The services of Value Added Network (VAN) providers have changed significantly since the 1960s. VANs were first used by large businesses to exchange and translate Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) documents between other businesses. Now, value added network providers offer many other 3rd-party network services such as data encryption, document and data matching, management and supply chain reporting, and many other value-added data services.
Value Added Network (VAN) Definition. A VAN is a 3rd-party data network provider that supports the data movement of electronic business documents between two or more businesses as well as provides associated value-added data services.
Why Use a Value Added Network Provider?
VANs now provide a variety of value added network services that support the transport of electronic business documents between two or more businesses. Below are reasons to use VANs.
Electronic Document Transfer. The transport of electronic documents is a core service of VANs. VANs are experts at providing assured transport of electronic documents in a variety of formats. This includes a variety of EDI and EDIFACT business documents as well as XML and proprietary formats. If this is the only thing that you need for a VAN to do, it is usually better to by-pass VANs and direct connect between your business partners. VANs charge expensive service fees to transport data. Now-a-days most businesses are usually familiar with data communications. Only rudimentary knowledge is needed to send, receive, and manage the transfer of electronic documents.
Data Translation. VANs are experts at EDI and EDIFACT data translation as well as parsing any data format into any other data format. Again, there are expensive service fees associated with translation services. If you have a lot of requirements for translating different data formats, companies can invest in their own EDI translation software as well as EDI staff. If you have an IT staff and only one or two EDI formats to translate, your in-house or contract programmer may be able to write a small parser to translate data for you.
Data Security. Just as there are security issues with securing stored data (databases, stored files), there are many security issues with securing data that is transferred over communications lines. VANs are experts in secure data lines, encryption, secure communications protocols, and secure store-and-forward processing. If you have sensitive data to transport and you or your trading partners do not have the IT security expertise, VANs may be a good alternative.
Value Added Data Services. VANs are now offering more and more data processing and document mashup services as well as providing a full-suite of supply chain and procurement applications and services. For example, VANs can help businesses match up various inbound and outbound documents such as matching purchase orders with invoices. VANs can also assist with broadcasting the same electronic documents to many trading partners, shipment visibility, work order visibility as well as providing complete supply chain application services.
See posting, Selecting an EDI Company, for more on VANs, B2B portals, EDI software, EDI service providers, and B2B data integration companies.
Tags: Data Security, EDI, VAN