Is your company managing SAP EDI integration effectively? As you scale your business and expand your list of trading partners, you’ll need to communicate through electronic document exchange (EDI). According to Digital Commerce 360’s 2022 B2B Ecommerce Marketing report, that’s the case for 76.5% of online B2B sales. Working with national retailers and big box stores can be an enormous boon for your business, but the required EDI compliance can be costly and complicated to implement.
Regardless of the size of your business, you need to be confident in your SAP EDI integration solution to remain competitive in today’s fast-moving, digital climate. Successfully implementing an EDI solution means faster, more accurate communication with your trading partners, vendors, suppliers, and distributors.
The right SAP EDI integration tool can open up new revenue opportunities, improve your business operations, and lay a foundation for future growth.
Automatic Data Exchange Lowers Expenses and IT Needs
To optimize sales and distribution processes like ordering, inventory, shipping, and invoicing, you rely on accurate, two-way, electronic data exchange between your internal business software and your trading partners’ systems.
Automated EDI integration eliminates inefficient manual data entry. Of course, you can create a custom integration, but you’ll need a team of in-house IT experts who can manage software installation, configure documents, handle varying data formats, and keep up with ongoing EDI updates.
In contrast, investing in tightly integrated, cloud-based EDI integration can simplify your IT environment. After initial setup, the platform works behind the scenes, managing the technology without the hassle or extra costs related to software, equipment, or IT manpower.
Flexible Solutions Offer Unlimited Potential for Growth Without Cost Overruns
Some EDI solutions penalize you with high transaction overage charges when you exceed the contracted allotment due to increased sales.
However, an effective EDI solution will grow with your business and actually reduce per-transaction costs as you expand your product line or increase your sales. That means you can easily scale while keeping your transaction costs down.
When looking for the right solution, look for an EDI integration built just for SAP that can handle any volume, with a sliding scale transaction model that increases or decreases based on sales. Then, even if you don’t work with a particular trading partner for a month, you won’t be on the hook for extra charges.
A Fully-Integrated System Improves Trading Partner and Customer Service Relationships
With a flexible, turnkey EDI integration solution, cloud data integration (CDI) mapping is done for you, ensuring complete coordination between systems. When an integration solution offers a variety of trading partner connectors, they can configure your documents according to the needs of your trading partners and your enterprise resource software. By eliminating manual data entry, you’ll ensure clean data is transferred efficiently and integrated effectively between the two systems.
The system will ensure the necessary data is automatically extracted according to your trading partners’ required standards, whether they use EDIFACT, ANSI X12, or other EDI formats. As a result, you’ll ensure efficiency and accuracy through the entire order process, for both your suppliers and your customers.
With critical information transferred precisely between systems, you’ll improve your company’s decision-making ability and provide excellent customer service with greater inventory and shipping accuracy.
Greater Efficiency Increases Your Bottom Line
By automating your processes, you can reduce duplication and allocate staff to manage different priorities. You’ll improve order-processing speed and eliminate costly errors.
Amazon, for example, issues chargeback fees between 2-6 percent, depending on your level of compliance over the previous six-week period. Lack of EDI integration could result in problems like shipping label errors, ship method mismatches, and inaccurate inventory, resulting in monthly fees that could add up to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for large companies.
With a tightly integrated EDI/ERP solution, instead of manually entering data into multiple systems with a high probability of inaccuracy, you’ll keep more of your hard-earned money and employees can focus on tasks that move your business forward.
Alluvia is an Experienced SAP Integration Provider with a Proven Track Record
Alluvia provides end-to-end integration and EDI services exclusively for SAP Business One, ByDesign, and S/4HANA, so you’ll gain expert knowledge backed by our revolutionary integration platform. Our scalable solution lays the foundation for growth, providing your business value today and ensuring you’re ready for the future.