EDI has been at the forefront of communication between businesses and consumers for decades; EDI integration is essential for streamlining operations across many hectic industry environments. Ensuring you have the right EDI solution can help set your business up for a bright future. But what is the future of EDI?
The Past and Present of EDI
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) enables organisations to exchange standard business documents such as purchase orders, invoices, shipping notices, inventory updates, credit memos, etc., with their trading partners and customers without re-keying data.
Traditionally, EDI has been the stronghold of the retail, wholesale distribution, manufacturing, automotive and logistics industries. However, in the cloud computing-based world of today, the term EDI no longer just represents the age-old EDI standards of EDIFACT, X12 or Tradacoms but instead has become a much more generic term for the electronic exchange of all business data supported by ‘Any to Any’ integration.
In fact, in today’s terms, modern EDI represents a completely integrated communication hub open to all parties that wish to exchange standardised, electronic communications.
Modern EDI Integration
While the traditional EDI data standards of EDIFACT are still supported and widely used across various industries, modern EDI will also help the majority of additional file formats such as XML, CSV and flat files. Modern EDI solutions will also be built on SaaS/cloud-based platforms to support backend financial management and ERP systems better.
The modern EDI solution provider will support API integration with traditional EDI ports. Therefore, a modern EDI service provider becomes a complete, integrated communication hub to support all the needs of the customer, be it the ordering of goods from a factory, selling those goods to traditional retailers or on the online marketplace, selling their own goods and services on their own shopping carts and integrating with a 3PL for the storage and shipping of the aforementioned goods.
Traditional vs Modern EDI
EDI has evolved a lot since its inception, and to show just how far the technology has come, we have put together a helpful table showcasing all of the changes across the format:
| Traditional EDI | Modern EDI | |
| File Formats Supported | · EDIFACT
· X12 · Tradacoms |
· EDIFACT
· X12 · Tradacoms · Peppol · oioUBL · XML · CSV · Flat Files · And much more…. |
| Integration | · Desktop
· Limited Connectivity · SDK · ERP · WMS |
· Cloud Based
· ‘Any to Any’ · SDK and APIs supported · ERP · Accounting Software · WMS · OMS · Inventory Software |
| Communication Protocols | · VAN | · VAN
· AS2 · AS4 · sFTP · FTP |
| Pricing | · High, used predominantly by large organisations who could afford it | · Affordable and available to all |
| Industries Predominantly Served | · Retail
· Manufacturing · Automotive · Large Scale Wholesale Distribution |
· Retail
· Online Marketplaces · Drop Shipping · eCommerce Shopping Carts · Manufacturing · Automotive · Wholesale Distribution · Healthcare · Insurance · Third Party Logistics (3PL) · Finance · Government |
Fig.2: Comparison of Traditional EDI and Modern EDI
What Is the Future Scope of EDI?
The future of EDI is an exciting one. Over the last few decades, there have been massive leaps in the EDI industry with new, improved solutions, making the integration of EDI into a business straightforward. It’s never been easier to connect with companies across the EDI network and to switch your EDI provider, but what is to come in the near future?
The Rise of AI
Industries across the globe are being transformed by artificial intelligence, providing the perfect tools to streamline and make some of the painstaking manual tasks of the past a breeze. AI has begun to be seen as highly effective in e-invoicing by streamlining transaction management and reviewing past transactions to help businesses identify errors. AI can take EDI solutions and predict future trends, helping companies to increase their cash flow and improve the accuracy of their data.
Improved security measures
With technology ever-evolving, so are the methods of cyberattack that do their best to evolve to match. While sending invoices and data through EDI messaging has never been safer, cybersecurity can continually be improved. As more and more industries take on EDI integration, the scope for security will continue to evolve.
EDI Solutions in the Cloud
The Cloud offers a cost-effective solution for storing and hosting infrastructure and data. It provides accessibility and is fully scalable to suit the demands of the EDI solution without any software and hardware taking up resources. Cloud-based solutions can accommodate increased volumes of data while keeping data secure with recovery and backup options in case of data loss.
<h2>Discover the Future of EDI Here at Celtrino</h2>
To learn more about how Celtrino’s cloud-based, modern EDI solutions can help customers remove the need to re-key data, eliminate errors and further automate their supply chain processes, please be sure to contact us and find out how we can help integrate EDI solutions today. To learn more about the services we offer, check out our case studies for all the valuable information.
