Sentai Hosted EDI

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the dominant form of business-to-business electronic commerce technology.  It has been available for nearly two decades.  EDI automates and improves the efficiency of existing business processes, producing the following results: 

• improved quality and service
• decreased inventory and administrative cost
• shorter order cycle time including payment
• accelerated asset turnover

Despite a seemingly strong value proposition, EDI has penetrated less than 20% of all U.S. businesses.  The explanation for this low penetration is relatively straight-forward: the initial and continuing variable costs, combined with the demand for specialized technical expertise, have made EDI attractive only to the largest organizations with substantial volumes of inter-company business transactions.  Hence, Fortune 500 firms have driven the utilization of EDI, often forcing their trading partners to adopt the technology.

Companies that utilize EDI enjoy the benefits outlined above but they are faced with several challenges that significantly impact an EDI cost benefit analysis.  These include but are not limited to the following:          

• Constant Change - Effective EDI programs never reach a classic maintenance mode. There are always new partners and/or document types to add and standards versions to upgrade. Often this demand comes from customers and there is no choice but to respond quickly or risk a loss of business.

• Lack of Control - Inter-company applications demand synchronization of effort between companies. This fact increases the complexity of change and the amount of time that is spent implementing trading partner relationships. This environment creates dramatic peaks and valleys relative to personnel - i.e. too much to do or little to nothing to do. 

• People Intensive - Most of the activity in an EDI project, such as changing standards, adding documents, mapping, adding trading partners, interfacing to legacy systems, answering inquiries both internally and externally, is people related. Large volumes of transactions are usually required to justify the personnel resources needed to ensure "user" satisfaction.

• Critical Shortage of Personnel - The IT industry currently has thousands of specialty jobs vacant. Specialized talent like EDI and XML is in even greater demand since so many large companies are aggressively pursuing EDI / E-Commerce implementations.

EDI-enabled companies face a major investment to simply maintain EDI connections to trading partners and to sustain existing revenue streams and/or supply chains.  As a result, the value-added component for EDI is shifting towards the services required to maintain a company and its trading partners.

The combination of these factors - the initial expense and expertise required to become EDI or Internet Commerce enabled and the value of supporting both EDI and Internet forms of electronic commerce - define a unique set of circumstances which create an environment favorable for electronic commerce outsourcing initiatives. 

Thus, many companies need to assess their EDI initiatives and to explore alternatives to their in-house infrastructures.  

Sentai Digital Movers Host EDI is an outsourcing service that will enable your company to obtain all of the benefits of a complete EDI program without owning the associated technical requirements.  Simply put, Host EDI provides you with an EDI infrastructure (communication, translation, mapping, routing, mailboxing, auditing, and archiving) without dedicated personnel, software, or training. 

Host EDI communicates with your company and Tier 1 Value Added Network (VAN) mailbox(es), direct connections, AS2, etc. to receive, translate, and map EDI data into a series of fixed format files (user defined or Sentai Digital Movers flat files).  These files are communicated directly between your company and Host EDI via a secure FTP Internet Gateway. This data is then used to update your company's Sentai ERP application files with no impact on internal applications. 

Outbound EDI documents (such as invoices) start out as information on your company's Sentai ERP application.  This information is converted into flat files (definitions provided by Sentai Digital Movers) and passed to Host EDI during a communication session.  Host EDI translates and maps this data into a specific trading partner's EDI format and routes the documents through the preferred method of communication (VAN, direct, Internet, etc.) to the appropriate trading partner.

Once bridge programs are in place between the Sentai ERP application and the flat files, EDI trading partners can be added without altering either the bridge programs or the Sentai applications. 

Benefits to you

• Significant Cost Savings - The Host EDI Outsourcing Service is considerably less expensive than an in-house EDI program.
  
  
• Improved Implementation Time - To support our Host EDI clients, Sentai Digital Movers has completed mappings for many EDI active companies. Therefore, the time required for us to add a new trading partner or document is significantly less than an in-house EDI system. Additionally, as a result of the many responsibilities of an IT department, many companies often see specialized services such as EDI and the addition of new trading partners pushed to the bottom of a priority list. The Host EDI Service removes this concern from your IT department's to do list.
  
  
• Access to Order, Invoice, and Shipment Information - Our proprietary portal, Insight, allows Host EDI customers to check the status of all of your transactions 24/7 in real-time using only a standard web browser.
  
  
• Continuity of Service - By off-loading the burden of a non-revenue generating task, our clients can concentrate on running their business instead of running an EDI department. Also, the Host EDI Service never gets sick, takes a day off, or quits. Currently, many companies depend upon a small number of specialized personnel to run and maintain electronic communications with their customers. Host EDI helps reduce the risk associated with this reliance on key personnel.
  
  
• Additional Layer of Security and Archiving - Sentai Digital Movers maintains a sophisticated back-up and retrieval system should you ever desire to have your EDI data restored.
  
  
• Flexibility - The Host EDI Service is extremely flexible and portable. Because our service integrates with fixed format flat files, our clients can move to a new application software package while keeping their investment in EDI intact.
  
  
• Elimination of Manual/Paper-based Processes - The reduction of manually processed documents will lead to significant cost savings and efficiencies. There have been many studies performed that calculate the benefits to removing manual/paper processes from an organization.