How EDI Integration Solutions Can Take Businesses to the Next Level

The technology of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has been prevalent since the 1960s. And there are still plenty of organizations that rely on legacy solutions to process exchange and B2B transactions.

Now, legacy solutions such as sales orders, advanced ship notices, invoices, purchase orders, functional acknowledgment, and more take a lot of time and effort from IT integrators. That’s because to process these transactions, IT teams need to leverage paper documents and a great deal of human intervention, which makes them prone to errors or mistakes. But with the use of modern EDI software, such processes are simplified. In addition, the need for companies to rely on paper documents and human intervention is eliminated.

EDI enables organizations to automate the exchange of data between different applications across multiple supply chain ecosystems. This process makes sure that much essential, business-critical data is sent on time. As per a report, the estimated market size of the EDI integration market is expected to reach $1.68 billion and beyond. The projections of the estimations are as high as $2.1 billion in the following years. But what is EDI software and what are the advantages of EDI over conventional forms of business communication and data exchange?

What Is an EDI Software?

EDI software solution enables companies to streamline the communication of business documents in a standard format. In simple terms, EDI is a standard electronic format that replaces paper-based documents such as invoices and purchase orders. By automating paper-based transactions, companies can cut additional costs and time caused by manual processing.

While EDI transactions are processed, data is moved directly from a computer application in one organization to one computer application in another. EDI standards define the specific location and the order of data in a particular document format. With the help of this automated solution, data can be exchanged rapidly instead of hours, or months when leveraging paper-based documents or approaches. Currently, companies rely on EDI integration software to exchange a wide range of document types - from purchase orders to invoices to quotation requests. In the majority of instances, these B2B EDI integration solutions help companies do business with partners that exchange goods and services speedily as a part of their supply chains and B2B networks.

What Are the Benefits of an EDI Integration Solution?

EDI integration solutions offer plenty of benefits including,

1. Lower Operating Costs

EDI integration solutions lower operating expenditure by at least 35 percent by getting rid of costs of paper, storage, postage, printing, and document retrieval. It drastically minimizes resource as well as administrative and maintenance costs. EDI support services can bring down the costs to boot. Also, self-service-powered EDI integration solutions give power to non-techie business users to implement EDI connections while freeing expensive IT resources to drive more high-value tasks.

2. Increase the Speed of the Business Cycle

When it comes to order processing, time is of the essence. EDI integration solutions accelerate business cycles by 61 percent because it helps companies process automation and significantly reduce, if not eliminate, time delays that come with manual processing. Also, modern EDI integration solutions make processing much more accurate and error-free. Inventories management is transformed and streamlined and made more efficient with real-time data updates.

3. Minimize Human Error and Improve Record Accuracy

Apart from their inefficiency, manual intervention methods are more prone to mistakes and errors. This often results from other mistakes, keying and rekeying errors, and incorrect data or document handling. EDI integration solutions increase the quality of data in organizations and eliminate the need to re-work orders by ensuring a 30 percent to 40 percent reduction of errors in transactions.

4. Improve Business Efficiency

With the help of EDI integration software solutions, companies can gain maximum levels of efficiency. Instead of focusing on complex tasks, employees can pay attention to more strategic business priorities. EDI can also increase organizations’ customer and trading partner relationship management.

In short, EDI integration solutions help organizations lower operating costs, accelerate business cycle speeds, reduce errors, and improve business efficiency, thus improving ease of doing business and creating new revenue streams for the business.