Back in the day, it used to be enough for the EDI team to function as sort of a utility, like the power company or the water department. The only time anyone heard EDI mentioned was if something ‘blew up’ in its processes or if a crucial piece of data didn’t make it from point A to point B. That world may still exist in some companies, but as more and more business is handled electronically in real-time, and as EDI becomes the backbone for making that happen, it has become increasingly important to get a better handle on how the process is performing.

Let’s face it: the more money you want to spend, the more likely it is that a solid ROI will be needed by the business to provide funding. If you’re talking about spending a million dollars implementing EDI software and building an EDI team, trust me, you’ll need one. It’s more of a grey area when you’re planning to do the bare minimum to satisfy a customer EDI mandate or even to implement additional partners onto an existing platform.  I think there are a limited number of scenarios you should consider when looking at ROI requirements, including:

Over the last twenty years, gains in technology have allowed many doors to open that were previously impenetrable such as instant worldwide communication, data transfer, and begun the road to a true worldwide marketplace. This explosion has not left the EDI department alone but has instead flung that proverbial door wide open so many different functional areas within an organization are intimately tied to the global EDI process.