Lightwell Blog EDI + APIs: 3 Ways to Create Greater Value Together

My colleague, Jim Cantin, recently wrote an excellent article on “Why APIs and EDI Are More Complementary Than Competitive.” This is an interesting topic and we get many inquiries from clients who want to explore how they can integrate these two platforms and improve the synergy from both a business and IT perspective.   I would like to take this discussion to the next level and offer concrete steps that outline how you can look for opportunities in this space. Let’s start with a simple view of where to look for synergies.   I’ll focus on three areas: Where can you supplement your EDI with APIs and give your trading partners access to a suite of transactions and capabilities? Where can you improve your EDI success rates by utilizing APIs to add supplemental data to inbound or outbound transactions? Where can you combine support processes to both save money and improve the trading partner experience? Now let’s look at how you can answer these questions to enhance your capabilities.