Key Highlights
- Hire an EDI consultant when you need speed, specialized skills, or short-term support without long-term overhead.
- Build an in-house team when EDI is central to your operations and you’re planning for long-term growth.
- Cost, risk, and efficiency trade-offs should guide your staffing decisions, not just headcount or hourly rate.
- Hybrid models give you the flexibility to scale fast while maintaining internal knowledge and control.
Today’s business integration environments aren’t getting any simpler. Whether you’re onboarding new trading partners, migrating platforms, or trying to scale without breaking your current setup, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a core part of your operations, and it requires the right people behind it.
So, when should you bring in outside help for EDI staffing, and when should you invest in building your own internal EDI team?
Understanding the Options
Hiring an EDI consultant (also known as staff augmentation) means bringing in outside experts on a temporary or project-based basis. They hit the ground running with proven experience in platforms like IBM Sterling, MFT, and APIs. There’s no training period, no ramp-up — just plug in the expertise.
Building an in-house team means hiring full-time employees to support your EDI systems. You’re investing in long-term knowledge and institutional memory. But it also comes with longer lead times and higher ongoing costs.
EDI Staff Augmentation vs. Building In-House
|
Criteria |
EDI Staffing Augmentation |
In-House Team |
|
|
✔ Rapid onboarding – experts can start within days |
✖ Hiring and onboarding takes weeks or months |
|
Specialized Skills Access |
✔ Access to niche experience in platforms and protocols |
✖ Limited to skills of internal candidates |
|
Scalability |
✔ Easily scale up/down with project needs |
✖ Requires headcount Planning and HR cycles |
|
Cost Structure |
✔ Pay only for what you need, no benefits or overhead |
✖ Full-time salary, benefits, and HR overhead |
|
Long-Term Investment |
✖ Temporary support without knowledge retention |
✔ Builds long-term institutional knowledge |
|
Control & Culture Fit |
✖ External resource, limited alignment |
✔ Embedded in team and aligned with company goals |
|
Risk of Misalignment |
✔ Low commitment, easier to course-correct |
✖ Bad hires are costly and harder to reverse |
|
Knowledge Transfer |
✔ Can train and mentor internal staff |
✔ Knowledge retained internally over time |
|
Best Use Case |
✔ Short-term projects, migrations, and specialized work |
✔ Ongoing support and strategic team building |
When to Hire an EDI Consultant
Hiring a consultant makes the most sense when:
- You need results quickly. Urgent project? Tight timeline? A consultant is your fast path forward.
- Specialized skills are hard to find. Need someone fluent in Sterling B2B Integrator, IntelligentXchange, or API-to-EDI workflows? That talent pool is niche.
- The need is temporary. If you only need help during a peak season or for a one-time migration, hiring full-time staff doesn’t make financial sense.
- Your internal team is stretched thin. Don’t burn out your core people trying to juggle urgent fixes, partner requests, and integration updates.
- You want a fresh, objective perspective. An outside consultant can bring insights from other industries and environments that your team may not have considered.
Common EDI Consultant Use Cases
System Migration
Support the transition from legacy systems to modern platforms like IBM Sterling or cloud-based iPaaS.
Partner Onboarding
Rapidly onboard new trading partners during growth, system changes, or M&A activity.
EDI Map Development
Create and optimize EDI maps tailored to your document types and trading partner requirements.
Integration Projects
Implement new workflows or connect EDI systems with ERP, CRM, or API-based solutions.
Troubleshooting & Optimization
Resolve transaction errors, reduce failures, and improve performance across your integration environment.
Staff Training & Knowledge Transfer
Upskill your internal team through hands-on training and platform-specific knowledge sharing.
Temporary Backfill
Fill short-term gaps due to leave, turnover, or while recruiting permanent team members.
When to Build an In-House EDI Team
Some businesses are ready for a permanent investment in EDI resources. Consider going in-house if:
- EDI is central to your operations. If it’s more than just a support function, it makes sense to own the expertise.
- You’re in it for the long haul. Ongoing integration work, daily partner onboarding, and platform maintenance may justify a full-time team.
