What is EDI- Electronic Data Interchange Solution?

EDI is a simple electronic format that replaces paper-based documents and is used for intercompany communication in the standard form. Information sharing might occur within an organization or with third-party organizations or business partners.

The EDI solutions focus on providing quick and accurate data interchange and using existing EDI solutions that can help optimize your supply chain operations.

EDI Solution: Why is it needed? 

There are several supply-chain issues that you might face as a business owner. These include inaccuracies in calculation and unwanted system delays. There’s also a chance of business transactions that may be paper-dependent.

More companies have increased digital platform use, and the demand for instant information has increased. The transactions done manually may only sometimes be ideal to meet this requirement. Fortunately, EDI can help you here.

EDI Solution vs. Non-EDI Solution

Understanding the difference between EDI and Non-EDI solutions can impact how your business operates and scales. Here’s a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental differences between the two.

Speed of the Process Cycle

The process order cycle is tiring and can impact your business’s overall efficiency. The process might involve multiple departments of the company. The efficiency of these systems determines how much time it takes for supplier payments. Therefore, a shorter and more efficient order system is the key to long-term business success.

A stand-alone EDI or a non-integrated one doesn’t operate according to the ERP system. Therefore, there’s higher manual-handling involved compared to an integrated EDI. It contributes to a lengthy purchase cycle and makes it more challenging. On the contrary, the integrated EDI connects your ERP systems (internally) and automates the purchase cycle.

Responsiveness of the System

Today, multiple internal and external business parties stay connected for commerce-related tasks. The link has made communication transparent and increased the process’s complexity. Fortunately, an integrated EDI can adjust to this complexity.

The separate EDI may not operate appropriately with ERP systems, which makes it challenging to maintain buying and selling speeds. The integrated ERP has excellent responsiveness and can handle multiple trading partners and payments simultaneously with minimal human interference.

Process Accuracy

The accuracy of procedures determines the long-term survival and profit of companies. A simple error in this calculation can negatively affect the third-party and external processes within your business. It will impact your vendor relationship and business reputation in the industry.

A stand-alone EDI may not be the best choice in these circumstances because there’s a higher possibility of errors. Apart from that, there may not be proper communication with the other ERP applications. This miscommunication can lead to substantial data loss.

The integrated EDIs can substantially increase the accuracy of the process used in the purchase. The integrated EDI systems can manage the systems and form proper communication with other ERP processes without a problem.

Process and Staff Productivity

Process efficiency impacts the productivity of the staff and directly impacts the business profit margin. EDI software is the best-suited option for businesses that wish to improve team and process efficiency for maximum ROI.

The stand-alone EDIs require training to monitor the purchase process and supervise the complete steps. The other EDIs automate and integrate the systems, allowing the teams to focus on significant tasks.

Thus, integrated EDI can boost the overall efficiency and productivity of the process and the team involved in the business. Moreover, the higher volume of purchase orders in a non-integrated EDI is much less than the integrated one.

Processing Costs

The purchase order business requires a lot of expenses, impacting the profit potential of the business model. It is true that some of these expenses must remain the same, as you cannot reduce or change them. However, with improvements and efficiency, you can change processing costs.

For instance, the right EDI system can cut labor costs by avoiding the supervision of teams. It also allows business owners to reduce the payment cycles and complete vendor payments on time.

Thus, this little EDI system change saves the business from facing chargebacks. Moreover, it lets them avail special discounts by vendors on an early payment. The stand-alone EDI may not consistently have the same efficient results.

Implementation

The time required by a business for the implementation process and the procedure complexity or challenge determines the cost of implementation. A well-crafted business process involves planning and addressing issues and prerequisites for formal implementations.

The integrated EDI software can connect to multiple internal and external applications and optimize the process. However, this option may be challenging to incorporate into your business.

Thus, you may need more time and resources to implement the integrated EDIs over non-integrated EDI ones.

EDI Service Providers: How to Decide?

The EDI technology may have more costs and need more time for incorporation, but it can offer benefits in the long term. Business owners may not get these benefits with the non-integrated EDI technology.

