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General Information
Statistics are collected and disseminated in all sectors of the industry
Did you ever wonder where the figures that appear in your favorite newspaper come from? and how do the political people give such accurate information on the evolution of external trade? in fact, each social and economical entity requires information on how it operates; and Europe does not make an exception to the rule. Indeed, how would it be possible to take the right decisions for the evolution of transport, balance of payments or external trade without information on past and present operating results?
National Statistical Offices, as well as Eurostat , the Statistical Office of the European Communities, are in charge of the collection and dissemination of statistics at national and European level. Statistical information produced by Eurostat is used at decisional level in all economic sectors by the European Commission: the famous White Book on trans-European transport works, published under the presidency of Jacques Delors, is one example.
Statistics, often produced as annual publications by the National Statistical Institutes, are necessary for all companies actively involved in the day-to-day socio-economic life, especially to keep up with the fast pace of new technologies.
Each of the 15 Member States is working with its own statistical system. But how to get reliable, clear and harmonised statistics at a European level? Eurostat is in charge of proposing answers to this question, and of facilitating the set-up of efficient statistics collection and dissemination systems.
Administrations, large companies and small and medium enterprises do not accept easily anymore to be overwhelmed with queries, interviews, or polls. All these traditional means of collecting information have proven expensive, not exhaustive, and not so reliable. This is why Eurostat, in liaison with the European Board for EDI Standards (EBES), has designed the common language for exchanging statistics. GESMES, the Generic Statistical Message, uses the EDIFACT standard (Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport). An HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) version of GESMES for tranmission over the Internet is now being made available as well. Both EDIFACT and HTML are EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) technologies.
What is EDI?
Electronic data interchange (EDI) is commonly defined as the application-to-application transfer of business documents between computers. Many businesses choose EDI as a fast, inexpensive, and safe method of sending purchase orders, invoices, shipping notices, and other frequently used business documents.
What are the advantages of using EDI?
EDI is a tremendous cost- and time-saving system. Since the transfer of information from computer to computer is automatic, there is no need to rekey information. With no data entry, the chance for error drops to near zero.
EDI is also a method of improving customer service. The quick transfer of business documents and marked decrease in errors allow you to fill orders faster.
EDI documents are stored in a mailbox. You can look at the documents in your mailbox at any time. If your customer wants a copy of an invoice, instead of calling you they simply check their mailbox. Imagine the time savings from not having to copy and fax/mail copies of invoices or purchase orders.
Many large manufacturers and retailers are ordering their suppliers to institute an EDI program. When evaluating a new product to carry or a new supplier to use, the ability to do EDI is a big plus. Keep in mind, too, that these same companies tend to stop doing business with suppliers who do not comply with EDI.
In 1997, it is now commonly agreed upon National Administrations in the European Union that GESMES should be used to transmit data to Eurostat. In some sectors such as transport and BOP, other players of the statistical collection chain, such as port authorities, banks and large enterprises, are beginning to see the advantages of using EDI to collect and transmit statistical data.
