Some companies in an effort to move full speed ahead are often faced with a dilemma. The need for agile business solutions seems appealing, however, it is important to be aware of potential drawbacks. There are EDI service providers that claim how quickly they can get you up and running. For many organizations, the speed to go live is a desirable selling point. A solid EDI provider will take the time to understand your business processes, before getting you live and operational. This is critical to building a solid EDI foundation.
Today’s EDI environments are more complex than ever, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. That’s why it’s critical to understand your business operations and how your enterprise resource planning (ERP) or system of record (SOR) is set up. The central purpose of an ERP system is a database that supports multiple functions used by different business units. These systems are configured to match the needs of each individual company. On top of that, many organizations have developed custom code to fit their unique business requirements. Therefore, no two ERP systems are alike.
In order to fully comprehend your business processes, it’s critical for our team to understand how your system of record is configured. At the ERP level, there are countless complexities and circumstances unique to each individual organization. Unless you take the time to understand these nuances and their effect on your business, your EDI integration will not be set up for success.
For example, if you’re building an 856 transaction—an advanced ship notice (ASN). Your EDI service provider needs to understand, do you put all your packages on a pallet? Do you have multiple items in a box? Are there multiple items on a pallet? Is everything sent at the pallet level? It’s important to understand the physical package in the warehouse, in order to develop the ASN. Do you handle multiple orders in a single delivery? Do you only run full truckloads, or will do you handle less than truckloads?
These are a few variables that make your EDI processes unique. With that in mind, unless you take the time to uncover these individual scenarios, you won’t fully understand the intricacies associated with your business.