What Are the Benefits of EDI?
Rather than thinking of EDI as a computer-to-computer concept, it is better to conceptualize it as application-to-application. For example, a customer uses EDI to transmit purchase orders to its suppliers. The benefit of EDI is not that the customer has replaced a paper document with an electronic data transmission, but that the customer has electronically linked its purchasing application to the supplier’s ordering application. By doing that, EDI reduces administrative costs, improves the timeliness and accuracy of data, and promotes a closer trading partner relationship. Save Time and Money EDI is a tremendous cost and time saving concept. The order entry system without EDI involves many people and has many intermediate steps. When a customer wants to order a product from its supplier, the customer’s purchasing department enters the purchase order on-line. Overnight, hard-copy purchase orders are printed, sorted, stuffed into envelopes, forwarded to the mailroom, stamped, and mailed.
