Photo appears courtesy of Next TwentyEight. We went through the process of selling software upgrades for Liaison's Delta/ECS a couple of years ago. After we presented every conceivable reason why this a good idea, to this day we still have a few stragglers. I myself am guilty of not upgrading! Every time I touch my iPhone I get a message that I haven't upgraded to the iOS 7. That being said, I thought it might be helpful to others who are either selling upgrades or considering an upgrade, to offer up a few good reasons why upgrading your EDI software is an important endeavor.
In my opinion, the most important reason to have the most recent EDI software version available is support. You don't want to be two versions behind, encounter a problem and find out that your version is no longer supported by your EDI vendor. I have seen this happen numerous times. In order for a company to save a few dollars, they do not take advantage of an upgrade and end up spending more later in support hours. And upgrading more than one version is likely to cost more money and headaches than if you had just upgraded when the new versions were released. I have seen customers have to buy brand new licenses in some cases. Upgrades are meant to be done in a prescribed sequence...it's almost always easier and more cost effective to follow that sequence. Don't make this mistake.
The next best reason is compatibility. What happens when your 32 bit server crashes and your EDI software version is only compatible with 32 bit. Good luck trying to find a 32 bit server because they are pretty much obsolete and oh wait...the last EDI software upgrade supported 64 bit systems but you didn't upgrade. You just made what could have been a minor mess, a much bigger one. If you had upgraded your EDI software, you could have just replaced your server with a 64 bit machine and your newly upgraded EDI software would support that change. Now you have to not only replace your server, but you also have to upgrade your EDI software at the same time. Oops.
Many companies have the attitude of, "If it works for us, why change anything?" It's the old If It's Not Broken, Don't Fix It mentality. Here's the deal...the longer you go without upgrading, the more you leave yourself vulnerable to threats to your business. That threat might be bugs that could be resolved with the upgrade. Or something more ominous like the crashing server scenario mentioned above. Either way, upgrading your EDI software will ensure that your software is running at top performance. What would your clients think if you start having problems with your EDI transmissions because you didn't upgrade? They may think you don't care enough about your business to keep your essential tools up to date. They will wonder where else you are cutting corners. Don't be that guy. Contact your EDI vendor and upgrade. Today.
GraceBlood LLC specializes in EDI implementation and data integration solutions. For more information, please contact Shandra Locken, at slocken@graceblood.com.