Got EDI working? Now everyone gets fired?

Of course not! Yes EDI and all variations of it, when integrated to your systems and running automatically, will be cheaper than people. But you won't be getting rid of them. What a waste that would be! Your company IS the people within it. They are the key to your success in the past, your success right now and your success into the future.

Being a somewhat older person I am old enough to remember when companies ran their businesses without any computers at all. Everything was written down and a good head for figures, or nimble fingers for the comptometer, or add listing machine, were important desiderata.

Along came the first computers. Knees trembled. Fears mounted. What will we all do? We are to be replaced by a machine!

Our fears were unfounded. All that happened was that businesses grew without adding more folk to look after all the extra administration work. In other words we got more productive and were able to concentrate our time on work best suited for human beings than for machines like computers.

EDI, and all the other methods of integrated, automatic, electronic trading, led to the same number of people being able to handle more work. EDI takes care of the input and output of information. The people simply use the information (information that just so happens now to be more accurate and more quickly obtained than in the old days of manually copy typing everything) and so the business grows again...

Imagine a supermarket chain without electronic trading to link to its suppliers! The sheer volume of copy typing to raise orders couldn't be managed even with aircraft hangars full of people clacking away at keyboards. The shelves would have a few hundred product choices to try and satisfy hungry patrons ("consumer" is such a dismal name that implies squandering and questions like "Who ate all the pies? So let's call ourselves "patrons"). Today there are thousands of product choices in hundreds of supermarket branches, all over the country and it's all thanks to EDI.