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Legacy standards as future innovation - GS1 standards in the digital era

· One min read
Ross Thompson
Managing Director

The modern era has moved on from traditional EDI. Digital transformation projects have become strategic corporate initiatives, in fact customer demands for digital interaction has made them corporate imperatives.

The pressures brought to bear on I.T. departments are to move faster and keep up with demand whilst containing cost at the same time ...

... How to leverage the existing infrastructure and move dynamically to the digital era to meet customer demand?

Challenge​

EDI has long been the data interchange model since the 1970s, with the GS1 standards being around for over 40 years.

The GS1 system is a set of global standards that are used to identify, capture, and share information about products, services, and locations.

EDI is traditional a point-to-point message function with message mapping ETL (extract-transform-load) software platforms and file based transports (FTP or AS2). Value Added Networks (VANs) are providers who manage the message flow and provide message tracking and reporting.

Most companies have these infrastructures deeply embedded in their very fabric, and the cost of change is high.