The global supply chains are becoming more volatile than ever. Customer expectations are shifting, triggering modern technology adoption for many enterprises. Difficulties in onboarding trading partners further add to the struggle. What are the possible types of EDI solutions to address the matter of exchanging EDI transactions holistically, and do these various types of EDI solutions include other things, such as different types of EDI Transactions? 

An effective Electronic Data Interchange Solution simplifies the exchange of electronic documents among partners through system and app integrations and cultivates collaboration via EDI and non-EDI exchange. As a result, the solution packages and delivers visibility, control, and optimization. In simple terms, it’s a feature-packed solution that enables intelligent decision-making in real-time. While these EDI technology solutions are critical to driving tangible business outcomes, particularly in recent years, the decision process is complex at the same time. This is why parties investigating Electronic Data Interchange Solutions must have a relatively deep understanding of the different types of EDI solutions before investing.

Identifying the Best Electronic Data Interchange System

The best way to develop a sound understanding is to start right from the beginning. EDI solution providers are organizations that offer EDI software and services to companies looking for data exchange services, in short, a solution to assist with the transportation, transformation, and integration of trade. EDI systems, from this perspective, help you seamlessly exchange business documents between your partners by leveraging an EDI solution which could be on-premises or cloud-based. Some are provided as managed, while others are self-service. The solution ensures completeness, data validity, and security.

Before we proceed, it is critical to understand the types of EDI solution providers in the market so that you can identify the best electronic data interchange system.

Types of EDI Solution Providers

There are five types of EDI solution providers offering one or more types of EDI solutions. In addition to services, they also differ in terms of industries and the business size they cater to. Take a look at these to identify which type will work best for your enterprise.

1. EDI Broker

An EDI broker typically provides a comprehensive set of EDI solutions. They offer value-added network (VAN) connections and, at the same time, help companies connect to particular trading partners or networks.  EDI brokers typically do not have their own network; instead, they serve in the capacity of an outsourced EDI staff, typically focusing on one or several industries. They provide everything from data entry to data translation services, ensuring that your EDI documents are transformed from your core systems to that of your partners while adhering to customer requirements and guidelines for various standards. 

An EDI broker ensures that any company and startup, in particular, can easily share EDI documents with their partners without investing a great deal or compromising security. EDI brokers most often assist when a trading partner lacks EDI software of their own, and a few EDI brokers even support non-EDI formats. EDI brokers are typically engaged with the market where revenue is at the lower end of the industry spectrum and are ideal for small companies and startups.  Eventually, these users reach a point where the brokered solution can no longer serve their needs. If your business involves complex integrations hybrid EDI scenarios, EDI brokers may fit your business. If your business is already involved with a brokered type of EDI solution and you are not getting the needed services, you may have outgrown your present solution.

2. Fully Managed Service Provider

Fully Managed service providers offer end-to-end EDI software and/or services just beyond the scope of an EDI broker. They may offer software or cloud-based services and help you translate EDI messages in multiple formats and transform and transfer your data. Their services may be an overreach for some as they are also involved in partner mapping, ERP integration, error handling, and resolutions. 

If you are looking to outsource your entire EDI function and invest your resources in other tasks, this might be a suitable choice for you. If you want to invest in EDI, EDI talent, and do some things yourself, while these service providers may help you achieve your goals, they can also inhibit your growth. While fully managed services work well for many SMEs (Small to medium enterprises), some of the drawbacks of a fully managed service include limited control and visibility. This can lead to unexpected costs and challenges to upgrading to a new ERP, MRP, CRM, WMS, CMS, or TMS.

3. VAN Providers

VAN providers have been around since the inception of EDI. VANs provide secure, outsourced networks that connect organizations with their trading partners across the globe. A value-added network (VAN) can help you securely send and share data with your partners and provide an outsourced network enabling seamless connections between global trading partners. Large enterprises can leverage this type of network to securely transmit documents from their EDI mailbox to a particular trading partner’s EDI mailbox through a service like a post office, but electronically. By enabling a secure network, they simplify communication between cloud-based EDI providers or internal networks using pre-connected connections with trading partners.  

