The implications of these findings are pointed. Without a firm understanding of the full spectrum of EDI deployment and management costs, many companies are missing critical information in their decision-making processes. In so doing, they are putting their B2B e-commerce initiatives at risk of failure.

“Most people who are confronted with deploying EDI quickly, do so because they are responding to an ultimatum from a large trading partner to do business electronically. At that point, the implementer has a pretty short list of costs:

• the price of the translation and mapping software;
• the value-added network cost of sending information between trading partners; and
• the set up time associated with both.” – Tony Baran, President of Extol