Archive for the ‘Supplier onboarding’ Category
Welcoming several industry solution providers this month (and how we really do care)
Posted on: February 1, 2012
We have had a great start to 2012 in signing many key industry solution providers to support our events and webinars through sponsorship this month. We welcome all these companies who are helping to drive the most relevant information we provide to our members:
- Ariba
- Avid Exchange
- BancTec
- Certipost
- Fundtech
- Invest in Lithuania
- Invest Northern Ireland
- Khazanah Nasional Berhad
- Lavante
- OB10
- Pagero AB
- Readsoft
- Syncada
One thing we are now doing more of is gaining a much deeper understanding of our sponsors’ product offerings, via being given full product demos. This really helps us to precisely understand the key purpose and importance of all the unique points of their solution. We can then covey these to our members in a langauage they understand through our conferences, webinars, blogs and articles. And for our solution providers, this enables us to better educate the market in a way that really connects with (and is helpful to) prospects.
Here are a couple of videos of happy customers from our last US event that I think reflect the inescapable fact that we really do care:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcVj4Qk3K9g&feature=youtu.be (Lavante)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05UuivV1GG4&feature=youtu.be (XT Global)
A great start to 2012, but I predict a rumbling snowball of support in the coming months. Watch this space!
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Service providers sit together
When you pick up the phone, you don’t worry about whether Vodafone and Orange have worked out how to pass your call between them. If you jump on a train at London’s St Pancras station, destination Gare du Nord, Paris, you’re not concerned about whether it can run on French rails (not when you have strikes, leaves and the wrong kind of snow to worry about first).
So when you’re encouraging suppliers to submit invoices electronically, why do you have to consider which networks they’ve already signed up to?
One of the challenges for the growth of e-invoicing is how service providers interoperate. It’s the subject of many discussions and articles, and a topic surfaced regularly at e-Invoicing Europe 2011 earlier this month.
To give the subject proper attention we invited representatives from the leading e-invoicing solution providers, Ariba, Basware, Certipost, OB10 and Tradeshift, plus Charles Bryant who is part of the Euro Banking Association and has detailed knowledge of this area, to respond to questions from our delegates and our chair, Simon Dunn, Head of Group Supply Systems at HSBC.
Not only did Simon draw on his own experiences dealing with limited interoperability, but he also wove in the demands from an audience of fellow end users. With panellists playing nicely, on the most part they covered four broad areas and challenges:
- The need for standards (or not)
- Cross-border, cross-network compliance
- The business case
- Transport versus content
While there’s some interoperability happening today, there’s still a long way yet to go before electronic invoicing networks interact like mobile networks. That said, none of the service providers thought that the challenge was insurmountable, which will come as good news to end users who certainly expect interoperability to become a reality, in some shape or form, in the future.
Read full coverage of the panel session in our article The e-invoicing interoperability debate on sharedserviceslink.com.
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What’s new in outsourcing?
Posted on: June 16, 2011
When the invitation to an Innovation Day run by the National Outsourcing Association appeared in my inbox a couple of months ago, I didn’t think twice about registering.
As a word, innovation is alluring, it promises to reveal secrets and give you a peek into the future. As a subject it regularly crops up at our events and in conversations with practitioners so I was interested to hear what NOA members, both end users and suppliers, were doing.
Innovation expectations
It was only when I sat down with my coffee and notebook that I started to question what I understood innovation in outsourcing to mean? Innovation in the front office is perhaps easier to grasp: a pharmaceutical finding the next blockbuster drug, a car manufacturer creating vehicles that replenish the ozone layer, the fat-eliminating doughnut…
But innovation in outsourcing? What makes something innovative? An activity or approach that’s new to the outsourcing market as a whole? Or is it something that’s new to your company or particular function? Or is it the approach or methodology you follow rather than the end product that makes something innovative? Does it matter if somebody somewhere else has done it before?
As these semantic questions started to hurt my head, Lee Ayling, NOA Board Member for Innovation, Partner at KPMG and chair of this event, gave us their definition: “innovation is new ideas or ways of working to drive commercial gain and/or competitive advantage.”
