Many organizations are underutilizing their EDI investments.
Despite heavy investment in EDI platforms, tools, and staff, companies often hit a ceiling—burnout, stalled automation, slow project delivery, or underused software features. What’s missing? Not more tech. Often, it’s targeted expertise.
Engaging external EDI experts can complement your team, unlock automation, and drive measurable ROI without replacing the people who keep your integration ecosystem running every day.
Key Takeaways
- Internal EDI teams often face bandwidth and skill limitations that stall automation and reduce ROI.
- External EDI experts accelerate project delivery, optimize legacy systems, and extend in-house capabilities.
- Many companies underuse platforms like IBM® Sterling; partners like Remedi help unlock their full value.
- Signs it’s time to bring in help: missed SLAs, delayed automation, staff turnover, or growing trading partner complaints.
The Reality of Internal EDI Resource Limitations
If you manage or oversee EDI systems, you’ve likely experienced the all-too-common bottlenecks:
- Burnout and bandwidth issues: One or two key players carry the weight of the system, often relying on undocumented knowledge.
- Scaling challenges: Automation projects take a backseat when day-to-day support overwhelms the team.
- “Digital plumbing” breakdowns: As Remedi President Brad Loetz puts it, EDI is like the plumbing of your digital business. When it clogs or leaks, everything slows down—or worse, stops.
Even with capable internal staff, modern EDI environments demand a breadth of expertise most teams weren’t built for. That’s where external support fits in.
How External EDI Expertise Bridges the Gap
Hiring external EDI consultants or managed services partners doesn’t mean surrendering control or replacing your internal team. It means reinforcing them. Think of it like bringing in a seasoned contractor to help your skilled crew meet a tight construction deadline; they bring tools, experience, and an outside perspective that helps get the job done better and faster.
Here’s how external EDI support creates real impact:
Accelerates Project Delivery
Outside consultants come ready to go. They’ve seen dozens—sometimes hundreds—of environments, platforms, and business models. That means they can:
- Quickly assess your current setup and identify what’s holding it back.
- Hit the ground running with pre-built frameworks, tools, and templates.
- Bypass the learning curve your internal team would otherwise face with new tools or integrations.
Whether it’s onboarding new trading partners, integrating with an ecommerce platform, or rolling out error-handling automation, what used to take months internally can often be completed in weeks with the help of a skilled EDi consultant.
Fills Skill Gaps and Adds Flexibility
Most internal EDI teams are lean by design, and that works well until a specialized need arises. External consultants bring:
- Deep platform-specific expertise (e.g., IBM® Sterling, IntelligentXchange, AS2, MFT, APIs)
- Knowledge of industry-specific standards and nuances (like retail, logistics, or healthcare)
- The ability to scale up or down based on your project workload or budget
With external EDI consultants, you're not locked into long hiring cycles or costly training programs to fill short-term needs. You get the right skills when you need them.
Brings a Fresh Set of Eyes
When you’re close to a system day in and day out, it’s easy to work around inefficiencies without realizing it. Consultants offer a fresh perspective that often leads to breakthroughs. They can:
- Spot outdated processes that are slowing things down.
- Identify areas where automation could replace manual work.
- Reimagine how your existing tools could be used more strategically.
This is especially valuable for companies with long-standing EDI systems or custom configurations that haven’t been revisited in years.
Works With—Not Against—Your Team
A common concern: “Will this outside resource disrupt our workflow or override our team?”
The best partners understand that your internal team is the backbone of your integration environment. Their job is to:
- Support and empower—not sideline—your staff.
- Share knowledge and build internal capabilities through collaboration.
- Respect your business priorities, culture, and existing systems.
At Remedi, for example, we often work side-by-side with internal EDI analysts and IT managers to deliver projects and leave them better equipped for what comes next.
Maximizing ROI from Existing Solutions
Here’s the truth: You might already have the right tools; you just aren’t using them to their full potential.
Remedi helps companies get more from platforms like IBM® Sterling and IntelligentXchange by:
- Configuring tools to support new workflows.
- Simplifying error handling and reporting.
- Surfacing actionable data in ways your team can use.
It’s not always about buying more. It’s often about using what you have in smarter, more strategic ways.
When and Why to Partner
Bringing in outside EDI support isn’t a sign of failure. It’s a strategic decision to move faster, reduce risk, and get more from your existing investment. The truth is that most integration environments eventually reach a tipping point where internal resources alone aren’t enough to keep pace with evolving demands.
Here’s how to recognize when you’ve hit that point and why the right partner can help you move forward.
You’re Missing SLAs or Experiencing Downtime
Late documents, missed acknowledgments, and unplanned outages frustrate trading partners and cost you credibility and revenue. If service level agreements (SLAs) are slipping or system uptime is unpredictable, outside experts can stabilize operations quickly and help you build long-term resilience.
Trading Partner Onboarding Is Slow or Inconsistent
When onboarding a new partner feels like reinventing the wheel every time, it’s often due to outdated processes or overloaded staff. Consultants bring proven onboarding frameworks and reusable assets that cut turnaround time and ensure consistency across your partner network.
