B2B Data Integration and Transformation Blog

Since its advent in the 1960s, EDI has gained vast inroads in supply chain operations. As one of the most valuable tech investments for supply chain management, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has consistently proven effective at improving supply chain efficiency and helping companies maximize the advantages of trading partner collaboration. Today, many of the largest, most successful manufacturing, distribution, and retail companies utilize EDI solutions to exchange business information autonomously and in real time.

Thanks to Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), business communication in inventory management is now faster, more accurate and more efficient than in years past. While EDI for inventory management has been in existence for decades, it has undergone significant transformation since its inception–and the pace of its evolution only continues to increase.

Electronic Data Interchange has played a critical role in logistics for decades. Since the 1960s, transportation companies have used EDI to transform their operations from disorganized and complicated to streamlined and efficient. With EDI, modern-day logistics enterprises automate the generation and sharing of procurement, shipping, and payment information, resulting in better coordination, reduced errors, and lower costs across supply chains.

The shipping industry is an intricate web of logistics companies, port operators, and customs offices. Every party has a role to play in getting goods from one point of the world to another. Successful freight operations require forwarders to coordinate with everyone along the chain and meet their specific requirements, regardless of systems and procedure variations between partners.

If you are in the logistics sector, you know better than anyone how challenging it has become to stay afloat amid hurdles like the pandemic, mounting competition, and changing customer expectations. The margin of acceptable inefficiencies is now essentially non-existent. Companies that are not doing enough to optimize operations risk falling dangerously behind.