Consolidate your EDI accounts. Do it to reduce the number of business process you must maintain. Do it to increase your buying power and save money.
When hosted EDI first came out two things happened: people loved the functions and price and began using it. The second thing that happened is (Some might argue coincidentally), Retailers started adding new documents and increasing EDI requirements across the board. As a result of the marketing spin from their partnering EDI companies, many companies believed (And still do), that they needed to use the EDI provider suggested in that rollout. Regardless of what motivated the supplier, many as a result have multiple EDI providers.
In a recent survey we did at Retail EDI (www.retailedi.com), we found many suppliers (34%) believed their retail customer required them to use a particular EDI provider. I have had some suppliers tell me their salesperson was told they must use “X” brand of EDI. This is very unlikely. More often than not, the customer has a relationship with the EDI provider. Perhaps the EDI requirement came from an e-mail sent by the EDI Company on behalf of the retail customer. What prevents your customer from ever requiring one particular EDI provider is each provider’s ability to interconnect with each other. Even if your provider is not a “VAN” they can still interconnect using several methods.
Asynchronous EDI integration (800lb gorilla vs. you) may require that when your client says “use EDI” that you listen, but it doesn’t tell you which EDI provider to use. Using multiple EDI providers prevents companies from taking advantage of economies of scale. By doing so, suppliers end up paying a premium for each incremental EDI relationship. Essentially, you pay a dollar for one, when the market says you can have two for $1.50.
If you consolidated your EDI documents for example to your favorite provider, you may only pay $0.50/document or $100.00 total for the same 200 documents. That’s a savings of $85/month and leads you to probably the biggest gain: a single method for processing EDI orders.
It’s simplistic to say all hosted EDI providers are the same. They are not. The interfaces are different, they update maps at different rates, offer different default options, and irrefutably you must train your staff to use each differently. Support, billing and so forth are all different. Your company maintaining a relationship with each of them incrementally adds expense to your cost of using EDI.
What about integration? Integrating with three providers would be hard to swallow. Are you going to ask each to map to your XML or CSV and then pay each of the three every time your format or process requirements change?
You use the same phone to call work, home or a friend, right? Why would you apply the use of EDI providers differently?
Next in line: Comparing your current EDI provider to others and how to switch providers safely.
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