largest benefit is efficiency. By utilizing EDI businesses are able to streamline their whole supply chain process. Whether it is upstream to suppliers or downstream to customers, EDI eliminates repetitive tasks such as entering data multiple times and cuts costs of printing hard copies and transportation costs. EDI also allows you to send and receive large amounts of data quickly to or from anywhere in the world. Anywhere that there is access to the Internet there is access to EDI. For example a supplier could be located in Taiwan while the customer is sitting in Memphis, TN and in no more than a few seconds thousands of product order forms could be sent between the two without any errors or lost data. Companies in partnership agreements can gain access to one another's shared databases to retrieve and store regular transactions. These partnerships tend to last for a long time as well because of the commitment of a long term investment and refinement of the system over a period of time. EDI creates a complete paperless Transaction Processing System environment, which saves money and increases efficiency. Collecting bills and making payments can be shortened by several weeks because the data doesn't have to be reentered several time (Turban, 245).There are other benefits to using EDI - security and validation. Using EDI is secure as long as it is not conducted over the Internet. The information is transmitted over a VAN and on to your partner, but never enters the realm of the World Wide Web. There are only three points of contact versus the millions of interconnections and links over the Internet. The use of EDI also provides a means of validation through time code embedded in the string of electronic codes that are attached to each file. It is time coded at every step in the transmission process. Imagine no longer having to rely on postmarks or call a package delivery service, or check to make sure a fax went through (C...
