Is EDI Just a Sideline to the Real Business of Business?
While that may seem a backwards view, once they explained what they meant, it made ultimate sense to me. In fact, this may be the start of what some of the major EDI suppliers started talking about a few years ago... though to my mind, they got the basics wrong then, and may still only have it partially right.
In checking with some of the EDI service providers, I ve been told that they are seeing significant growth in sales of additional licenses, or seats for access to their data. What s interesting about this is that the suppliers are buying these extra seats so that their outsource partners can participate in the order cycle.
This is a change from the traditional stance of the supplier who grudgingly agreed to install an EDI system in order to comply with a mandate from their major customer. Does this mean that the trading community has passed across the tipping point, and that we are about to see the suppliers discover that they have at least as much at stake in the transaction as their customers?
If the trend continues to play out, and the EDI providers are able to deliver adequate facilities, we may find that the push becomes a pull . That is, that suppliers begin driving the adoption of EDI.
Supplier organizations are typically the companies that end up paying for EDI, which is one of the reasons they have resisted adoption. But apparently they are beginning to discover that there is more in the transaction than just purchase order information. With the increasing complexity of orders and deliveries, its become highly likely that suppliers need to rely on other organizations to provide services that are not part of their core business.
3PLs are a prime example of these kinds of companies that step in to enable the receipt and delivery of orders. And because timing is critical at each step of the transaction, every party to the order needs to be operating in lock step, with knowledge of what has, will, and needs to happen along the way.
None of these needs is news to anyone involved in handling EDI. What is news is that an increasing number of companies is beginning to understand the power of the information included in the EDI transactions, beyond their original intent to generate orders.
Have you found ways to leverage your use of EDI transactions? What facilities to you need to have in place in order to turn your EDI into a viable workflow management system?
Scott Koegler
www.ec-bp.biz/
It s about the data... not the order
In checking with some of the EDI service providers, I ve been told that they are seeing significant growth in sales of additional licenses, or seats for access to their data. What s interesting about this is that the suppliers are buying these extra seats so that their outsource partners can participate in the order cycle.
This is a change from the traditional stance of the supplier who grudgingly agreed to install an EDI system in order to comply with a mandate from their major customer. Does this mean that the trading community has passed across the tipping point, and that we are about to see the suppliers discover that they have at least as much at stake in the transaction as their customers?
If the trend continues to play out, and the EDI providers are able to deliver adequate facilities, we may find that the push becomes a pull . That is, that suppliers begin driving the adoption of EDI.
But why would they do that?
Supplier organizations are typically the companies that end up paying for EDI, which is one of the reasons they have resisted adoption. But apparently they are beginning to discover that there is more in the transaction than just purchase order information. With the increasing complexity of orders and deliveries, its become highly likely that suppliers need to rely on other organizations to provide services that are not part of their core business.
3PLs are a prime example of these kinds of companies that step in to enable the receipt and delivery of orders. And because timing is critical at each step of the transaction, every party to the order needs to be operating in lock step, with knowledge of what has, will, and needs to happen along the way.
None of these needs is news to anyone involved in handling EDI. What is news is that an increasing number of companies is beginning to understand the power of the information included in the EDI transactions, beyond their original intent to generate orders.
Have you found ways to leverage your use of EDI transactions? What facilities to you need to have in place in order to turn your EDI into a viable workflow management system?
Scott Koegler
www.ec-bp.biz/
© Галактика, 2007
© Издание 12NEWS (ИП Маринин А.Л.), 2007
