Benefits from EDI
EDI and eCommerce has enabled many companies to realize substantial savings on processing hard copy documents, but that is only the beginning. Business practices like vendor-managed inventories, where suppliers keep close track of customer inventories and replenish as needed, could never happen without electronic product activity reports coming from the customer. Evaluated receipts settlements, a practice that literally removes invoices and the accounting they entail from the business process, can happen only if companies exchange purchasing, shipping, and receiving data electronically. As a result, many enterprises using EDI have streamlined their business processes and improved productivity markedly.
Issues with Multi Industry EDI
However while every industry recognizes the value of e-commerce and EDI, each industry defines its implementation guidelines. In many respects, one cannot avoid this situation since each industry has its own set of business rules and practices. But unless the respective industry groups developing the transactions make a special effort to agree on common definitions, interoperability depends as much on sweet good fortune as anything else. Companies serving many industries, such as warehousing or logistics services and doing their EDI in-house will need to carry each industry's EDI implementations in their systems. At the same time, companies wanting to move their management services to EDI will find different implementations for banking, insurance, telecommunications, and health care for example.
Banyan Commerce transcends Industry barriers
Banyan Commerce provides e-commerce/EDI solutions to customers across all industries. Banyan Customers dealing with different industries can do so seamlessly without having to develop new transactions or to buy new software. Some of the industries that form the bulk of our customer base are listed on the left and you can read about the details of each industry. |