The integrated EDI is more flexible and can be scaled to match your organizational growth.

How can Electronic Data Interchange Providers help?

Integrated EDI solutions increase the efficiency and productivity of your business. They offer the best alternatives for better data sharing and management.

They can also help improve processing costs, increase staff productivity, and offer greater process accuracy. With the inclusion of integrated EDI systems, your business is likely to grow, better and faster.

If you are dealing with problems in supply chain management, a professional services provider can help you optimize the overall experience. PartnerLinQ could be the answer to your problems. PartnerLinQ has been serving the supply chain industry for many years and can give you valuable insights into everything about supply chain.

The Key Elements of Making Your Supply Chain Ecosystem More Resilient

Global disruptions have caused supply chains to undergo extensive and unprecedented changes. Since the onset of the pandemic, Gartner’s research shows that only 21 percent of supply network leaders believe their process is highly resilient. In addition, McKinsey & Company found that the majority of companies that experienced issues through the COVID-19 crisis are now ramping up their use of modern digital tools, such as advanced analytics.

From shortages in both products and people, traditional business models are left to face the new challenges spurred on by the pandemic. To combat these issues, businesses must bring their strategies into the digital age where cutting-edge technology and tools are available to streamline operations, create heightened visibility and ignite execution speed.

Through digital advancements, companies have transparency into each link in their supply ecosystem and can minimize risks by analyzing data in real-time. Overall, the modern process allows organizations to gain a holistic view while monitoring each component in the chain. In fact, the modern network is shifting from a supply chain to a supply web of interconnected elements versus a single linear system.

Resilient modern logistics management serves as the driving force of business growth through end-to-end integration, clear visibility, and speed of execution.

Integration

Expanding partnerships is critical for businesses to improve their operations and maximize productivity. Businesses gain a competitive edge through intensified collaboration with suppliers and customers while addressing the disconnect, which is primarily attributed to ineffective or outdated technology. Leveraging partnerships with software solution providers is essential to acquiring up-to-date tools, from hybrid cloud applications to artificial intelligence (AI) solutions.

With a tech solution that supports a unified digital supply chain, businesses are set to scale and prepared with better resilience and agility tools to set them up for success in the face of disruptions. Improving integration will lower costs, reduce waste, improve customer experience, and provide a comprehensive view of the business to guide improvements and changes thoughtfully.

Visibility

To remain agile and predictive during network disruptions, businesses must maintain full visibility and move away from outdated legacy operations that do not provide end-to-end visibility. This has become a common top priority, as 70 percent of companies are focusing on improving logistics visibility, and 80 percent strive to be more agile, according to International Data Corporation’s 2020 Global Supply Chain Survey. With intelligence capabilities to assess what is happening in real-time, companies can respond quickly to findings. Achieving complete visibility requires a hyper-automated solution.

PartnerLinQ by Visionet offers a proprietary supply chain solution that allows complete transparency, error handling, automation, and analytics. With a modern day, fully visible digital connectivity solution, companies can reduce costs and streamline operations. When businesses remove the need to make manual transaction adjustments, they can rely on automation that brings ease and visibility to the entire ecosystem.

Speed

Speed of execution is crucial for business leaders to remain agile and adaptive to changing market conditions while upholding sustainable business practices. Investing in the appropriate technologies for a modern-day logistics strategy is key, but it’s vital to implement these updates fast enough to be prepared for disruptions. With supply network disruptions consistently occurring, businesses must make a rapid digital transformation through resilient tools and platforms to ensure efficiencies.

Cross-enterprise digitization is imperative as goods are continually moving along the chain faster than the information on them. From design to manufacturing, data must flow in real time to continue the overall flow of the supply ecosystem. With zero-latency visibility and integrated systems, companies can meet the speed of execution standards. Essentially, each aspect works together to create a successful process.