Some EDI VAN providers also offer supplemental services like data backup and recovery, document mapping, compliance, and performance tracking, and have grown largely through acquisition. If your partners are spread across the globe, and you lack needed network capabilities, a VAN service may be helpful to your business. However, VANs were initially developed for large companies and may be costly if your data exchange volume is high or may cause difficulties if your partner’s messaging format varies from yours. While VANs have long claimed to have a competitive advantage by way of their networks, the supply chain today is full of complexities, something that cannot possibly be resolved by way of a single network.

4. EDI AS2 Providers

Breaking away from the traditional VAN providers are the AS2 Providers.  EDI AS2 (Applicability Statement 2) providers allow for the secure transmission of various types of data, such as EDI and XML, over the internet using HTTP and TCP/IP. AS2 can also be used to transmit images and complete PDF documents, something a traditional VAN is unprepared to do. Among these variations today associated with conventional EDI, these AS2 services are widely used to ensure seamless integration with trading partners, allowing you to handle any file format.  

AS2 providers are typically an addition to a VAN, managed service provider, or brokered EDI relationship. AS2 services require message disposition/delivery notifications that acknowledge the reception after the electronic message (document or data) transmits to the sender via AS2 protocol. One of the stated benefits of using AS2 over FTP is the message delivery notification or MDN.  Although some may argue that the MDN replaces the Functional Acknowledgement (997), the message delivery notification (MDN) used in AS2 only indicates a message received. In contrast, the Functional Acknowledgement (997) also confirms the delivery of a document, any formatting errors, or data loss.

Enterprises can leverage MDNs using in-house IT resources or through a cloud-based vendor to determine if a partner is struggling to keep up with transaction volumes and adjust accordingly. If you are looking for an EDI solution that ensures an end-to-end process and helps you securely send unlimited data while being kind to your partners and easy on your pockets, AS2 has proven to be a worthwhile investment.

5. Complete EDI Solution/Providers

A complete EDI solution/provider is the type of EDI solution provider that develops, implements and maintains EDI software for your business and businesses like yours. This is the type of EDI solution capable of bringing to bear many or all of the solutions described above by catering to your core business and enabling seamless connectivity visibility, onboarding, and training. A type of EDI solution that provides an EDI platform, EDI solutions, connectivity and interoperability by delivering, for example, a VAN and an AS2 solution from within the core of the product or platform.  

Enterprises employing such EDI tools can use their own EDI experts to manage day-to-day activities efficiently. Even activities such as error tracking, handling, and alerting can also be automated with a complete EDI solution.  This EDI solution considers integration with one or more platforms or systems, once relegated to custom code as ‘out of the box’, in other words, included with the platform. This EDI solution provider also tends to keep their solutions up to date and improve upon them by regularly updating these platforms, their customers’ instances and keeping their users informed.  

Complete EDI Solutions/Providers also include and deliver training to ensure that your EDI experts stay current with the latest technologies and can use them to deliver critical or time-sensitive transactions across your partners and networks efficiently and without errors. If you are looking for or are expecting to have or maintain complete control and visibility over your entire set of B2B, B2C messaging and/or your API/EDI practice, then a Complete EDI Solution/Provider might be a good fit for you.

PartnerLinQ by Visionet: Enterprise Connectivity at the Speed of Business

PartnerLinQ is an innovative, cloud-native platform that delivers supply chain visibility and resilience by simplifying trading partner connectivity and interoperability. PartnerLinQ’s native app ecosystem adds business context to the traditional integration, minimizing disruption by increasing set-up velocity and improving implementation speed resulting in overall efficiency gains between 30 and 500%.  

PartnerLinQ comes completely preconfigured and installed with capabilities for intelligent hyper-automation, multi-channel integration, and real-time analytics while allowing your team to take control if that’s what they want to do.  It seamlessly connects multi-tier supply chain networks, channels, and marketplaces with your core ERP, MRP, CRM, WMS, CMS, or TMS, delivering unified connectivity to a global client base. PartnerLinQ connects with more than 77 Commerce Platforms, Market Places, B2B Portals, Social Channels, enterprise-level systems and shipping solutions today, so you are ready for today and the future.

