To Sell to Sears, EDI is a Must

The message to information systems personnel was clear: To survive, companies must adopt and expand the use of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

"Getting on the EDI express doesn't guarantee success," Robert Ferkenhoff, vice president for information systems at the Sears Merchandise Group, Chicago, told a group of IS officials during the recent National EDI Systems Conference in Washington. "But staying off, I think, will ensure failure."

EDI is described by the EDI, Spread the Word consulting firm in Dallas as "intercompany computer-to-computer transmission of business in a standard format." The consultants maintain that "EDI improves response time and efficiency, and lower costs."

Farkenhoff compares the implementation of EDI to the construction of the federal highway system--its application is inevitable, so be ready for it.

As those highways were being planned, some cities prepared for them by taking advantage of their benefits, Ferkenhoff said. "Some towns began immediately to plan the connections and ramps that make linkage possible," he said. "Others resisted and protected their Route 66 locations and hoped against hope that the world wouldn't change.

"Yet, the reality is that construction has begun, the future is on its way and the world will never be the same," Ferkenhoff said. "The cities and towns with foresight prosper, and those who resist dry up and fade from the scene."

How quickly American firms are adopting EDI was illustrated by Customs Commissioner Carol Hallett, who said that 6,000 U.S. companies now utilize EDI.

By late 1993, she expects the number of EDI-committed companies in the U.S. to reach 30,000, which is projected to create a $2 billion industry in EDI-related products.

EDI is not an industry, argued Jerome Dreyer, president of the Electronic Data Interchange Association, Alexandria, Va. "It's a technique, a technology," he said.