- You have time to build. Hiring, training, and developing in-house talent takes time but may pay off in stability and team cohesion.
- You want total control. Internal teams are aligned with your culture, tools, and business goals in a way no outside consultant can be.
Cost, Risk, and Efficiency Considerations
When weighing whether to hire an EDI consultant or build an internal team, it’s important to go beyond hourly rates and look at the full spectrum of cost, risk, and performance factors. Here's how the two models compare across real business criteria.
1. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
| EDI Consultants | In-House Team |
| May appear more expensive on a per-hour basis | Annual salaries, benefits, insurance, training, and software access |
| No long-term commitment: you pay only for what you use | Hiring delays and ramp-up periods can quietly drive up costs |
| No added costs like benefits, PTO, training, or recruiting fees | Long-term investment that only pays off if you retain employees |
Takeaway:
Consultants are often a cost-effective EDI solution for short- to medium-term projects. If your need is episodic or project-based, the lower overhead of an external EDI expert is a smart investment.
2. Time to Value
| EDI Consultants | In-House Team |
| Can be onboarded within days | Hiring may take 1–3 months, depending on job market conditions |
| Bring platform-specific expertise with minimal ramp-up | New hires may need weeks of onboarding to understand your systems and partners |
| Deliver results immediately, especially during time-sensitive rollouts | Knowledge development is gradual and resource-intensive |
Takeaway:
When speed matters — for an urgent migration, integration failure, or trading partner deadline — EDI staff augmentation benefits you best. It buys you time, which often buys you success.
3. Flexibility and Scalability
| EDI Consultants | In-House Team |
| Scale your resources up or down based on project load | Harder to scale quickly — adds budget, recruitment, and onboarding pressure |
| Bring in specific skill sets for specific milestones (e.g., MFT specialist, map development, testing lead) | Reducing staff is a complex and often disruptive process |
| No impact to headcount or HR resources | Limited skill variety unless you hire for a broader team |
Takeaway:
A flexible EDI consulting model offers scalable EDI resources — ideal for businesses navigating fluctuating demands or digital transformation phases.
4. Risk Management
| EDI Consultants | In-House Team |
| Lower long-term commitment = less organizational risk | A bad hire can cost months of lost time and productivity |
| If performance is lacking, contracts can be adjusted or terminated | You're responsible for training and professional development |
| Many are seasoned across industries and have solved problems your team hasn’t yet seen | Risk of employee turnover — and the knowledge loss that comes with it |
Takeaway:
Risk isn't just about downtime — it's about what happens when people leave, projects stall, or experience is missing. Consultants reduce EDI project risk and offer critical risk management for B2B integration needs.
5. Expertise and Knowledge Transfer
| EDI Consultants | In-House Team |
| Come equipped with years (sometimes decades) of experience | May start from scratch depending on background |
| Bring cross-industry best practices and proven playbooks | Builds valuable internal IP over time |
| Can train your internal team as part of the engagement | Requires ongoing investment in skill development and training |
Takeaway:
An EDI expert consultant can accelerate knowledge growth inside your company through EDI team training and mentoring — especially if you're building a team while executing on a critical project.
The Hybrid Model: Best of Both Worlds
Many Remedi clients find the right answer isn’t either/or — it’s both.
They maintain a lean in-house EDI team for day-to-day operations, then supplement with expert consultants when:
- They’re rolling out a major initiative.
- A key staff member goes on leave.
- A new trading partner needs to be onboarded quickly.
- They want to evaluate or migrate to a new integration platform.
This hybrid approach gives you the control of internal staff with the flexibility and specialized knowledge of external experts.
Work with Remedi for the Right Resources at the Right Time
The decision to hire an EDI consultant or build an in-house team doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on your timeline, goals, budget, and internal capabilities.
At Remedi, we’ve been helping organizations make this decision and fill those critical roles for 30 years. Whether you need a Sterling expert for a three-month migration or want to build a long-term integration roadmap, we’ll help you do it smarter, faster, and more cost-effectively.
Not sure where to start? Let’s talk. We’ll help you evaluate your needs and recommend the best EDI staffing approach for your future.