– Integration at the Speed of Business

PartnerLinQ simplifies the partner onboarding process through its Common Processing Workflow. Complemented by the Business Rule Manager, an entire migration process involving more than 1,000 partners and customers can be completed in weeks rather than months or years. 

– Scale in Transaction Volume

The PartnerLinQ platform scales automatically from transactions number in the hundreds to more than 60 million transactions. It is available in PartnerLinQ’s Azure-based hybrid cloud architecture and in the Google Cloud Platform, managing more than 8,000,000 transactions per day – nearly twice any required capacity.

– Simplified IT Infrastructure

It integrates seamlessly with your core ERP, MRP, CRM, WMS, CMS, TMS, or legacy systems, as well as Commerce Platforms, Market Places, B2B Portals, Social Channels, enterprise-level systems and shipping solutions to ensure that you are better positioned to drive even greater efficiencies with cooperative technologies, that provide real-time updates and actionable insights.

– Enhanced Visibility to Address Pain Points

Real-time insights are critical for today’s supply chain executives, and PartnerLinQ delivers consistent customer value at every touchpoint. PartnerLinQ’s biggest success comes with its ability to turn falling service ratings into top scores with the biggest clients by providing greater visibility into the operations and the ability to consistently deliver on service-level commitments.

For more information, visit our website.

What is EDI- Electronic Data Interchange Solution?

EDI is a simple electronic format that replaces paper-based documents and is used for intercompany communication in the standard form. Information sharing might occur within an organization or with third-party organizations or business partners.

The EDI solutions focus on providing quick and accurate data interchange and using existing EDI solutions that can help optimize your supply chain operations.

EDI Solution: Why is it needed? 

There are several supply-chain issues that you might face as a business owner. These include inaccuracies in calculation and unwanted system delays. There’s also a chance of business transactions that may be paper-dependent.

More companies have increased digital platform use, and the demand for instant information has increased. The transactions done manually may only sometimes be ideal to meet this requirement. Fortunately, EDI can help you here.

EDI Solution vs. Non-EDI Solution

Understanding the difference between EDI and Non-EDI solutions can impact how your business operates and scales. Here’s a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental differences between the two.

Speed of the Process Cycle

The process order cycle is tiring and can impact your business’s overall efficiency. The process might involve multiple departments of the company. The efficiency of these systems determines how much time it takes for supplier payments. Therefore, a shorter and more efficient order system is the key to long-term business success.

A stand-alone EDI or a non-integrated one doesn’t operate according to the ERP system. Therefore, there’s higher manual-handling involved compared to an integrated EDI. It contributes to a lengthy purchase cycle and makes it more challenging. On the contrary, the integrated EDI connects your ERP systems (internally) and automates the purchase cycle.

Responsiveness of the System

Today, multiple internal and external business parties stay connected for commerce-related tasks. The link has made communication transparent and increased the process’s complexity. Fortunately, an integrated EDI can adjust to this complexity.

The separate EDI may not operate appropriately with ERP systems, which makes it challenging to maintain buying and selling speeds. The integrated ERP has excellent responsiveness and can handle multiple trading partners and payments simultaneously with minimal human interference.

Process Accuracy

The accuracy of procedures determines the long-term survival and profit of companies. A simple error in this calculation can negatively affect the third-party and external processes within your business. It will impact your vendor relationship and business reputation in the industry.

A stand-alone EDI may not be the best choice in these circumstances because there’s a higher possibility of errors. Apart from that, there may not be proper communication with the other ERP applications. This miscommunication can lead to substantial data loss.

The integrated EDIs can substantially increase the accuracy of the process used in the purchase. The integrated EDI systems can manage the systems and form proper communication with other ERP processes without a problem.

Process and Staff Productivity

Process efficiency impacts the productivity of the staff and directly impacts the business profit margin. EDI software is the best-suited option for businesses that wish to improve team and process efficiency for maximum ROI.

The stand-alone EDIs require training to monitor the purchase process and supervise the complete steps. The other EDIs automate and integrate the systems, allowing the teams to focus on significant tasks.

