Back in the old days, you placed orders with your supplier by phone, fax, mail, and by walking into their store. They entered your order into their system, picked and delivered your products, and mailed you an invoice. Your AP clerk took the invoice, did the 3 way match, put it in the stack to be paid, and you mailed a check at the end of the month. Have times changed or what?

Seems EDI has been around forever and a day, even longer than me!  But cXML, xCBL, XML and PIDX to name a few, were absentee acronyms a dozen or so years ago!

You always walk a fine line with one-offs. Do you accept the challenge, do the work, and watch the organization reap the rewards? Or do you push back and reserve your resources for addressing only opportunities with a broad impact? And what do you base your decision on, anyway?

Your boss is asking you to do more with what you have. A big company project is kicking off that you need to support, but your ‘normal’ work isn’t going away. Or maybe there’s been a decision made to assign EDI team members to other IT work. Those are all valid reasons to consider outsourcing some or all of your EDI responsibilities. Are you ready to pull the trigger?