How EDI makes things easier
EDI is taking the world by storm and makes things much easier for some companies. However, you should know that there are a few barriers to the implementation of EDI. For instance, one of the most important barriers is the accompanying business process exchange. The existing business processes which are built around slow paper handling may not necessarily be suited for EDI, and many changes would be required to accommodate the automated processing of business documents. For example, a business might receive the majority of their goods by 1 or 2 day shipping, and all their invoices by mail. There would therefore be an assumption that all the goods are typically received before the arrival of the invoice. With EDI, the invoice would usually be sent when the goods are shipped, and therefore a process will be required that handles a large number of invoices whose corresponding goods have not yet been received.