Thus, integrated EDI can boost the overall efficiency and productivity of the process and the team involved in the business. Moreover, the higher volume of purchase orders in a non-integrated EDI is much less than the integrated one.

Processing Costs

The purchase order business requires a lot of expenses, impacting the profit potential of the business model. It is true that some of these expenses must remain the same, as you cannot reduce or change them. However, with improvements and efficiency, you can change processing costs.

For instance, the right EDI system can cut labor costs by avoiding the supervision of teams. It also allows business owners to reduce the payment cycles and complete vendor payments on time.

Thus, this little EDI system change saves the business from facing chargebacks. Moreover, it lets them avail special discounts by vendors on an early payment. The stand-alone EDI may not consistently have the same efficient results.

Implementation

The time required by a business for the implementation process and the procedure complexity or challenge determines the cost of implementation. A well-crafted business process involves planning and addressing issues and prerequisites for formal implementations.

The integrated EDI software can connect to multiple internal and external applications and optimize the process. However, this option may be challenging to incorporate into your business.

Thus, you may need more time and resources to implement the integrated EDIs over non-integrated EDI ones.

EDI Service Providers: How to Decide?

The EDI technology may have more costs and need more time for incorporation, but it can offer benefits in the long term. Business owners may not get these benefits with the non-integrated EDI technology.

The integrated EDI is more flexible and can be scaled to match your organizational growth.

How can Electronic Data Interchange Providers help?

Integrated EDI solutions increase the efficiency and productivity of your business. They offer the best alternatives for better data sharing and management.

They can also help improve processing costs, increase staff productivity, and offer greater process accuracy. With the inclusion of integrated EDI systems, your business is likely to grow, better and faster.

If you are dealing with problems in supply chain management, a professional services provider can help you optimize the overall experience. PartnerLinQ could be the answer to your problems. PartnerLinQ has been serving the supply chain industry for many years and can give you valuable insights into everything about supply chain.

Building a New Resilient Supply Chain

The global marketplace today can perhaps be described as volatile. Prices are on the rise, shortages are popping up unexpectedly and in unexpected places.  Many major retail grocers are expecting center store sales to increases, an indication of things to come.

While supply chains have become more extensive and interconnected, they have also shown unprecedented instability in the face of disruption. In the wake of COVID-19, the fragile stability of lean supply chains found difficulty in recovering quickly in the face of disruption.  What has emerged is a succession of supply side ripples across multiple industries. The ripples collide until at last they reach the end of the line and, similar to the domino effect, as one chain ends another begins in sequence.  Many of the assumptions upon which the lean manufacturing model was created, were undone by market and environment variables that emerged during the onset of the COVID disruption.

Organizations are beginning to accept a pretense of recovery amid a truly formidable challenge of accelerated customer demand and labor shortages, and while research indicates that retail sales can grow by as much as 10.5% to 13.5% to generate more than USD 4.4 trillion in this year, there are concerns. Having undergone unprecedented and unwelcome change throughout the past year, suppliers require stability and flexibility to tackle the surging demand. Resisting instability forms the key priority for retail suppliers, which brings focus to resilience.

21% That’s the number of respondents in a recent Gartner survey who affirmed that they have a resilient network at present. Giving context to the figure, resilience implies elevated visibility, persistent velocity in moving product from source to destination while avoiding supply chain constraints. In this current moment of volatility in the market, it is imperative for retail suppliers and retail enterprises to increase their supply chain resilience.

Becoming more resilient is no longer a luxury for supply chain leaders. The long-standing tradition of lean manufacturing and its entrenched philosophy will be the challenge to overcome. Supply chains need to be efficient as well as resilient, and practices such as redundant supply chain operations, alternative factories, and ample safety stock need to be developed in parallel with productivity and performance improvements.  Supply chains also need to maintain compliance substituting lesser performing partners for those more suited following the COVID disruption. The widespread disruptions affected supply chain monitoring and audit and while enforcement may have been relaxed, performance improvements can only be brought about by effective monitoring and accounting. In order to holistically build a resilient supply chain network, retail suppliers need specific data elements to be incorporated into their supply chain and a robust solution methodology which combines five important elements is key.

