Colom Newbie

The world of EDI has seen a sea change from traditional VAN's to Internet EDI. This development in itself has made EDI available to smaller trading partners who find the reduced cost and easy-to-get IT infrastructure for establishing EDI much more feasible and desirable.

Internet EDI suddenly gave EDI industry the much needed push and the much needed respite from the traditional and cumbersome technologies. This has in turn resulted in an EDI wave where a number of vendors have now started providing EDI as a service. Based on the Saas Model EDI as a service is an excellent solution for those smaller players who do not have the needed IT infrastructure or the EDI know-how but were mandated to use this technology to be in business with players like Wal-Mart.

The advantages of the SaaS based EDI are many

1. Reduced cost and time for EDI readiness

2. Lowers the requirement for IT infrastructure and resources

3. Reduced transaction fee

4. Improved systems integration and operational efficiency

For most of the companies EDI is not a core business function. It is more of a necessity that is dictated by the large size trading partner. Considering the fact that EDI is a non core function it requires special expertise and resources. Also the option of investing into an EDI Product together with the implementation cost could turn out to be very expensive. Added to all this is the maintenance and updating. The best part about EDI as SaaS is that allows a completely outsourced EDI solution to these companies for whom EDI is a non core business. This allows the smaller players who are sometimes faced with complex B2B Integration can now easily EDI enable themself. Also there is no licensing fee and only a subscription cost which allows for very low cost of ownership. Even the implementation cost decreases because many of the implementations can be reused. Moreover a SaaS solution will keep updating itself on the latest EDI Standards and Transaction Sets, software upgrades, EDI Adapters, back up support, maintenance etc at a reduced cost with zero overheads

Due to its many benefits and lesser overheads SaaS EDI is fast becoming a preferred choice rather than the alternate solution for Data Integration. The sea change that this model has brought about in this industry can be gauged from the fact that the startup cost for setting up Internet EDI that ranged from a few to hundreds of thousands of dollars is now reduced to more than 50%. It is therefore no wonder as to why SaaS is the ideal architecture for the EDI Solution for companies of all sizes. It not only enables rapid implementation, single interface for all synchronizing requirements but to stay ahead of their competition by easily adapting to the ever changing requirements and technologies.