tive in today's economy, businesses are being forced to re-evaluate the way they do business with their customers and their vendors. The focus of these relationships has moved towards greater speed through shorter transaction cycles.With the dramatic increases in performance of computer technology, the impact of some of the drawbacks that led to limited execution of EDI have being reduced. What used to require mainframe power can now be handled on computers that fit conveniently on or under the desk, and can operate in the office, warehouse, production floor or use by a route man.There is a revolution going on in the software industry. The elapsed time from conception to deployment of new software is being dramatically reduced. Software developers can now produce packages that can run on a variety of hardware platforms, allowing them concentrate on delivering greater functionality and flexibility to their software packages, rather than spending valuable development time and dollars on customization.“This revolution in hardware speed, power and flexibility, combined with an increasingly selection of high-quality software products allows business to get a higher return for each dollar they invest in computer technology. It has allowed business to solidify the information needs of their own processes.”7With improvements in their own processes, progress can come to a halt if the supply and distribution chain is not on the same page. So as the processes have been put under control, it has also forced management to focus on opportunities in their customer and supplier relationships - the area EDI ignored.The revolution in computer technology has led to another revolution… “The replacement of dictatorial or adversarial relationships between customers and suppliers with information partnerships. In fact, for some time in the vocabulary of EDI, two businesses engaged in electronic trading of information have been referred...
