EDI Software Benefits: The Pros, Cons and Alternatives

EDI is the dominant method of sending information between companies in many different industries, and EDI standards remain the dominant protocols in B2B, with traffic volumes continually increasing. In healthcare alone, the EDI software market is expected to more than double from $2.7B to $5.9B by 2025.

A diverse range of organizations and industries need a reliable and secure method of transferring data to and from their partners. Paper systems, even email, use up valuable time and resources to generate RFQs, proposals, invoices, and more, like entering the same data multiple times into different systems. EDI offers companies a method of streamlining these processes, cutting costs and increasing system and employee efficiency. EDI is a great example of how techonlogy impacts the electronic component supply chain.

The Pros

• Documents can be transferred more quickly using EDI, and processing errors are decreased, as manual processes are more prone to human error.
  
• Improving speed and efficiency leads to better customer service and improved metrics, as organizations are better able to identify and take advantage of business opportunities as they arise.

The Cons

• EDI programs have traditionally been expensive and difficult to implement. This difficulty stems from the fact that to implement an EDI system, an organization must find a solution that works with many different variables, often involving many different partner companies, each using various types of documents and formats for each process.
  
• There are various compliance standards working toward developing a consistent document format for EDI, but without a consensus there can be problems with cross-compatibility between partner companies.
  
• While EDI systems can be extremely expensive and out of reach for most small to medium enterprises (SMEs), many large organizations require partner companies to utilize EDI. A small company attempting to do business with a large organization may be limited by their ability to acquire and maintain an EDI system compatible with those used by larger companies.

EDI Alternatives: A Cost-Effective Solution

Often, the best solution to an expensive EDI implementation is outsourcing an EDI alternative from a third party. A pre-packaged EDI alternative is cost-effective and easy to implement, provided an organization selects the correct EDI system for their industry and enterprise.

Orbweaver Connect, a third party data transfer solution and the only EDI alternative system developed by electronics components experts for the electronics industry, has all the benefits of an EDI system, providing companies a secure, reliable and efficient method of transferring data between business partners. Orbweaver Connect is not only secure and reliable, it integrates with all platforms and data formats, providing a single cost-effective solution for easy, efficient electronic communication with all business partners.

Using Orbweaver Connect, companies can exchange RFQs, POs and invoices with business partners; provide pricing and availability information with integrated pricing on the company website, and exchange real-time quotes with internal and external sales teams – in a completely electronic format, without the need for mail, fax, or the exchange of insecure documents requiring manual data entry to different systems.

Sources:
https://www.benefitspro.com/2017/09/06/health-care-edi-market-could-hit-5-9b-by-2025/