Journal of Information Technology Impact

The rapid change in technology and other skills added to customers requiring highly specific and customized products, has lead to the need for far greater cooperation within and between firms. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is one of the tools that can help and change the way in which many companies communicate between each other. In this paper, the introduction and adoption of EDI in Greek companies are examined with a focus on the EDI Clusters Program. The objectives and management of the program, the profile of the participating companies, the barriers and the benefits during the preimplementation and the implementation stages are analyzed. According to the findings, the main problems of EDI implementation are mainly related to legal issues due to lack of institutional framework, to organizational and human where lack of experience in the management of funded projects, and coordination difficulties were the main obstacles. Additionally, different administrative and information technology environments, required reengineering of the business processes, but with insufficient training created insecurities, resistance to change and poor users commitment. Due to the above obstacles benefits realized were fewer than anticipated and are mostly operational, such as formulation and realization of business processes, motivation for communication with business partners and upgrade of technological and organizational infrastructure.