B2B Data Integration and Transformation Blog

Every so often major players in EDI have business improvement initiatives that impact EDI standards, communications, industry initiatives, or technology deployment. These initiatives often have a ripple effect across the Supply Chain impacting an entire block of trading partners in an industry. These initiatives can be mandated upgrades to a given X12 EDI standard version, industry initiatives related to data synchronization and GS1, RFID technology deployed in conjunction with EDI, or communications protocol, encryption, and certificate changes such as that found in SHA-2 implementation.

Depending on your integration tool and infrastructure, chances are it can be used in many many more applications than it is currently.

We are often asked this question by the integration professionals with whom we speak.  The question is not usually posed in the manner in which this Blog is titled, but something like the following...

"Based on the discussion of our EDI/integration tools, our ERP and other integration points, and our technical capabilities as an organization, where are we as compared to our peers?"

Other variants of this question include:

July 13th marked the 22nd anniversary of REMEDI Electronic Commerce Group (aka REMEDI Consulting Company in the early days).  The REMEDI team would like to thank clients present and past for trusting us with their EDI, B2Bi, MFT, and application integration initiatives.  I would also like to thank our integration team members, thought leaders, and partners for delivering their best to our clients every day. For without their efforts we have no "product" at all.

In looking back to the early days, it's interesting to see the many ways EDI / integration professionals and tool sets have transformed during our time in business.

Often times when helping companies modernize their B2B integration, I get a glimpse of their old systems and gain insight as to why they felt the need to modernize. One of the most common reasons is to get all their integration software onto one comprehensive package. Generally, companies add additional software tools one by one as needs arise in their EDI department for requirements which older existing tools will not accommodate. In the instance of IT backlogs, Line of Business folks will procure integration solutions as a work-around to the capacity limitations of their IT department. Acquisitions frequently result in overlapping systems as well. Over time, more becomes less as complexity and inefficiency rise with each additional integration tool- a typical case of too many cooks.