An EDI consultant is an expert who will be helping your business to maximize the utilization and value of EDI or commonly known as Electronic Data Interchange. Most of the companies hire an expert or an EDI consultant when they are implementing EDI for the first time temporarily. However, some companies tend to retain these consultants for managing their systems of EDI on a long-term basis.
Although the companies seek out for new consulting firms or clients, some service providers serve as the best EDI consultants for the business. There are also onsite EDI consultants who regularly visit the site to make sure if everything is running smoothly or not. These consultants would have worked with numerous businesses across the globe and in every industry for decades to know the entire structure of the business outflow.
Considering your requirements
Before getting in touch with any EDI consultants, you and your business need to figure out what are the basic requirements that you would like to achieve and whether hiring an EDI consultant would be helpful to your business or not.
What’s essential for your business to accomplish?
Do you want to implement EDI for the very first time or do you wish to upgrade the EDI system that you currently use it? Is it necessary for you and your business to meet the compliance requirements of the new trading partner to implement EDI? These are some questions that will help you in determining whether you require an EDI consultant for your business or not?
If you want to implement EDI for the first time, then consulting with an EDI consultant will help you in managing everything and not just one specific thing.
If you have a team that understands the EDI workflow, then you need not have to worry about anything else. These EDI Consultants will help in enhancing their learning process and knowledge base to a significant extent. Another typical scene where your business would require an EDI consultant is when you would require advice while investing money in acquiring other companies.
Businesses also look forward to hiring EDI consultants when they are facing issues with their EDI network, and their IT team cannot resolve their problems. In such situations, they take expert advice on several cases to make the businesses better.
Implementing EDI in your team
There are two ways you can implement EDI systems in your business. One is in-house EDI system implementations, and the second is outsourcing the EDI systems. Creating an in-house system needs numerous tasks for which most of the activities hire the EDI consultants. These consultants are hired to perform the below tasks for the company:
- Installation and configuration of EDI software as well as hardware
- Onboarding trading partners and testifying the EDI transactions
- DO translations related to EDI and map the trading partner risks and compliances
- Train all the in-house employees for ongoing maintenance of EDI systems
An in-house system of EDI costs a significantly huge amount of money when compared to outsourcing, but the cost is much more worth to the companies who prefer to implement the systems within the organization itself. Otherwise, when they look forward to outsourcing the EDI systems, it is much more cost-efficient.
Outsourcing EDI permits you in bypassing the whole implementation process as it requires just an email address to begin the process of implementation. Your third-party vendor will handle take care of the rest of the processes that are involved in implementing the EDI services in your company. There is not much of a huge investment when you outsource your EDI services. Similarly, these third-party vendors, such as data integration specialists, know what has to be done and take the entire risk and responsibilities in implementing the EDI systems in your company.
In addition to this, when you are outsourcing the EDI services to a service provider, they will ensure that the best team of consultants look into your jobs through phone calls or emails when you are having any concerns or issues.
Providing EDI Support and meeting compliance demands
If you are deciding to take up the in-house initiative when it comes to offering EDI services, you will still require ongoing support for keeping and maintaining your EDI systems effectively and efficiently. You will have the responsibility to meet all the latest demands from the compliance department and mitigate all sorts of risks that are involved. Plus, you will have to hire someone who looks into the EDI compliance rules and regulations when you are trying, you add new partners to your trading process.
In such scenarios, hiring EDI consultants and professionals will help your organization in meeting all the compliance requirements and ensure that the transition of the new partners is smooth. Therefore, it is necessary to get in touch with an EDI professional when you are coming up with your business strategies.
