What are Managed EDI Services and why do businesses need it?

Using EDI, companies exchange documents between business partners, using a standardized format.

As an EDI program is implemented and managed properly, the benefits can be transformational to the enterprise. Removing human involvement in mundane business transaction flows will increase transaction processing velocity and help eliminate errors - saving both time and money. Improving your organizations responsiveness while reducing errors fosters better relationships with business partners. At the same time, increasing your company’s business efficiency and reduced costs will increase profitability.

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Well, just like anything that sounds too good to be true, there are several factors that come into play when looking at what it takes to keep EDI running smoothly, such as:

• People that understand EDI in your business
• People that understand EDI best practices
• People that understand how to effectively communicate with your EDI trading partners
• People that know how to manage trading partner compliance
• People that have time to react to EDI alerts and the knowledge to be able to address them managed services

That’s a lot of EDI stuff that needs to be covered, and since EDI is not usually a core competency of most businesses that utilize EDI, and most tend not to hire dedicated staff to handle this work, this stuff can become EDI headaches. This is where Managed EDI Services comes in.

Managed EDI Services

Managed EDI Services is the management of your EDI operations by an experienced third-party provider. They simplify EDI for you by providing EDI specialist teams that understand your specific business processes and manage the day-to-day so that you can focus on running your business.

The day-to-day operational tasks that are handled by Managed EDI Services teams are:

• Proactive monitoring of your environment
• Responding to and resolving of all EDI alerts and addressing their root causes
• Communicating with your trading partners on EDI related topics
• Communicating effectively with your business stakeholders
• Applying EDI best practices
• Managing compliance to partner specifications

The Managed EDI Services (MES) team’s primary role is to ensure that your EDI runs smoothly. Since they understand your key business processes and are automatically alerted to all events that might impede your business flow, they can proactively act to resolve any situations that arise. They also address the root cause to avoid repeated issues in the future.

Communication with every stakeholder in your supply chain is key to the running of a smooth EDI operation, the MES teams actively work with both your internal business stakeholders and your trading partners to understand and report back so that does happen. They are also able to bring the company-wide experience to your environment by looking for opportunities to implement best practice and strengthen overall operations. The MES team is an integral part of your team..

At the business level, the major benefits of employing Managed EDI Services are:

• Reduced overheads
• Reduced penalties
• Continuous coverage
• Time to focus

Having a team of specialists working for you provides continuous coverage for your EDI functions. No scrambling to find coverage when your internal staff take vacation or are out sick, no more worrying about someone with all the EDI knowledge leaving.

Managed EDI Services boils down to a service offering that makes EDI simple for you by providing you with the piece of mind that your EDI activities are being handled and that you and your staff can stay focused on running your core business.

Please chat with one of our experts here online or call us @888-339-0722 to discuss your EDI specific requirements.