Drivers, challenges and opportunities
He opened the day with the very fresh results of a survey run by the NOA and KPMG with both end users and suppliers, which found that:
- The top drivers for innovation are to improve service quality, lower costs and decrease time to market
- While both end users and suppliers consider innovation important:
- Only 23% of user organisations have a formal innovation methodology in place in contrast to 71% of suppliers
- And around 80% of users don’t measure innovation quantitatively
- Both groups think innovation should be led jointly, but it rarely happens in practice
- Both groups say they lack innovation skills and engagement with their stakeholders, and struggle to measure innovation
- Users want suppliers to come to them with ideas
- Suppliers want users to be more forthcoming with information on their challenges and give them greater access to stakeholders.
These results and presentations that followed gave some exciting examples of how innovation can flourish in the right environment. And to me, the message was clear: the success/failure point for innovation in outsourcing is the relationship between the user and the supplier.
What’s in a relationship?
Debra Maxwell, Global BPO Director at Arvato, an outsourcing company, shared a particularly powerful story of innovation in supplier relationship management. She described how Arvato worked closely with its client, the world’s largest software company, to set the right foundations for a successful outsourcing partnership.
The technology company realised that its outsourcing contracts had failed to deliver and wanted a new approach. By jointly rethinking the contract with the supplier, both companies worked to revise their incentives, measures, scope for flexibility, decision-making powers and governance structure. With both companies now invested in each other’s success, they had the right conditions for change and a fruitful relationship.
One thing in particular struck a chord, Debra asked how many times do we say we want to build a strong relationship or partnership in an RFP or contract but don’t define what we mean by it? Just taking the time out to understand what a successful relationship looks like could make a huge difference to the success of an outsourcing or shared services programme, as well as support innovation.
Does this reflect your experiences with innovation in your shared services and outsourcing operations? I’m planning a more detailed piece on this in the coming weeks and would love to hear what role it plays in your finance activities. Comment here or drop me a line at sandra@sharedserviceslink.com.
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It’s a little odd thinking about winter in the middle of summer, but we’re finalising our annual Accounts Payable Automation conference (8-10 December) and wanted to give you a glimpse of what we’ll be discussing and who’s going to be there.
Matthew, our Head of Research, has designed the programme based on the issues you’re tackling right now. He’s also uncovered case studies you’ll want to benchmark yourself against that are packed full of invaluable tips and tricks.
- Are you trying to standardise your accounts-payable process across the company, globally? Power and automation company ABB has done it and productivity has more than doubled.
- Does your company operate in silos? Orange Business Services is linking its finance, procurement, treasury and IT functions to realise the potential of its AP automation tools
- And just confirmed: Proctor & Gamble will share the secrets behind how technology and people have helped it achieve 96% payment on time.
Do you have a story to tell? We have a couple of speaking slots left if you’d like to join our prestigious line up. Get in touch with Matthew to discuss your experience.
Put the dates in your diary. And keep up with who we’re confirming as speakers and other shared services news via twitter.
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At e-Invoicing Europe last week there was a lot of debate around interoperability and the different approaches being taken by service providers.
We will explore roaming in more detail over the coming weeks, but in the meantime, we want you to be part of the conversation.
We’ve started a discussion on this subject on our sharedserviceslink.com group on LinkedIn. Is this an issue you’re grappling with as part of your e-invoicing strategy? What are your thoughts on the three-corner model versus four-corner model? Is supplier onboarding more important? Where does it rank in your list of requirements?
We’d love to hear your thoughts, just add your comments and watch the debate unfold.
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Not involving the supply-management function in an e-invoicing project is inconceivable to Unilever.
Speaking at e-Invoicing Europe, Roland van den Bossche, European Process Manager, said, “Seventy-five per cent of a purchase-to-pay process is supply chain.”
For e-invoicing to succeed, supply management must be part of the project team. After running a series of road shows to ensure its supply managers understood the initiative’s objectives and their roles, Unilever started contacting providers about the changes to its processes.
The company has not mandated that its suppliers transition to e-invoicing as it depends heavily on their goods and services, however, the project team has set itself a stretching target of 75% conversion by the end of this year. Roland accepts that this will be a challenge but also knows they have the right elements in place:
- Collaboration between finance and supply management
- Top-down governance
- Targets set
- Detailed progress and status reports
- Quality master data
- Sufficient project resource
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Sharedserviceslink.com is spending a few days with 80 delegates in the 16th arrondissement of Paris at our 2nd annual e-Invoicing Europe conference. The agenda is full to bursting with insightful speakers and opportunities for robust discussion.