Automation Projects Are Stuck in Neutral
You’ve got the tools. You’ve got the goals. But automation projects keep getting pushed back due to competing priorities or limited in-house capacity. An experienced EDI partner can bring the extra horsepower needed to get stalled initiatives off the ground fast.
You’re Losing Institutional Knowledge
Relying on one or two EDI power users is risky. If they leave or retire, years of undocumented know-how can walk out the door. Outside consultants can document processes, support knowledge transfer, and reduce your team's single points of failure.
Your Tools Aren’t Delivering Expected Value
Many companies invest in powerful tools like IBM® Sterling B2B Integrator, IntelligentXchange, or MFT platforms but don’t tap into their full potential. External experts can help configure those tools for better visibility, reporting, error handling, and automation, often without requiring new software purchases.
You Need Skills You Don’t Have In-House
New protocols. Cloud migrations. API integrations. The tech landscape keeps shifting, and expecting your internal team to master it all isn’t realistic. External support brings those specialized skills to the table on demand—without long hiring or training cycles.
Is It Time to Bring in Outside Help?
Use this quick checklist to evaluate your current state:
- You’re missing SLAs or fielding more trading partner complaints
- Automation initiatives are delayed or deprioritized
- Your team is stretched thin or showing signs of burnout
- Key staff departures have left knowledge gaps
- You’ve invested in EDI tools but aren’t seeing full ROI
- You need to scale fast but can’t hire fast enough
If you checked any of these boxes, it may be time to explore staff augmentation or managed services not to replace your team, but to amplify it.
The Remedi Advantage
When choosing an external EDI partner, experience matters, but so does approach. At Remedi, we’ve been helping businesses optimize and manage their EDI environments since 1994. Our goal isn’t to just check boxes or complete projects; it’s to empower your team, enhance your systems, and make sure your EDI investment delivers long-term value.
Here’s what makes us different:
A Full Suite of Flexible Services
Whether you need short-term support or a long-term partner, we offer a range of services tailored to your specific goals:
- EDI & Integration Consulting: Our consultants deliver targeted expertise to support projects, troubleshoot complex issues, or modernize existing environments.
- Staff Augmentation: We provide skilled EDI professionals who work as an extension of your internal team, filling critical gaps without the overhead of hiring.
- Managed Services: With Remedi managing your day-to-day EDI operations, your team stays focused on strategic initiatives while we ensure performance, uptime, and accuracy.
- Training & Support: We offer hands-on training tailored to your systems and workflows so your internal team can take on more responsibility with confidence.
Proprietary Tools That Accelerate Success
Our in-house tools and frameworks help clients get more done faster:
- Remedi Framework for IBM® Sterling B2B Integrator: Includes pre-built business processes, dashboards, and templates that cut development time, improve visibility, and standardize operations.
- EDI Health Checks: We assess your current environment to uncover inefficiencies, validate configurations, and recommend optimizations that improve performance and reliability.
These proprietary tools are designed to jumpstart success—especially in complex or resource-constrained environments.
Industry-Spanning Expertise
From retail and logistics to manufacturing and healthcare, our consultants bring experience across many industries. We don’t just understand the technology; we understand your business context, partner requirements, and compliance landscape.
This allows us to:
- Offer faster time-to-value
- Anticipate and prevent common pitfalls
- Apply best practices specific to your industry and trading partner ecosystem
Real-World Results
Remedi doesn’t just promise value; we deliver it. When an intermodal logistics provider needed help modernizing its Cleo EDI environment, the company turned to Remedi for technical expertise and talent development.
The client had a capable internal team, but they were new to Cleo software and needed hands-on guidance. Remedi placed a seasoned EDI consultant with deep Cleo experience who managed development and support tasks and served as an embedded trainer. The consultant created documentation, demonstrated repeatable processes, and worked alongside the client's staff to upskill them in real time.
This staff augmentation approach allowed the company to:
- Improve EDI performance and transaction reliability
- Speed up partner onboarding
- Gain internal confidence and autonomy in managing Cleo
By combining execution with enablement, Remedi helped the client build lasting EDI capabilities while meeting project goals on time and within budget.
More than a Vendor, Remedi is a Trusted Partner
At the core of every engagement is our commitment to partnership. We build long-term relationships based on transparency, trust, and shared outcomes. That means:
- You always know what we’re doing and why
- We work side-by-side with your internal staff, not around them
- Your success is our success
Whether you need extra hands, deeper expertise, or a more scalable support model, Remedi is here to help you get more from your EDI systems—today and well into the future.
Final Thoughts: A Smarter Way to Scale EDI
Your internal team is capable. But when they’re stretched thin, key initiatives stall and ROI dips. Strategic partnerships with external EDI experts can help your team move faster, work smarter, and get more from the systems you already have in place.
Ready to see what your EDI investment is really capable of? Let’s discuss how Remedi’s consulting and managed services can support your goals. Visit Remedi.com to learn more.
