What a webinar Novartis. Well done. Sponsored by Ariba, this first class webinar looked at how to get that complicated of any e-invoicing project bit right: the communications bit.

The communications part of any shared services programme can send a finance person into a tail spin. The traditional reason for this is that finance people don’t know how to communicate. They are more comfortable with numbers than words. I’m not sure if I agree completely. But I do think a finance person, who has been brought up to be more ‘back-office’ focused, now has to learn how to ‘engage’ and sell a vision, and understand requirements of different stakeholders.

These are not skills that come naturally to all finance people. they are much more akin to sales people.

Actually, come to think of it, these are not qualities that come naturally to all sales people.

But communicating is about listening, and once you appreciate that, you realise the best way to communicate with the other party is to simply ask questions.

This is what I like about the Novartis e-invoicing programme that they are doing with Ariba. Here are some of my key take aways:

1. Give your e-invoicing project a name. Something short/quirky/memorable. Novartis’s e-invoicing programme is called eLink. It’s short and snappy. And it’s loaded – it suggests that e-invoicing links parties and it does. Avoid long, dry names that fail to excite.
2. Ensure your project has an identity by getting the elevator pitch right. Define the pitch based on words that resonate with the stakeholders, the company, the suppliers and the project team. Rehearse it and rehearse it till everyone who touches the project is ‘on song’ and aligned.
3. Build the value. Know who your different stakeholder groups are and then tweak your broader messaging accordingly. Each stakeholder needs to hear a slightly different version of your ‘pitch’ (different to your elevator pitch) based on what they care about.
4. Create relevance so people ‘get it’. Novartis built the story of the ‘Rogue Invoice’. It was compelling and yet so simple. It meant people ‘got it’.
5. Tell the story end-to-end. Often people in the process don’t think about how their actions impact downstream activities. They don’t think, because they don’t know the cost of their actions. If you eduate them by showing them the end-to-end process, they normally change their approach to ensure ‘good behaviour’, and buy into solutions that help fix a poorly followed process.

It sounds fiddly but it’s worth it. Once you successfully educate the company on the how, why, and what of your e-invoicing project, they’ll be engaged. And this normally means excited. And excitement is infectious. Once they’re excited they’ll back your programme. The days of being undermined will be gone, and the barriers to e-invoicing success will leak away, leaving you a clearer path to project victory.

To listen to the webinar click here: The amazing difference a stellar comms effort makes to your e-invoicing programme – the Novartis story