Beyond Traditional Electronic Data Interchange, EDI

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is an immensely useful standard and process, and has become nearly universal over the course of several decades.

Traditional EDI, however, no longer meets today’s business or IT needs. There are multiple reasons for this, including an increased need for interoperability, broader business process support and real-time interactions.

Among nearly all industries, we have seen increased complexity in IT systems and interoperability requirements across companies needing to exchange information.

It is no longer realistic to assume or expect your suppliers, customer or other partners to adhere to a single standard or business process for information exchange.

Most organizations want to leverage existing applications and systems. And customers have the power to insist you do business their way.

Also, companies want to do more than just exchange documents. They want the exchange to be part of a broader business process and fit into key initiatives, such as business process management and service oriented architecture (SOA ).

Companies require more sophisticated process work flow, business rules, security policies or compliance management.

These lie outside the realm of traditional EDI.