True digital transformation is necessary to cultivate fully integrated, visible, and quickly executed modern-day supply chains. With a number of disruptive challenges, it’s crucial that businesses rely on third-party, end-to-end cloud solutions to improve integration for long-term success. While the buzzwords of digitization and transformation are becoming commonplace in business logistics discussions, the uniting factor is time. Cracks in supply operations, outdated systems, and recovering from disruptions are all common challenges that cost businesses valuable time.

To discover the latest expertise and practical tips on how top organizations are achieving a more agile, seamlessly integrated system, please watch this insightful session on Building Your Supply Chain Network. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rhrGf7oZEw 

Join Ahmed Raza, Vice President – Head of Product Engineering and Strategy of PartnerLinQ by Visionet, and featured speaker George Lawrie, Vice President and Principal Analyst of Forrester, to learn more about the dynamics of the modern-day network and the related challenges.

If you’re unable to attend the live webinar, follow this link to schedule a demonstration of how PartnerLinQ can help your organization achieve complete visibility.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the instability of global supply chains which resulted in crisis across industries. Supply chains everywhere are still facing pressures in changing consumer demand. Consumption patterns have shifted as well – leading to higher shipping volumes and freight costs.

Today, it is important that organizations understand the factors that get in the way of supply chain recovery. They can then take the right measures to ensure not only the survival but also the success of their business.

What Hinders Supply Chain Recovery?

Supply chain recovery is a fundamental aspect of supply chain resilience and disaster management. According to a study published in the engineering management review, supply chains usually take longer to overcome more demanding challenges such as pandemics. This makes identifying challenges vital so that organizations can plan and create apt and effective strategies to carry on with their business.

One such challenge has been longstanding bottlenecks in supply chains. They have not only raised costs but also shortages in labor. As of December 2021, theUS Bureau of Labor estimated that there were only 11 million job openings in the country. The drastic decrease in job openings has slowed down overall growth and contributed to inflation, which at one point, sat at a 29-year high.

Due to such high inflation, most companies are passing the costs along, damaging supply chains even more due to rising input costs. A survey of 52 items, including forest products, agricultural products, energy, metals, and more, has shown how this impact is far wider than commonly believed. The survey showed that the average input increase has been 95% when compared to pre-pandemic levels.

There’s Light at the End of the Tunnel

By most estimates, this disruption is likely to persist throughout 2022 at the very least, with 2023 touted as a more likely possibility by some business leaders. This situation may be somewhat normalized in the long run. To understand the state of change that global businesses are going through, it is important to consider real-life examples to see how global enterprises are reacting to the crisis.

For General Electric Co., issues in its supply chains were present across all its business units. However, its healthcare unit especially faced more problems than any other part of its business. As a result, GE drove up its expenses for transportation and raw materials which, in turn, affected its onshore wind business. This is why the company raised prices and tried to suppress costs while looking for new suppliers, sourcing alternative parts, and redesigning product configurations. Such a period of transition saw GE’s Q4 2021 revenue take a hit.

According to S&P Global, however, many non-financial corporations worldwide have found it easy to absorb or cancel out cost inflation. They have been able to do so via demand shifts and offsets, hedging, product mix adjustments, cost pass-throughs, positive operational gearing, and a low rate of pay growth. But they still expect profit margin pressure to rise in 2022.

The Answer

One study has recommended a framework for supply chain management and operations during the pandemic across six distinct perspectives— digitalization, preparedness, adaptation, recovery, causality, and sustainability.

In the middle of present uncertainty, such a wide outlook can help organizations recover from supply chain issues quickly and efficiently. Today, solutions need to account for evolving requirements of enterprises, concerning supply chain integrations and all-around visibility. Only then can a solution help them overcome this situation with ease.

Explore PartnerLinQ:

A Supply chain visibility app ecosystem, with Native Applications that offer rapid interoperability and next-generation monitoring.

Some of the native apps in the PartnerLinQ app ecosystem include:

1. Order to Cash
2. Procure to Pay
3. Ecommerce Order Management
4. Return Verification & Management
5. Intelligent Invoice Matching
6. Web EDI
7. Cross Dock, DTC & Drop Shipments
8. Freight Integrations
   
    

Step into the next frontier of supply chain resilience. Contact us for a demo today!