EDI, Electronic Data Interchange, solutions automate common intercompany business processes that take place between you and your partners or customers. By reducing the amount of manual work required, they simplify the transmission of information for purchasing, order processing, invoicing, shipping notices, and ultimately creating cost savings and efficiencies.
EDI Terminologies Explained
There are multiple common terms in EDI solutions that overlap in illustrating EDI processes.
Let’s explore each:
- EDI Mapping: EDI Mapping solutions convert standardized forms of EDI into a format that fits the new technical environment.
- EDI Integration: EDI integration solutions help users create EDI workflows across the trading partner ecosystem.
- EDI Middleware: EDI middleware tools offer services to EDI applications that are residing in and outside the system. Consider them as the software glue.
- EDI Translator: EDI translator tools help users process EDI data from one format to another.
Being Pushed to the Limit?
Even though companies are relying on EDI, each one has unique needs and expectations from it. For example, logistics organizations are striving to gain more control over their digital processes. Similarly, manufacturing units aim for gaining greater visibility into supply chains and retailers focus on streamlining their omnichannel sales and fulfillment processes.
Not all EDI strategies can accommodate all these use cases. Having one-size-fits-all approach is not possible. However, a modern data integration platform with supercharged EDI capabilities offers far more of what you really need.
Depending on the outcomes companies aim to achieve, EDI tools can either be productive or not. Using these solutions to resolve a point-to-point connectivity problem, for example, is short-sighted.
Majority of tools available in the market offer common capabilities. They can:
- Ensure standards compliance across different file formats
- Facilitate data movement, translation, and cleansing
- Support data transformation/data mapping
- Even though these capabilities help users streamline data exchange and transactions, there are some shortcomings too:
- IT teams have to execute weeks of coding and complex mapping procedures that’s costly and time-consuming.
- Visibility suffers, and so accessing and analyzing data, in various formats, become a mammoth task.
Having such unnecessary limitations is not ideal for your business especially in such a disruptive environment. By incorporating a modern data integration platform with modern EDI capabilities, companies can push their limits and drive the business forward.
With such a solution in place, it’s easier for organizations to gain the visibility and control they need for their business to seamlessly operate, forestall disruptions, and rapidly scale.
Why Modernizing is the Only Way
Modern data integration solutions play an important role in transmitting EDI documents and transforming data to an internal format that can be ingested into their internal applications. They help companies transform the way they do business with a trading partner network.
Here are the following features that help companies improve the ease of doing business.
- A dedicated transaction network that sends, receives, and encrypts EDI transactions to an EDI trading partner ecosystem.
- A robust EDI translator that helps you transform transactions into a required format.
- An AI-enabled data mapping feature enables users to map complex customer data at the speed of business. It proves fundamental for creating automated bidirectional data flows in a secure and accurate manner. Machine learning algorithms can be used to translate data structures into a particular format.
Modernizing your existing EDI capabilities is the need of the hour. Not only will that help you enhance your supply chain visibility but also position your company to turn on a dime in a way that is efficient, secure, and reliable.