EDI-invoicing : A study on the process and SMEs´experiences

Abstract: Electronic commerce is one of the most discussed business-to-business(B2B) topics of today. IT has become a tool for adapting and rendering business processes towards an integrated supply chain (www svensktnaringsliv.se). Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has been used as a technique for communicating between different computer systems since the 1960’s. However, it took another 20 years for EDI to support different types of business processes (Malonis, 2002). Electronic invoices can be deduced from when companies in the 1970´s started to exchange invoice files (Dykert & Fredholm, 2004). Earlier studies within this area of interest have focused on the business-tocustomer (B2C) electronic invoicing. This thesis has chosen a different point of view, where the focus will be on Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) use of EDI- invoicing for B2B processes. This thesis purpose can be divided into two parts, the first is to investigate how EDI- invoice solutions are realized and the second is to describe the effects use and implementation of an EDI- invoice solution have brought to SMEs. Data for the first part have been collected from Internet sources as well as from literature. Empirical findings to address this part are gathered from an interview with an employee at Scandinavian PC Systems (SPCS). What we concluded of this study was that SMEs opportunity to implement EDI- invoicing derives from the initiative taken by system developers together with Value Added Network (VAN) providers. They have made a complex technology, with confusion about standards and function, to an easy understood and familiar interface to SMEs. Data for the second part of the purpose have been collected from telephone interviews with SMEs in the Jönköping region. Six SMEs who were connected to Pri- Handel, a competitor to SPCS, were interviewed.The most prominent experience SMEs mean that an EDI- invoice solution brings is reduce of administrative cost.