TrueCommerce vs. EDICOM

TrueCommerce excels in delivering ERP-embedded, fully managed, and automated EDI solutions that empower business users and reduce IT overhead, with predictable pricing and faster onboarding. This makes TrueCommerce the preferred choice for SMBs prioritising operational simplicity, ERP-native automation, and managed services, over other providers offering developer-centric integration platforms suitable for complex, multi-system environments but at the cost of higher complexity, IT dependency, and operational burden.

Because EDI is a complex technical tool we understand that many organisations struggle to know what to look for when profiling a potential EDI partner. To help out, we’ve put together an essential list of criteria that businesses need to consider before choosing an EDI provider.

Although moving to a new EDI provider might sound daunting, if your current EDI provider is underperforming, then failing to explore alternative providers could be just as damaging. An EDI system that is well designed, secure and reliable, built on sound infrastructure, with a knowledgeable, proactive support team, can deliver substantial cost savings, business benefits and opportunities for organisations at every stage of development and maturity.

The challenge for many businesses is identifying the EDI provider with the blend of technical, commercial and project management expertise that can deliver the EDI platform that can bring those opportunities to fruition.

Take a look at this checklist below. If your current EDI provider is not delivering on any one of these performance areas, then it is time to look for a new EDI provider.

Checklist: Reasons to Change Your EDI Provider
Missed growth targets due to the inability to scale properly.
Loss of customers because of an inability to handle their required capabilities.
Inability to meet ERP or trading partner project deadlines, resulting in delayed payments.
Slow and complex supply chain systems causing monetary losses and wasted efforts on fixes.
Using multiple EDI providers leading to increased costs.
Increased costs from trading partners, such as chargebacks.
Inability to accommodate current or future trading partners, leading to loss of potential revenue.
Manual and resource-intensive processes making the supply chain inefficient and error-prone.
Lack of visibility across the supply chain.
Dependence on multiple disparate systems, increasing overall costs.
Dependency on employee legacy knowledge risking data integrity and potential data loss.
Competitive disadvantage due to current EDI solutions, negatively impacting brand reputation.
Inability to move quickly, affecting mergers and acquisitions or scalability efforts.
By addressing these points, businesses can evaluate whether their current EDI provider meets their needs or if a change is necessary to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and support growth.

As businesses expand and data exchange needs grow, EDI Managed Services provide the scalability and insights necessary for a secure and successful EDI system. Here are 10 notable benefits:

• EDI managed service reduces costs. When you outsource EDI management, the need for interviewing, onboarding, and paying salaries for additional internal staff is eliminated. Companies using cloud technology can also avoid investing in physical hardware.
• Improved internal bandwidth. Managing EDI systems is no longer the responsibility of internal teams. This means talent can focus on business critical tasks and innovation, rather than on the day –to- day running and upkeep of EDI.
• Expert collaboration. With an EDI managed service businesses gain access to a team of EDI experts. This team stay updated on the latest best practices and possess extensive historical knowledge.
• Less System Downtime. Managed service providers offer 24/7 monitoring to ensure EDI systems run smoothly. This means problems and issues are identified, diagnosed, and resolved quickly which reduces downtime.
• Quicker error resolution. Continuous monitoring by experts ensures errors and SLA issues are promptly addressed, avoiding missed SLA fees.
• Faster Onboarding. Providers use pre-built templates to expedite the onboarding of new partners, enhancing efficiency.
• Improved Order Accuracy. Enhanced monitoring, proper installation, and accurate mapping lead to timely and accurate order fulfillment with fewer errors.
• Increased Customer Satisfaction. Minimal downtime results in improved customer satisfaction. Using a EDI managed service provider can lead to an increase in positive company reviews and business opportunities.
• Enhanced Security. Managed service providers implement advanced security measures to protect sensitive data, ensuring compliance with industry standards.
• Scalability. EDI Managed Services easily scale to accommodate business growth and evolving data exchange needs, allowing companies to adapt quickly without major infrastructure changes.

EDI delivers benefits to businesses that are in line with how advanced the EDI system is. Web EDI Often, businesses will begin using EDI to meet their customers’ immediate requirements. This usually involves logging into individual customer portals, which can be time-consuming and difficult to manage as your business grows. Fully managed EDI When businesses use fully managed EDI they experience a vast number of commercial benefits. By outsourcing EDI to a fully managed provider, companies can focus on their core competences and leave EDI to the experts. They are free from the burden of keeping ahead of new innovations and the need to stay on top of increasing trading partner complexities. Fully managed EDI providers allow organizations to experience all the benefits of EDI without having to invest time and headcount into the day-to-day upkeep of the system. TrueCommerce provides fully-managed EDI with ERP integration and access to a large pre-connected trading partner network, enabling businesses to scale without adding internal resources or complexity.

The problem with on-premise EDI solutions is that they can be notoriously difficult, expensive and time-consuming for in-house IT staff to manage. There are considerable complexities involved due to the vast array of standards used for exchanging data (such as Tradacoms, EDIFACT, EANCOM and XML). Multiple connectivity protocols such as AS2, FTP and SFTP, as well as ëlegacy’ protocols such as X25 and X400 create further complexities that need to be managed.
These complexities are intensified when trading partners make changes to their requirements, for example many retailers have moved from an EDI VAN to AS2 as their preferred connectivity preference and it is very common for trading partners to request new document types such as ASN’s. Even minor tweaks to documents, such as adding a new mandatory field, present challenges on an ongoing basis that makes maintaining EDI connections a time consuming process which can distract internal IT resource from more strategic tasks.
The same is true for the on-boarding of suppliers, which needs to be managed, both in terms of supplier adoption and supplier enablement. Poor supplier onboarding is the single biggest reason for the failure of electronic trading and EDI initiatives.