It’s the start of a new year and once again, I set goals for the year. These are different than “resolutions” as I fully intend on meeting them. Some of these goals are the same from year to year: get in better shape, spend more time with my family, work smarter (not necessarily harder), decrease expenses, increase revenue,  be the change I want to see in the world,  end world hunger, get a super power... and this year I added a new goal to the list. I will walk 1,000 miles in 2011. Instead of approaching this goal rationally, like I’m prone to do for any project, I wanted to apply the ideas in the book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, by Ori and Rom Brafum. If I behave irrationally naturally, as the authors point out, I may as well behave irrationally in a way that helps achieve my objectives.

When Scott gave us a heads-up about this month’s topic- projects involving the connection of EDI translators to ERP systems, I thought I’d have a lot to contribute. However, as I thought about it, I realized there are several variations of that type of project, and that would limit my input since I hadn’t experienced all of them. I can make some generalizations, though based on what we went through.

Let’s face it: the more money you want to spend, the more likely it is that a solid ROI will be needed by the business to provide funding. If you’re talking about spending a million dollars implementing EDI software and building an EDI team, trust me, you’ll need one. It’s more of a grey area when you’re planning to do the bare minimum to satisfy a customer EDI mandate or even to implement additional partners onto an existing platform.  I think there are a limited number of scenarios you should consider when looking at ROI requirements, including:

A serious condition is spreading like fireweed across corporate America. The symptoms include glazed-over eyes, droopy shoulders, cramped hands, aversion to natural lighting, and a permanent butt print in your office chair. This condition is called Corporate Zombie Syndrome.  It can strike when one spends far more time looking at a computer than not, or hasn’t talked to a real coworker—except through WebEx meetings—in months. But don’t worry, there is a simple cure that can alleviate these symptoms and get you out of your Corporate Zombie state. That cure is to Get Out There!

Business intelligence / analytics coupled with data aggregation are not new terms. They have depended directly on the business system (like SAP) hence indirectly on the EDI system. They go back before EDI: a lot of them were once called “Decision Support Systems”. I wanted to find one that did all this and was directly tied into an EDI system, but I didn't have one in mind. Then I “ran into” one in a “Webinar” sponsored by Loren Data.

Thinking of moving from your in-house proprietary EDI solution to  an outsourced Internet-based or even Web-based infrastructure? Your company has two strategic implementation options:

• Establish and maintain and in-house EDI solution

• Engage a hosted EDI service provider

Much has happened in 2010, but I don't need to tell you that, nor can I possibly give you a year end wrap-up that would cover event the most important parts. So I'll just say that 2010 has been a wonderful year, while it's also been a very trying year. Being the eternal optimist, I'll only point out those things that have been great for ec-bp. Feel free to add your own list of items to the comments below.

The old debate about XML replacing EDI as a format for transacting global business has all but faded from conversation. But that doesn't mean that the format itself is gone. The use of XML as a transfer medium between applications has become a default because of its flexibility and its ease of configuration. But the bigger question is, "Does the format of the data actually matter?"