Electronic Commerce in Denmark: The Spread of EDI in Business-to-Business Transactions

The use of EDI in business transactions is considered a prerequisite in turning both private and public business towards electronic commerce in the next century. The national strategy in Denmark has been to promote the usage of EDIFACT-based EDI in both the public and private sector. In our study of EDI-usage in Denmark, we have found this strategy only partially fruitful, so far. We are monitoring the state of EDI usage in Denmark based on VANS, direct proprietary connections, and TCP/IP-based networks to evaluate the governmental actions within the area of EDI. Our study suggests that the governmental initiatives have been successful within the areas vital to the public services and instruments, but lagging in supporting the private sector's need for EDI and lagging in the public sector's own management. Although Internet based EDI is growing, the business-to-business traffic through VANS, primarily using EDIFACT, hasn’t been hampered. Throughout the 1995-97 period VANS traffic shows an annual increase of 33% in number of bytes and 46% in number of messages.