The benefits of implementing EDI in your organization

Written by Act Data Services, Inc. 1-800-ACT-DATA

Implementing EDI in an organization can be both time consuming and costly. With worldwide EDI transactions and implementations growing, it is becoming both more important and more advantageous for non compliant organizations to consider the move. With more vendors and suppliers using EDI, the potential financial savings are huge. Here are the three main advantages to proceed with an implementation in a little more detail:

Cost

The primary benefit of an EDI implementation are the cost savings. The biggest savings come from time and transaction costs. But other savings such as paper, storage, filing and processing times are smaller but are extremely significant when taken together. Some organizations see a cost saving to the order of 90%+ when using EDI to streamline orders and supply chain.

Speed

Transaction speed is another benefit of EDI. For an organization that used either posted or online confirmations for transactions, the speed difference can be staggering. Now entire transactions can take seconds, not minutes or hours even the days it used to take. Entire workflows can be automated. Once an order is entered the entire supply chain can be put into action immediately. This level of automation has the added side effect of greatly reducing accuracy by reducing the potential for human error.

Efficiency

This frees up employees from doing repetitive tasks and frees them to be more productive and spend more time on the higher level tasks. This benefits the organization with higher efficiency, lower inventory and storage costs.

___________________________________________________________

Act Data is an EDI service bureau for retail and supplier environments.