Fit for the future with EDI – environmentally friendly, of course!
Climate check: find out how environmentally friendly EDI is
In 2019, roughly 550 billion invoices were issued around the world – only ten percent of which were fully paperless, as a recent study by Billentis revealed. When the coronavirus hit in 2020, it gave Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for business documents a true boost. It goes without saying that the reduced paper consumption that results from the use of EDI is very positive for the environment. However, the advancing digitalization gives a new sense of urgency to the sustainable use of resources in the area of IT. At EDITEL, we team up with our partners on a regular basis to launch initiatives, some of which I will discuss in this article.
EDI puts an end to useless paper waste
Small actions can have a huge effect. The situation described below might remind some EDI users of the old days when they still exchanged paper documents with their business partners. Manual intervention greatly increases the room for error during the process that goes from receiving an order to creating the despatch advice and receiving payment. Also, this process wastes a lot of paper. International studies have shown that for every purchase-to-pay process, up to €51 euro can be saved by switching to Electronic Data Interchange. Ultimately, EDI has a long-lasting positive effect on the environment while being good for a company’s budget.
When it comes to paperless invoices, Austria merely reaches an average position in Europe, as estimated by Billentis have shown.
Everybody in the chain has to act responsibly
In the area of EDI, many players usually work together. In addition to businesses that exchange data among each other, these include EDI service providers and the companies they work for. EDITEL decided years ago to only work with reliable partners for whom corporate social responsibility is just as important as it is to us.
Our clients ultimately protect the environment:
- by using EDI to make business processes paperless and more effective and
- by using different IT systems (electronic archives, bill presentment solutions, supplier portals, etc.) which helps avoid unnecessary and environmentally harmful printouts of invoices and other documents, while increasing delivery reliability.
Energy consumption reduced by 70 percent
EDITEL clients exchange their business documents via the EDI platform eXite. The necessary servers and the entire production environment are not located at a random overseas data center, but at T-Systems in Vienna. After all, EDITEL expects its partners not only to provide excellent service quality and high data protection standards, but also to protect the environment. Energy efficiency is key in this area. In the past few years, T-Systems has gradually been reducing energy consumption for its server room cooling systems by introducing a variable-speed recirculation cooling system. By lowering the working speed, the energy consumption decreases by approximately 70%. Slightly higher temperatures in the server rooms save even more power. All in all, this is very cool for the environment – but there’s more!
Certification according to the environmental management standard
Our partner T-Systems has an ongoing remodeling project (scheduled to be concluded by Q1/2022) during which the entire cooling system will be replaced. The new modular cooling system will be adapted to the required performance and will allow for significant improvements in the areas of energy efficiency, performance, and availability. After the remodeling, T-System plans to obtain its EN 50600 certification. This European standard follows a holistic approach and defines specifications for planning, constructing, and operating data centers. In addition to expecting high quality from its business partners, we at EDITEL regularly hire external organizations to audit our own processes.
“Austrian Cloud” quality label for EDITEL
In 2020, EDITEL received the “Austrian Cloud” quality label. This recognition by the Austrian Chamber of Commerce and EuroCloud Austria tells the world that the cloud service provider in question stores data exclusively in Austria. To obtain this quality label, we had to comply with a total of 90 control items for parameters ranging from data protection, security aspects, and legal conformity to technical infrastructure. We also had additional external reviews.
Providing security and performance now and in the future
Also, in 2020, EDITEL once again went through the “ISAE 3402 Type II” audit and passed it successfully. During this audit, the independent auditing and consulting firm EY performed an in-depth analysis of the quality of our customer-related services, which ranged from IT security and the quality of our software development to international support and the implementation of GDPR specifications. These periodic audits are a tool that acknowledges high security and performance during our daily operations. While we want to protect the environment with long-lasting effect, we also want to maintain our trailblazing role in the area of EDI and customer service for the benefit of our clients.
The environment is very dear to our hearts, and the same is true for customer satisfaction. So please do not hesitate to ask any questions you might have. Please use the contact form on the right to get in touch with us.
About the author
Alexander Schaefer
CIO at EDITEL Austria
About EDITEL
EDITEL, an EDI service provider, is the internationally leading provider of EDI solutions (EDI = Electronic Data Interchange). The company specializes in the optimization of supply chain processes for companies of all sizes and in all industries.
Portrait photo copyright Editel/Petra Spiola
Symbolic image copyright iStockphoto, weerapatkiatdumrong
Graphic copyright Billentis
