Tag Archives: purchase to pay

Business Process Outsourcing Leaders Join Forces

BancTec, a global leader in business process outsourcing has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by one of HandsOn­­3 (“HandsOn”) affiliated funds, The Dataforce Group.  HandsOn is a global buyout manager based in Santa Monica, CA; this is consistent with their strategy of acquiring leading global BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) companies and transforming them into platform-enabled service providers that leverage globally positioned resources. In their press release announcing this agreement, HandsOn partner Jim Reynolds said, “This acquisition allows us to leverage our expertise and accomplishments by combining the strengths of Dataforce Group with BancTec to address the needs of our valued customers within our expanded marketplace.”

Dataforce Group is also a global provider of BPO services to enterprise level clients in the telecommunication, healthcare, charity, government, and auto and health insurance industries. Key services currently offered by Dataforce include AR Management, Document Receivables Management, and Customer Interaction Management. When combined with the key services offered by BancTec such AP Automation, Payment Processing, and others it is clear that these organizations will compliment each other well. Together they stand to offer a global BPO solution unlike any other on the market. PayStream Advisors is very excited to see what this acquisition will mean for both BancTec, Dataforce Group, and the BPO market.

The key leadership and management teams of BancTec will remain in place and play a vital role in the growth of the newly merged organization. Depending on the agreement of terms, closing conditions, and approval of stockholders, the transition should be complete by the end of April.

Conquering Big Data

Big Data, Business Intelligence, and Purchase to Pay: Each concept is overused yet and unrealized to many procurement professionals. Today’s ERPs just don’t give purchasers the granular information they need to fully monitor their spend.

Purchase visibility and analytics can yield a lot of value in Purchase to Pay, but only if you can get the spend information. In today’s environment with data stored in disparate systems – procurement system, ERP, and at vendor’s sites, “Big Spend Data” for many of us is a pipe dream. Imagine you want to analyze hardware spend about employee laptop purchases from your Dell web and CDW portal. Frankly, without an Application Integration or data feed from your suppliers, you cannot easily do so. With Kofax’s Kapow screen-scraping application integration platform, you can now grab the data from both web sites and populate a report in minutes.  Even better, with Kapow Kaplets you can run that report every month.

Kapow puts the power of big data, social media, cloud, and mobile directly into the hands of users so that employees are informed, agile and empowered without the need for consulting, coding or APIs. Finally! We can get big data without the corresponding big IT project and budget. Kapow Kaplets are synthetic application interfaces that are created in minutes with very little IT knowledge. More than ever, procurement professionals are now able to harness the power of reporting and forecasting tools and transform spend management.

The benefits of Kapow don’t just end with procurement or even finance applications. Kapow connects applications not meant to be connected; it transforms big data into actionable insights. Maybe your organization relies heavily on social media trends and is looking to scrape subscriber data, or perhaps you are a corporate P2P professional looking to analyze utility fluctuations amongst dozens of satellite offices. Kofax Kapow has pioneered a simple solution to help you connect the dots and assimilate current processes.

Be sure to join PayStream’s lead finance automation guru, Henry Ijams and guest faculty and industry expert Art Sarno, Product Marketing Director for Kofax to discuss the power of Kofax Smart Processes for AP. Topics will include best practices for workflow architecture, essentials of smart processes, using synthetic interfaces for procurement analytics, and increasing connectivity and efficacy where you least expect it. For more information and to secure your seat, click here.

The Life of the Party? Attendees at PayStream INNOVATE 2013

What makes a great party? Good food helps, but it’s usually the people and sharing that make a party great. This years PayStream INNOVATE: Purchase to Pay Summit was truly memorable because of the wonderful collection of leaders that came together to learn, collaborate and grow. This year’s theme was focused on innovation and attracted more than 170 attendees from all over the globe.

Here’s a few of the takeaways I had from the conference:

Compelling Keynote Sessions

The two keynote sessions really challenged our attendees to think differently about the way they manage their operations.

Opening keynote speaker David Phillips is an Innovation Provocateur and teaches innovation strategies for a living. He kicked off the Summit with the thought-provoking session “Creating an Innovation Culture: It Starts with You!“ about how to overcome the barriers to innovation and how to drive change at your organization. The session really seemed to invigorate the audience and set the tone for the entire conference.

Our second keynote speaker was from a practitioner perspective. Kelly Coxon, Director of Procure to Pay at UPMC, stole the show with a session with “Using Simple Metrics and Benchmarking to Drive P2P Process Improvement.” A key message she shared with the audience is that it’s easy to get tunnel vision within your own organization and lose sight of how effective and efficient you are compared to other organizations. Kelly’s session really hit home with the audience and was one of the best received of the conference.

Honoring the Innovators

We believe it’s important to recognize the people and companies who are pushing the envelope in Purchase to Pay, so this year we awarded the practitioners and solution providers who are bringing innovation to the industry.

The practitioner winners:

  • Becky Walkinshaw, Procure to Pay Manager, Ohio State University Medical Center
  • Larry Williams, Global Payment Services Process Owner, Procter & Gamble

The solution provider winners:

  • Ariba for Contract Invoicing solution
  • Tradeshift for Collaborative Workflow solution

Congratulations to all the winners this year!

Valuable Case Studies from Leading P2P Managers

In between keynote sessions and coffee breaks in the exhibit hall, delegates were eager to learn from leading companies during breakout classroom style sessions. P2P leaders shared their successes (and challenges) on topics ranging from electronic invoicing to P-Cards to supplier onboarding. Attendees raved about the new concepts and ideas they were able to adapt and bring home to their own operations. Some of the top rated sessions included:

  •  “The Life of PIE: Payment Intelligence Evolution” presented by Gary Salek Financial Shared Services Manager and Wayne Rosenfeld, Corporate Procurement Manager at Snyder’s Lance
  • “The Path to Paperless at Procter & Gamble” presented by Larry Williams, Global Payment Services Process Owner at Procter & Gamble
  • “Supplier Risk Management: How Well Do You Know Your Suppliers” presented by Stephanie Matejka, Senior Manager Supply Chain Management at Mayo Clinic

10 Newly Certified Purchase to Pay Professionals

I’m pleased to announce the certification of 10 new P2P Professionals! The members, ranging from organizations such as PNC Bank, Cigna Corporation and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, successfully completed the 6 hour training course and passed the exam. We hope the questions weren’t too difficult! The certification program, known as PayStream’s P2P Academy, was developed to bridge the knowledge gap between payables and procurement.

Leading P2P Solution Providers

The conference would not have been possible without the support of our sponsors and exhibitors, so I’d like to thank all of them for their support. Tradeshift was the lead sponsor. Ariba, Direct Commerce, SciQuest and Hubwoo all contributed excellent case studies with their customers. AFI, Basware, Esker, Financial Operations Networks, Fundtech, Global Edge, IOFM, OB10 and Scan One all played key roles as exhibitors.

Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in PayStream INNOVATE 2013 to make it such a huge success. We hope to see you again next year!