Fast, accurate data transmission is crucial to business operations in the trucking industry. With millions of transactions between shippers, brokers, and carriers at any given time, keeping on top of the correct information is paramount to a trucking business' success. Thus, Electronic Data Interchange, a digital 'language' used to exchange documentation between at least two computer systems, is an essential tool for trucking companies. EDI allows players in the trucking space the ability to transfer shipping manifests, status updates, invoices, remittances, and more -- no matter where in the world they or the receiving party may be located.
Trucking EDI for data management is now required for carriers wishing to compete on the global stage. In the following sections, we lay out the how and why.
Data is Everywhere
Transportation companies have been using EDI for the better part of the past six decades. In the future, as data continues to grow, the need for EDI in trucking will only intensify. At the start of 2020, there were approximately 44 zettabytes of data worldwide, according to data consultancy Seed Scientific. By 2025, the global amount of data generated each day is slated to reach 463 exabytes. (To put that into perspective, one exabyte is the equivalent of one billion gigabytes--or one billion times the data used to stream the average hour-long, high-quality video.) In the next few years, trucking companies' financial achievements will almost certainly be linked to their ability to aptly manage their data.
Trucking Logistics Approach to Data
Whether onboarding a new trading partner or communicating with a customer, trucking logistics companies are in constant contact with data. To be successful, fast, accurate communication of many of these data points is essential. Yet because of their continued use of varying, incompatible systems and formats for data handling, many trucking businesses continue to struggle with information communication. And slowed receipt of information means all points along the supply chain are delayed, leading to reduced revenue and lost customers.
It is therefore imperative that your trucking business have a specific approach to the management of data. By becoming EDI capable, you get one. When you connect to and integrate with EDI technology, your company can quickly, efficiently, and accurately deliver needed information where it needs to go. Newer EDI for trucking can also have your data integrated into core applications, vastly expanding your company's online reach.
The Importance of EDI for Trucking
It would be difficult to overstate the benefits of EDI to trucking. From speed and agility to market resiliency and customer retention, EDI removes data-transmission bottlenecks, smoothing and quickening the pace of your data's flow to and from trading partners. The perks of trucking EDI can best be divided into three categories:
- Faster operations
- Increased transportation efficiency
- Quicker scaling
Faster operations: Trucking EDI takes the place of numerous manual processes. This means data reaches trading partners sooner and more accurately, saving cash, time, and frustration and getting customers their goods on time. EDI solutions convert the documents you create into industry-standardized formats capable of easy receipt by external systems, which can then read them autonomously, without the need for human eyes.
EDI automates the duties a business previously had to do using costly employee hours:
- Entering data into internal systems
- Verifying and printing load tender documents and invoices
- Sharing shipment and order statuses with trading partners and more
This means you no longer run the relatively high risks of lost or erroneous information and drastically slash lag time, getting your business paid sooner.
Increased transportation efficiency: With energy costs soaring and relief in sight, few in the trucking sector can afford to waste transportation time. By simplifying and speeding the transmission of order-critical data throughout the supply chain, trucking EDI allows you to accommodate multiple communication standards, including HIPAA, X12, EANCOM, EDIFACT, and others, and do so without wasted time or staff effort. This means increased efficiency in trucking logistics: route planning, vehicle and fuel selection, driver hiring, and more, leading to less outlay and increased revenue.
Quicker scaling: Every logistics company wants to be able to expand quickly without losing agility. By standardizing, automating, integrating, and simplifying crucial data exchanges, EDI gives you the control you need over your incoming and outgoing data, so you can conduct business with any trading partner and customer anywhere in the world.
Trucking Integration Can Help
Your business doesn't have to go it alone. As a top, trusted integration partner, Remedi can ease a trucking business' transition from manual operations to EDI-led automation and near-instantaneous data receipt and delivery. Some of the ways we relieve your EDI-onboarding pain points include:
- Speeding and smoothing new-partner acquisition
- Ensuring visibility and compliance
- Shortening the learning curve
Speeding and smoothing new-partner acquisition
Growth is all about adding new partners, but when those additions become burdensome, you can lose precious time and efficiency. By using extant templates via our EDI platform, Remedi can quicken the pace of EDI mapping and remove both ad-hoc and custom integrations. These moves hasten the onboarding process, instilling faith in your new partners and helping you work seamlessly with them.
Ensuring visibility and compliance
Remedi can help you streamline your data, so you get total visibility into your operations and can easily maintain needed compliance standards. Because we help you complete EDI logistics software processes for EDI automation, we get your information to you sooner so you can make decisions more quickly.
Shortening the learning curve
Without in-house know-how, EDI implementation's learning curve can be steep. Working with Remedi means we do all the heavy EDI lifting. We bring the expertise to bridge knowledge gaps and provide a flexible solution that can integrate all types of data formats and document types--while scaling with your needs.
Grow your Trucking Business with EDI Integration
Having an EDI integration partner will help you pave your way to success--and a larger marketplace footprint. With Remedi, you'll get the most out of your EDI solution. We'll help you automate B2B transactions and expedite your everyday processes so you can slash costs across the board and grow.
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Learn what EDI integration can do for your trucking business--for free. Get your complimentary integration/EDI assessment today.
