WebEDI: a simple and inexpensive solution that makes EDI accessible even to your smallest suppliers

Smaller suppliers who supply goods to supermarkets or e-shops, for example, usually do not have an advanced enterprise system ready for full EDI integration. When you, as a customer, require them to be involved in EDI communication, you probably encounter justified resistance. The so-called webEDI is ideal for such cases - a simple web application that can be put into operation quickly, is affordable and requires almost no investment.

We encounter it every day. A local farmer who delivers fresh tomatoes to Rohlík. A small manufacturer of organic cosmetics supplying Pilulka pharmacies. As a seller, the more you pay attention to the sustainability and locality of the products you offer, the more often you work with small suppliers for whom full EDI integration is unnecessarily robust and expensive.

The arguments of these suppliers are usually similar. They are worried that EDI will add extra work to them, that it will be unnecessarily expensive and complicated for them, or that it will not be worth it to them because you are the only trading partner that requires EDI from them.

In these cases, it is ideal if your EDI provider does not push suppliers into full EDI integration, but offers them a lighter web option - webEDI. Its biggest advantages are:

• simple and quick putting into operation,
• very low initial and operating costs,
• a clear web interface, the supplier does not have to buy or install any software, all that is needed is an Internet connection,
• support for multiple language mutations also for foreign suppliers,
• an overview of all documents between business partners,
• automation of receiving and sending documents,
• elimination of errors when working with documents manually,
• possibility to export data
• and digital archiving of documents in accordance with the law.

At the same time, webEDI serves as an ideal platform for smaller suppliers to try out the EDI environment and all its advantages in practice. If their number of documents increases in the future, or more customers require EDI from them, they can eventually switch to full EDI integration and, for example, to our ORiON EDI. At that time, they will be much better prepared for this transition and it will pay off financially.

„With webEDI, the acquisition costs were in no way excessive, we were able to fulfill the request of our important customer practically immediately and at the same time speed up and make the work with documents more precise,“ describes his experience Martin Zavadil, Director of Fitness Store.

We will be happy to help with the involvement of suppliers

After more than 30 years in the market, we know that implementing EDI is just the beginning of the process for every customer. Only the number of suppliers involved, or the percentage of documents that flow through EDI, affects whether the electronic exchange of documents really pays off.

That is why we help clients involve suppliers. Even before deploying our ORiON EDI solution, we will analyze your suppliers – for example, we will find out which of them already have EDI, we will determine the priority suppliers that we want to involve as a matter of priority, and we will prepare a communication campaign.

Subsequently, we approach individual suppliers, explain the benefits of EDI to them and gradually involve them. In this approach, we take into account, among other things, the size of the supplier. For those for whom EDI integration with the company system is not worthwhile, we offer more affordable webEDI.

After this initial phase, we continue to cooperate with you and involve newly arrived suppliers in EDI as well. This is exactly how we proceeded, for example, when cooperating with the online pharmacy Pilulka, where we gradually managed to involve 90% of all suppliers, and we are still involving newcomers to this day.

Whether you as a customer want to implement EDI or just need help with supplier involvement, let us know. Alternatively, if, on the contrary, you are in the role of a supplier from whom EDI is required by a customer, get in touch as well. We will discuss your situation and find ways to help you effectively. All you have to do is fill out a short contact form.

‍