B2B Data Integration and Transformation Blog

My highschool son plays several sports which all require a large amount of team work.  I often find it crazy the amount of time these teams put into practices, scrimmages, and games.  But, without these, they aren’t getting better or growing as a unit.  Teams require each person to do their job to be successful as a whole.  They win together and lose together.  In sports and life teamwork equates to work done by an entire team - not if only a few members are carrying the load.  

I guess you are wondering what this has to do with EDI and business integration?

I often sit and listen to clients talk about their EDI environments – sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad.  What I find most important during these conversations is ensuring I understand everything they have and the direction they are heading.  

To obtain this key information, you must ask a lot of questions.  It may take several conversations before earning the trust of the client so they may provide you with many details, but evenutally you get there. 

We have been talking a lot about B2B Integration and how to maximize your investment in automation, but what happens when you’re trying to automate but your trading partners aren’t as eager and don’t call you back?  There are so many numbers referencing the cost savings of automating your orders, invoices, payments, etc., for example, in a recent Vanson Bourne Study, 53% of respondents still use Fax/Mail to send and receive their transactions.