Connectivity

A surefire approach to building supply chain resilience in retail is ensuring anytime, anyone, anywhere communication, systems need to be ‘access anywhere’ supportive of SSO (Single Sign on) and active directory. Manual partner-to-partner communication requires a lot of paperwork and must be reduced in light of staffing shortages.  Manual communication methodologies lead to errors and errors mean more human intervention. Automatic and secure document flows compatible with multiple enterprise level system and capable of a variety of data interchange formats and in real time delivers resilience.

Flexibility

A significant aspect of resilience is ironing out friction within the network. A resilient supply chain must be flexible and able to fix critical issues with the least amount of effort.  ‘Fix-on-the-fly’ functionality reducing human interaction increases flexibility. An efficient business rule manager is key to incorporate such flexibility. Reusable business rules ensure seamless partner onboarding and transaction integration.  Reusable sets of business rules allow for the conservation of scarce technical resources and ease of use.  The addition of reusable rules to rule sets to overcome existing issues, and proactive alerting based on business rules means time to make a correction where and when necessary. Change, through a business rules engine can be automated and in real time. Audit functions mean changes can be rolled out, and rolled back if that become necessary.

Adaptability

Perhaps the greatest lesson that the past year has taught suppliers in retail has been the importance of adaptation. The transition to digital and the prominence of ecommerce platforms has been well documented in the retail industry. An omnichannel strategy covers all potential channels for distribution and sales. An omnichannel strategy makes sense amid market disruptions such as we’ve seen this past year and a half.  An omnichannel strategy means demand can be met with convenience and speed. While a stand-alone omnichannel strategy as a solution is one way to meet demand, leveraging a common process workflow to bring transactions in or out of the enterprise the same way every time means an increased ability to create multiple trading relationships and do so quickly. By eliminating the need for additional support or maintenance, a common process workflow takes partner on boarding to a new level while increasing the utility of business rules reduces the dependencies on map and mapping activities. Combining centralized B2B communication with such a workflow results in a highly independent system in which transactions and business processes are handled automatically, accounting for connection changes, partner onboarding, acquisitions, mergers and complete enterprise migration without adding disruption.

Accountability

With much of the COVID disruption behind, and planning and change ahead, compliance has never been more important for retail suppliers.  A flexible and effective event notification processor to stay on top of supply chain events and issues in real time becomes a valuable tool. Such rules-based processing must be backed by comprehensive audits, reports, and analytics.  Such tools must be visible across the internal supply chain operation. Transaction transportation, transformation and integration tools must include analytics to ensure consistent business operations, keeping disparate teams in touch with the latest goings-on in the supply chain domain.

The Way Forward

Accepting resilience is just the first step. The path includes overcoming challenges like supply chain and labor shortages and success in resilience is achieved by combining five key elements:

• Centralized communication across multiple methods, formats, and platforms
• Flexible business rules, business rules management, and alerting.
• An adaptive common processing workflow that simplifies onboarding and processing
• Visibility, accountability, and adaptability
• Easy access to these key elements and in one place.

A resilient path will quickly deliver an elevated level of performance, particularly important as the retail industry begins to leave the COVID disruption behind and starts to engage with the new normal.

The Importance of a Connected Supply Chain

As we put a highly turbulent year behind us, there is one lesson that businesses will take with them into 2021: be prepared for the unexpected. The chain of events that will forever define 2020 impacted businesses across industries and around the world.

The pandemic took nearly every business by surprise, regardless of scale, sending waves of disruption across most supply chains. Supply chain in general nearly came to a grinding halt due to global lockdowns and subsequent changes in consumer behavior and demand. This consequently impacted factory output, with nearly every warehousing and transportation company finding their operations, their businesses, themselves, and their families at risk.

We’re all consumers at some level and depend on supply chain leadership. Supply chain leaders have to constantly lift, shift, and adjust plans; they have to be prepared for the predictable and the unprecedented. Labor, infrastructure, cybersecurity, natural disasters, even weather and fuel, contribute to transportation disruptions.

