partner and team
• Think of EDI as a part of your marketing strategy to project confidence in front of the trading partners you wish to sell to
• There is no company that has implemented EDI successfully and has lost money

Introduction

Electronic data interchange has been an important driver for revenue in the world since it was introduced in the 1960s to enable accurate electronic communications between two companies instead of paper which were unreliable. If an EDI software is implemented successfully with the right team in place to run it smoothly, EDI can save a lot of money, effort and time and in turn can give you best bang for your buck. To explain this, if you are a supplying, distribution, ecommerce or a logistics company trying to scale up and do business with big-box retailers like Walmart, Target, Amazon etc., they will mandate you to become EDI capable first which means you need to have an EDI software or solution in place. They will consider your business as technologically-advanced and consider you over others if you have all your ducks in a row and EDI compliance is one of their pre-requisites in selling to them. Being EDI compliant will prove to them that you are capable of handling an X amount of orders and you’ll be a serious partner. That is why you need to start thinking of EDI as a technology that can transform your business instead of just another tool in your tech stack that can help with operations.

Pre-requisites for getting started with EDI

1. Evaluate your current tech stack

Look at your current software stack, understand what the infrastructure looks like and evaluate where are the gaps. For example, are you using an ERP to manage your orders? Are you sing an accounting software to organize expenses, manage your invoices and track your profit and loss? If not, do you need one at the moment? Answer these questions first before even thinking about EDI. Now understand that you can connect your internal softwares to your EDI software (when you have it) so all the data or information can flow smoothly within the organization to outside the company. Your IT team should help you with this evaluation and what you exactly need either an in-house, on premise or a web based EDI solution.

2. Choosing the right EDI partner and team

Once you have evaluated the gaps in your tech stack, you need to choose the right EDI software and the partner that can help accomplish your goal of trading successfully with your trading partners and help sell to them without any headaches and overhead costs or fines. You need to ask questions like the type of resources and skill set we need; can we hire each one or do we need a group of external consultants who do this on a daily basis. Answering these questions will help you design an effective EDI project strategy which when executed will determine how your revenue grows, how much and effectively you can sell to your trading partners. Here is a complete guide to choosing the right EDI provider and team.

3. Shortlist EDI providers that fit your requirements and affordability

4. EDI Implementation

Read these 10 EDI implementation steps in detail to understand the overall EDI implementation process.

5. Use a successful EDI implementation as your success story

Conclusion