Importance of EDI outsourcing

EDI outsourcing is typically a process that involves a third party that tends to manage a limited part or the entire process of exchanging data with trading partners through EDI. Although, businesses of many sizes use EDI outsourcing, it is the smaller businesses that avail the most benefits.

EDI outsourcing is commonly conducted in the following three ways:

EDI Service Bureaus

Complete EDI outsourcing

Customer & Supplier “On-boarding”

However, before you can engage in EDI outsourcing, you need to ensure that the EDI outsourcing provider has plenty of experience. Moreover, you should be aware of the type of EDI outsourcing being provided to you.

There are several benefits associated with EDI outsourcing. These advantages are as follows:

Eliminate the use of paper in business transactions

Reduced response time

Reduced administrative and operational costs

Third-party outsourcing firms can handle your trading partners’ special requirements.

In a few situations, companies that use EDI outsourcing have realized that the benefits of EDI outsourcing do not outweigh the cost of using EDI outsourcing. Moreover, an EDI outsourcing company can never have an equally deep understanding of your business processes as an in-house EDI solution.

Article submitted by Act Data Services, Inc. 1-800-ACT-DATA. Therefore, it is critical to compare all potential outcomes of EDI outsourcing. This will help you to determine whether EDI outsourcing will truly provide a relatively higher overall return on investment as compared to an in-house EDI solution.