For those of us who have been in the EDI and SAP ecosystem for many years, it is interesting to ponder how it has changed. EDI vendors used to see supporting SAP and SAP IDocs as a sign of maturity, and SAP welcomed all EDI vendors into the SAP ecosystem. Today, however, most of the legacy EDI vendors are competing directly against SAP which changes the dynamics of these relationships.
Take a moment to review the following list of application categories that legacy EDI vendors are now offering:
- Supply Chain Management
- Transportation Management/Logistics Management
- Global Trade
- Order Management
- Product and Price Management
- Catalog Management
- Supplier Web Portals
- Inventory Management
- Finance
- Master Data Management
- Enterprise Application Integration solutions
With these product offerings, traditional EDI vendors have chosen to compete against SAP in nearly every category. It is not hard to understand why SAP has recently chosen to offer its own managed EDI service called the SAP Information Interchange. SAP would rather displace the traditional EDI vendors from their customer base as they are considered direct competitors nowadays that have limited interest in supporting SAP's strategies, architectures, and future product roadmaps.
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Author: Kevin Benedict
Principal Consultant/Founder
SAP EDI Consultant, Mobile Industry Analyst and Web 2.0 Marketing Consultant
Netcentric Strategies LLC
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
***Full Disclosure: I am an independent consultant that has worked with and for many of the companies mentioned.
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