EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is an electronic data exchange, business documents, between partners. It is part of the so-called e-business.
Communication between business partners hides a not very noticeable but very significant potential for increasing productivity. Everyday information exchange activities with suppliers, customers or logistics partners are generally considered to be invariable and often not given sufficient attention. However, they contain a number of inefficient or totally unnecessary operations that make up a significant share of total costs and are largely determinant of the overall level of business process quality.
The goal of EDI is to automate processes and prevent paper business transactions. EDI lets you pass, check and process orders, real-time invoices.
Through EDI, many other business processes can be addressed, including master data management, sending electronic delivery notes, providing product information, or processing payment requirements.
EDI is designed for businesses of any size, in any industry, in any country to exchange business data no matter what communications channels, data formats, and media use.
The main benefits include:
- cost savings resulting from reduced workload for business documents processing
- saving paper for print and mail
- reduce manual input
- process automation
- versatile quality improvement and process control (acceleration, error reduction, automated evaluation, etc.)
- reliable and secure communication channel for exchanging business documents with all partners
- totally new possibilities to optimize processes associated with flow of goods
- real-time transmission of information
You can choose from several possibilities of using EDI tools depending on the size of the business, the technical infrastructure and the number of documents exchanged. Small and medium sized businesses with a small volume of documents typically use the EDI online portal. Setting up a web-based EDI is simple and cost-effective. All she needs is access to the Internet.