The entire nature of the supply chain has changed with 2020, resulting in a different focus for every participant. There’s a noticeable shift from focusing on savings to increasing velocity, with an increased focus on agility and survival  – survival by way of developing collaborative and connected supply chain networks that deliver on expectations.

Focusing on Supply Chain Connectivity

A successful supply chain strategy delivers increased responsiveness and intelligence, which fuels informed decision-making and, with a modicum of luck, leads to success. Focusing on some key areas can enhance supply chain connectivity and equip enterprises to deal with what the future holds.  Electronic Data Interchange or EDI is one of those key areas.

Visibility

Businesses that rely on outdated processes and disparate IT systems across their supply chain operations struggle to deliver efficiency, responsiveness, and insights – all of which are now imperative for prolonged success. The lack of real-time access to information reduces visibility, which in turn limits the ability to respond to supply chain risk. These risks are amplified when not identified as such, or are wholly unprecedented, as the case with 2020.

A digitally connected supply chain, on the other hand, offers businesses a way to leverage communication and access the insights required to meet customer expectations, something that is just not possible with a paper-based process, or one that is highly dependent on human interaction.

Managers can more efficiently and effectively manage supply chain operations when they can see the data and understand what’s going on in near-real time. Deep insights and real-time information keep supply chain decision-makers on point at a place where they can improve performance.

Flexibility

While visibility is the starting point that provides insight, supply chain managers also need flexibility. Flexibility is what it takes to get the job done when an opportunity does present itself.  If you had visibility into the future, you might have bought into Bitcoin. If you were charting supply chain events during 2020, you would have noticed ripples.

A run on frozen food when people were asked to remain at home had a predictable impact on refrigerated food products weeks later, when an overburdened grocery supply chain struggled to resupply frozen food products.

Nearly the same impact was observed with the production of paper products where carriers transporting finished goods were repurposed to carry raw materials, not even making a dent in the overall supply of finished paper until very recently. Lastly, there’s an oversupply of hand sanitizers and a shortage of ordinary alcohol throughout the supply chain today.

Look carefully and opportunity presents itself in these scenarios again and again; insight is what drives supply chain managers to capitalize on these opportunities.

Integration

Integration of suppliers, customers, and other partners has become a critical component following visibility and flexibility; one can only be as flexible as your supply chain connectivity solution allows.

Suppliers, customers, and other partners often rely on different communication standards, data formats, and integration methodologies for consistent connectivity and communication. The result is a very intricate and complicated web of B2B and B2C networks.

While electronic data interchange (EDI) may be a preferred method of supply chain connectivity and communication, today’s competitive landscape is very different than yesterday and will be even more different tomorrow. B2B and B2C interoperability requires real-time collaboration, end-to-end visibility, and an increased flexibility among supply chain partners.

Taking Control of Your Network with a Digital Supply Chain Connectivity Solution

PartnerLinQ’s unified supply chain solution delivers end-to-end digital connectivity for your enterprise at the speed of business. It puts you in complete control by providing increased flexibility, full visibility, and deep integration into the enterprise where you need it. PartnerLinQ is a complete supply chain connectivity solution that seamlessly integrates your multi-tier global networks, channels, and marketplaces to your enterprise.

Backed by more than 25 years of integration expertise, PartnerLinQ ensures that you have a resilient and connected supply chain capable of overcoming the challenges of today and the unexpected threats of tomorrow. Purpose-built for B2B and B2C communication for your EDI and non-EDI trading partners alike, PartnerLinQ delivers true integration without complication.

• PartnerLinQ enables frictionless partner onboarding as it is easy to use, configure, and maintain.
• Centralized business rules, reporting, and alerting ensure that your team is instantly aware of any issue, allowing them to take action right from the home screen.
• Hosted on the cloud, PartnerLinQ ensures infinitely scalability and capability to process thousands of transactions per hour. There’s no hardcoding and nothing else to buy – it’s all there.

PartnerLinQ digitally connects you and your partners to bring seamless communication, unparalleled agility, and superior operational intelligence to your fingertips. It will empower you to take complete control of your supply chain network and overcome the disruptions of today and those no one saw coming. If a unified supply chain solution is what you expect from your EDI platform, talk with our experts.