Why we’re building Tech85: Order management made right

Over 30 years ago, George Gregory started what is now Tech85 with the simple idea to build technology that works for customers, not against them.

When we broke into EDI, we saw so many manufacturers and distributors up against the same problem. They needed EDI to trade with big box retailers, but the only solutions available worked against them—forcing change where things already worked well.

The math rarely worked in their favor, either. The cost of adopting new processes often outweighed the benefits of “automating” their EDI.

Three decades later, our commitment to understanding how our customers work—and then building solutions—is what enables them to take on more orders, see chargebacks drop to near-zero, and stay compliant with their best trading partners.

The EDI reality nobody talks about

Everyone in the industry understands what EDI is supposed to do: create automated, standardized communication between trading partners. But what some call “EDI” isn’t automated at all.

It’s just manual data entry with more steps.

In the $5.8 billion EDI market, you’d think this would be solved by now. Yet many suppliers still manually transfer data between retail portals and their ERP systems.

This essentially creates a ripple effect.

‍First, chargebacks stack up and destroy your margins. Retailers send you hundreds of thousands in fines for EDI mistakes. These chargebacks eat away from your total annual revenue and render invoices essentially useless.

‍Second, manual work holds your whole team back. Eventually, you’ll hit a ceiling where you can’t process more orders without adding staff. So you’re left choosing between less business or more overhead.

‍Third, your systems operate in isolation—meaning slower business. When your EDI, ERP, and other systems like Shopify don’t integrate, you waste weeks reconciling data. Time you should be spending growing sales.

‍Real EDI automation means purchase orders turn into sales orders, invoices generate themselves, shipping notices send automatically, and you get to keep the way you work.

The question is: Why isn’t everyone doing this?

Clearing the path to true automation

The EDI market is saturated with providers who sell software without taking the time to understand their customers’ nuances. They put out standard solutions that ask for a lot and return a little.

This introduces two problems.

They ignore what works. Most EDI solutions make you work out-of-the-box rather than assessing your current needs. This adds unnecessary risk and disruption to operations that took years to mature.

They treat EDI as just software. Real EDI automation isn’t just a product. It’s a combination of technology, expertise, and support. Software alone can’t handle the complexity of modern trading.

The worst part? Most providers give you the tool but expect you to figure out the integration (and leave you on read for weeks when you request support).

The future of order management

We’ve spent the better part of the century righting the order management ship. And we’ve learned a lot. Looking ahead, we expect three major shifts in our industry:

1. Automation will become table stakes, not a luxury. As labor costs rise and EDI requirements grow more complex, manual processing will simply become unsustainable for most businesses.
2. The line between different systems—ERP, WMS, eCommerce—will become less clear (and less relevant). Companies need unified platforms that handle the entire order lifecycle, not disparate point solutions.
3. Flexibility will be the key differentiator. One-size-fits-all solutions force you to choose between growth and keeping what works. The most successful companies will adopt technology that works with them, not the other way around.

Building a brand on fairness and integrity

Our vision is simple: To grow a tech brand on fairness and integrity.

We're not interested in quick, unsustainable growth at any cost. We don't want to be the next unicorn that puts fundraising before customer outcomes.

Instead, we're focused on building technology that makes good business easy—that’s our mission. That means creating solutions that honor how our customers work, eliminate costly errors, and scale without disruption.

It means being honest about what we can and (less often) can't do. It means caring about customer results more than our own. It means building relationships that last decades, not just until the next renewal.

‍That’s order management — Let’s make it right together.