The world of SAP EDI and B2B support is changing quickly these days. Here's a look at the traditional approach, and how SAP careers are changing fast.

If you're a SAP customer, there's a traditional approach to implementing EDI. It looks a lot like this:

1. Buy a third party EDI system
2. Buy and install servers, including development servers, testing, and production servers
3. Hire experts in SAP jobs
4. Train appropriate EDI staff to use the EDI system correctly
5. Contract software developers to integrate the EDI system with SAP processes for your business
6. Identify suppliers and customers with the highest priority levels for on-boarding
7. Get in touch with all trading partners to find out and get documentation on which B2B and EDI files they're capable of and willing to support.
8. Go over the on-boarding project and determine its scope.
9. Design and develop integration scripts working with both SAP and your EDI system, then deploy these scripts
10. Map all business processes from the EDI system to the many different data format and communication protocols required by the trading partners in question. This can involve hundreds of different combinations
11. Set up the IT and EDI helpdesk to provide customer service
12. Kick off the on-boarding project. This could take multiple years to complete

These twelve steps represent the usual scenario for implementing EDI. Of course, usually, just as soon as one department starts implementing B2B or EDI data exchanges, every other department is also interested in doing so. This only increases the workload. Areas where EDI is appropriate or required include the supply chain, procurement, transportation management (including in and outbound logistics), warehouse and inventory management, manufacturing execution, production planning, HR benefits, sales order management, global trade services, the treasury, the financial supply chain and many others.

Every department will have its own trading partners and deliverables that are high priority and reliant on the EDI department. Each department will want their partners to be prioritized above those of others. Plus many departments want support for different standards. The traditional approach to this increase in requirements for people in SAP careers is to throw more people and resources at it. However, just increasing the number of SAP jobs isn't going to help.

SAP is now changing the traditional approach, and can help solve many of these challenges for the whole customer base. They've studied the places where efficiency and cost cutting can be improved, and have become a co-owner of an exchange that uses SAP technology to provide EDI and B2B. This exchange operates on SAP NetWeater, using NetWeaver PI to simplify the process for everyone. This means there are now lots of projects underway to improve business networks and cut down the difficulty of implementation.

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