Introduction to EDI - A Primer
7. OBJECTIVES AND EXPECTATIONS
The previous section described many of the areas that a business must consider carefully to help insure a successful EDI implementation. A few final comments are in order regarding what a business may expect from EDI.
EDI certainly requires a large number of choices. What are the business objectives? What tools should be used? How large is the scope? Hopefully, the one choice that will be easy to make will be the choice to take the first step with EDI. This Primer is one of the tools that can help to make some of the remaining choices more comprehensible.
It is important to restate that EDI is only an enabling tool. If that tool is implemented without carefully defining objectives, it will not live up to expectations. As illustrated in previous sections, if that tool is applied to the wrong process, it can complicate a business and frustrate its users.
With correctly defined objectives, and a carefully considered implementation plan it is, however, a tool of great power. That power can add speed and improve accuracy in any business. However, it can go far beyond that in opening new sources of information to a business as EDI is extended from core business functions into the external processes that comprise the sphere of electronic commerce.