To kick off proceedings, Susie gave an overview of the market and picked out key findings from the pre-event survey completed by attendees. One of the biggest challenges referenced by respondents is supplier onboarding, but when later asked about their priorities, few people highlighted building better relations with procurement.
There’s a disconnect here. Companies seeing significant results from e-invoicing know they would have struggled without engaging procurement. Indeed, one suggested title for a future event was ‘how to fire your procurement department to get e-invoicing off the ground’. Probably a little drastic but it makes the point that finance and purchasing processes must be aligned for e-invoicing to succeed.
We will be posting more from our event throughout today. Next up: VAT compliance and critical steps towards progressing e-invoicing.
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Sharedserviceslink.com HQ is bustling with more activity than usual as we put the finishing touches to e-Invoicing Europe that kicks off on Wednesday.
If you’re joining us in Paris, you’ll receive the results of our latest survey, which will help you benchmark yourself against your fellow delegates. You’ll learn how far everyone has progressed with their e-invoicing initiatives, the volumes they’re processing and whether their expectations are being fulfilled. And all of that before any of our keynote speakers have even taken to the stage.
We will be blogging here and tweeting on what’s being said throughout the conference. If you’re not following us already, sign up to our tweets http://twitter.com/sslink_HQ. We’ll be using the #einvoicing hashtag.
Our agenda for Paris is packed full of goodness. Sessions in particular to look out for include the update on EU legislation, our speed-dating vendor panel and stacks of case studies on issues such as supplier on-boarding, combining e-invoicing with EDI and change management.
And when we’re not discussing accounts-payable automation we’ll be keeping tabs on the Spain-Germany World Cup semi final. Perhaps with a couple of glasses of vin rouge to keep us going.
We’re looking forward to seeing you there. If you can’t come, don’t forget to keep up with the action online.
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If you are involved in an e-invoicing project right now, be it the evaluation of solution providers in the market, or the actual project deployment, I am assuming you might be interested in hearing the top ten factors to consider to make e-invoicing a huge success.
Last week in Paris I chaired the E Invoicing Europe conference. I came away on a bit of a high as I really sensed that this market, which is still very much in its infancy, is beginning to move at a respectable pace. But it should do. Although e-invoicing is a little ‘complex’, there are no real reasons why purchase to pay organisations, which have high first time match rates, shouldn’t be getting on with it. And I believe this message came through at the conference.
If you would like to know the key factors to success which surfaced during the conference then listen to the Top Ten to E Invoicing Success. If you would like to have a copy of the presentation you can download it here.
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Here and Now is a Fertile Ground For Implementing Supplier Participation Projects
Posted on: July 6, 2009
Basware invited me to join a chaired and recorded round table discussion in Hoxton, London last week. We talked for 90 minutes about how this climate is impacting the speed at which we pay suppliers. As a supplier to big multi-nationals, I’m at the sharp end when it comes to P2P ‘tweaks’, like unannounced payment extentions. In February I recall scrutinising my DSO and my cashflow and noting that customers (big names too!) were stretching their terms by another 15 days or so. Fortunately for me I had cash in the bank. But it certainly made me pity the SMEs out there with the ‘spend now, get paid later’ models. 71% of companies last year that went into administration did so because regardless of their profitability, they just dried up in the cash department. This figure will surely increase this year. Especially because getting your hands on credit is like touching the Holy Grail – highly improbable.
This climate of DSO elongation has made me a more pliable adopter of my customers’ P2P projects. Namely P Card. Cash now is worth the 2.5% – 3% that I might pay to the card company. And is there a set up fee? How much? My view is that suppliers will do what they can to be paid to terms. If this means joining an e invoicing campaign in order to be paid earlier or at least on time, so be it.
While there are paper based companies out there extending terms with suppliers, and reducing the numbers of runs in the month so they can inflate their own cash ownership and dump a cool few million to the bottomline in the form of interest earned, other companies should look at this state we are in and crack on with an e invoicing project. All those suppliers that comply to requests to join the e invoicing project should be paid net 25. All those that don’t should be paid net 35. There are considerations, like existing contracts, but so many suppliers are still off contract these days that there is still massive scope for an approach like this one. And have you been toying with the idea of a P Card scheme for a while? If I were a betting lady, I would bet your supplier onboaring would be relatively speedy. Now is the time to deploy these supplier facing projects. And not all of them require sizeable upfront investment.
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