For any organization to flourish in the market, the supply chain is the most important aspect to take care of. No matter what product or service you sell, if the supply chain is broken, you will never be able to capture the market.
A supply chain is the fundamental brick of any business and thus creating and managing a supply chain that never breaks down on you can be full of challenges.
One of the core challenges that your supply chain might be facing today is the issue of communication. The core of any business depends on smooth communication among suppliers, distributor, and retailers.
If the communication is not crisp and clear, your supply chain will suffer. EDI as a service is something that adds agility and flexibility to the communication channel that is required for the supply chain.
Supply chain management is not an easy task to take care of. Especially after the circumstances faced by companies due to pandemic, the complexity of managing a secure and agile supply chain has gone to the next level.
Without an agile supply chain, a company can hardly survive in the market. Electronic Data Interchange as a service has emerged as a powerful tool to make any supply chain flexible and agile in the past few years.
Electronic Data Interchange: A Quick Overview
Electronic data interchange, popularly known as EDI is a tool that helps in creating a seamless network between two companies, mostly trade partners to ensure they have a proper transaction history of data without any loss in the system.
Manual data exchange between two companies can often become a troublesome task as it requires you to dedicate multiple resources and yet the results are not accurate as the human factor always plays a role.
Hence, creating a standardized system that simply shares the data based on the type of information is the best way to work things out. This is where EDI comes into action.
Electronic Data Interchange as a service can be considered a much more advanced version of what EDI is capable of delivering.
Legacy EDIs have their limitations as they do not comprise all the international standards that may come in handy while working with internationally located clients and hence the need for EDI as a service arises.
Basics of EDI as a Service: How is it Different from Legacy EDI?
Electronic Data Interchange as a service has become a much more reliable and helpful tool for organizations that belong to all sorts of businesses and levels. You might be wondering what it brings to the table to replace an on-premise EDI system?
Well, for starters, it takes a lot fewer resources to get started with EDI as a service. You see, a system that is dependent on your resources may cost you a bit more than a system you can access through the cloud.
While a legacy system is the older version of Electronic Data Interchange that has been in use for decades, it is a more expensive approach to creating a flawless communication channel for your supply chain.
On the other hand, if we talk about Electronic Data Interchange as a service or cloud-based EDI solutions, you will learn that most of the tasks that you had to take care of while working with legacy systems are already taken care of.
You are no longer responsible to establish and dedicate multiple resources to overlook the solution as it is already up and running in the cloud.
Not to mention, since the service is on the cloud, it can hold all sorts of standardizations to help you finish any communication without wondering if the receiver uses the same standards as you.
How EDI as a Service Can Transform Your Supply Chain? What difference Does it Make?
Now that you are aware of the core difference that EDI as a service brings to the table, you might have got your vision clear about its applications in your supply chain.
EDI as a service has a lot of things to contribute to your supply chain and can transform the way it forks forever. Electronic Data Interchange in itself brings multiple benefits such as automation, accuracy, and optimization to the communication process.
With Electronic Data Interchange, you can eliminate human error to a great extent as you simply have to input the values and the rest is done through EDI VAN and established connections.
With Electronic Data Interchange as a service, you get advanced features of both EDI and software as a service SaaS platform.
This means if you have a messy supply chain implementing the EDI as a service model to handle all your communications and data interchanges can be a game-changer for you.
Some of the core features that help you straighten your supply chain and make it more effective are as follows –
Flexible Accessibility
Accessing the Electronic Data Interchange cloud is much easier and more sophisticated than going for a legacy system as it is much more accessible. Having an in-house system means you are bound to manage the transactions through that system only.
With the help of cloud-based EDI or Electronic Data Interchange as a service, you have better accessibility as the system is now available for you anytime, anywhere!
Easier to opt & Manage
When it comes to availing of EDI as a service, it is easier to opt for and manage. There are no restrictions that stop you from using the EDI as a service faster than the legacy system.
It does not require a dedicated resource, neither the systems take up space. The best part is you do not need a specialized individual to handle the EDI tasks.
Multiple Standard Support
When you work across the companies or your supply chain goes through multiple organizations that are situated in a certain part of the world that uses different Electronic Data Interchange standards.
You might have seen that companies often find it typical to finish the transactions that are from a different format of the file as their system is equipped to operate with familiar formats.
With cloud-based Electronic Data Interchange systems, you will get access to all of them and the VAN automatically maintains the format and takes care of the rest.
Lower Investment & Higher Returns
When you go for a legacy EDI system, you spend a lot of money and dedicate resources to it. You have to hire an expert to handle the proceedings.
You need dedicated network establishment done and not to mention you will need to dedicate multiple systems to finish the transaction.
With Electronic Data Interchange as a service, all you do is pay for the service and that’s about it. It is easy to use and clears the entire process to simplify the supply chain while costing much less than what it would take to do it manually or not.
Conclusion
With all these benefits and refined optimization that EDI services bring to the table, it is surely the best thing to handle your supply chain as it provides a solid platform for your trade partners to communicate.
Handling a supply chain comes with its challenges and while communication may become a headache, with the help of electronic data interchange as a service, you can remove all the issues that are hampering your process.
Hope the post gives you perfect insights on choosing Electronic Data Interchange as a service and how it can transform the way your supply chain works. Good luck and take your decisions wisely!
Author’s Bio: Scarlett works with the editorial team of A3logics, a leading company offering EDI Solutions. Exploring the latest technologies, reading about them, and writing her views have always been her passion.
She seeks new opportunities to express her opinions, explore technological advancements, and document the details. You can always find her enjoying books or articles about varied topics or jotting down her ideas in a notebook.
Are you an
Entrepreneur or Startup? Do you have a Success Story to Share? SugerMint would like to share your success story. We cover entrepreneur Stories, Startup News, Women entrepreneur stories, and Startup stories
|
Read more business articles from our guest authors at SugerMint. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn