Tag Archives: Tradeshift

Tradeshift’s New P2P Tool: The Business Case Calculator

Today, PayStream Advisors is proud to announce the release of a valuable new metrics tool for calculating 111025090024441 the costs of P2P processes. The Business Case Calculator comes from our partner, Tradeshift, and it was created in conjunction with our own research, making it a prime example of the powerful collaboration and teamwork possible between research and innovation. Its main purpose is to help organizations estimate how much they can save with AP automation and early payments, but it has the potential to increase long-run success for companies by identifying opportunities that can increase efficiency, drive innovation, and nurture a robust and scalable Procure-to-Pay platform.

One of the most valuable things about the Tradeshift Business Case Calculator is its simplicity, as it is composed of general questions that pinpoint the most important elements of AP. The calculator begins by asking organizations for their total yearly number of invoices, total addressable spend, and the methods in which invoices are received. These questions can be answered in less than a minute, and the company’s results in AP Automation Savings and Early Payment Savings are generated within seconds. This first calculation is approximate savings, but if an organization would like a more thorough evaluation of the possible savings they can gain through AP automation, they can continue on to the second stage of the calculator. This entails a more detailed set of questions that pertain to a company’s specific account AP staff costs, labor allocation, and working capital. This section also takes minutes to complete.

PayStream believes that an essential aspect of AP maturity is identifying and utilizing the proper metrics to drive improvement. The Tradeshift Business Case Calculator gives AP managers the ability to identify key performance indicators by simply entering relevant company information. The Calculator also helps to determine where an organization lies within the PayStream P2P Maturity Model (shown below).

Of course, identifying metrics and utilizing data will be most successful with the combination of proactive technology, and that’s where the Tradeshift platform comes in. A leading provider of eInvoicing, collaborative workflow, and other B2B technologies, they have made a name for themselves within the financial software market by taking P2P processes to the next level in simplicity and connectivity. They streamline AP tasks with transparent interfaces and clearly defined tasks, and they bring vendor-buyer relationships into balance with advanced onboarding tools and by creating value for suppliers. The Tradeshift Business Case Calculator is a great example of their focus on accessible and intuitive process tools, and they hope that it will be utilized by AP professionals around the world, customer and non-customer alike.

PayStream encourages our readers to take advantage of this important new AP tool. In only a few minutes, the Tradeshift Business Case Calculator determines what inefficient and costly areas of a company’s process can be turned into real savings, and we think that’s worth the time. Visit Tradeshift’s website to use the calculator today!

Tradeshift in the PayStream Minute—A Solution Source Session

Tradeshift has been fairly active with PayStream Advisors lately, but not without good reason. Not 111025090024441 only were they the Title Sponsors at this year’s INNOVATE conference, but they have also been featured in our latest Solution Source video. These regularly released video sessions highlight outstanding products from exceptional providers—and Tradeshift’s offerings fit the description.

Tradeshift has redefined the P2P industry with modern connection: they bring companies of all sizes together to transact and collaborate with one another—all on a truly global business network. Their network has connected over 500,000 buyers and suppliers thus far—and that number is growing rapidly due to their revolutionary onboarding techniques. These techniques include not charging suppliers any fees, ease of use, and mobility and connectivity with trading partners. Tradeshift also offers an expansive “open architecture” platform that allows third-party developers to easily build add-on applications.

In this PayStream Minute, Henry Ijams reviews the many different features in the Tradeshift solution that make it unique in its market. From their ability to quickly adapt to global business requirements, to their easily adaptable mobile apps, Tradeshift offers a wide range of customizable and scalable offerings. Their CloudScan solution is particularly progressive—better than OCR technology because it uses machine learning and artificial intelligence at the same time, and just as effective as other imaging solutions in sending the invoice directly into their powerful workflow tool. Tradeshift also offers supply-chain finance and dynamic discounting, integrations that enable the strengthening of small businesses and of B2B relationships.

PayStream believes that what really pushes Tradeshift out of the box is their openness to change. They realize that today’s organizations’ needs are complex and constantly evolving, and that they won’t be satisfied with the everyday offerings. To find out more about the various measures Tradeshift has taken to keep up with the modern P2P world, watch the PayStream Advisor’s summary in this Solution Source session.

Global Support Spreads for SMEs

In the past week, PayPal has announced the launch of a new lending service for small and medium-sized businesses in the UK. This initiative, scheduled to start rolling in August, follows a similar program begun and successfully run in North America last September. PayPal’s Working Capital will offer cash-advances for smaller companies who cannot as easily utilize bank loans and lending services.

This alternative financing option cuts through several hoops for which SMEs often don’t have the paypal time or money by replacing credit checks with existing sales histories, requiring only one fixed fee, and allowing a flexible and easy repayment program. PayPal has shown great interest in small businesses in that past—they’ve launched several education campaigns to help SMEs grow online. According to the Managing Director of PayPal UK, Cameron McLean, programs like Working Capital are essential because “small businesses are the lifeblood of the British economy.”

The attitude that SMEs are important in every economy is one that PayStream Advisors’ research has recently seen resonate throughout global markets, industries, and governments. In the world-wide economic difficulties over the last several years, SMEs have arguably suffered the most of the business sphere. Now, corporate and government leaders around the globe are taking initiatives to restore the vitality of this essential part of the financial eco-system.

obama Much of the action to help SMEs has revolved around making the purchase-to-payment process easier and faster. In North America, President Obama’s recent SupplierPay initiative has created partnerships between the federal government and several larger corporations to promote expedited payments to their smaller vendors, allowing those small companies to free up more working capital to grow their business and hire more workers. The UK has also launched several initiatives to spur small business growth over the past two years, including revamped VAT tax returns and more releases of educational market material on small business financing, such as the newly published Euro Banking Association (EBA) guide to the European supply chain finance market.

In response to government steps taken towards a more balanced trade market, solution providers have also enhanced their offerings with SME’s in mind. To complement SupplierPay, Taulia Inc. launched the Early Payment Quick Start Initiative, a program that encourages and simplifies early payment financing. TradeShift has also taken a stand to help the small and big business connection, both literally with their expansive supplier onboarding techniques, and vocally. In a recent interview on the business news show, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Tradeshift CEO, Christian Lanng discussed the importance of eliminating frequent late payments between big buyers and little suppliers to help the supply-chain and the economy as a whole.

PayStream’s research has found this increased focus on supply-chain financing in several more software companies, and from several more important global voices. We believe this focus on supply-chain financing is not simply a trend, but one that will increase as the rest of the world realizes the importance of maintaining a healthy SME eco-system. For more insight into the SME world and how solutions are working to create healthy performance in that world, look out for PayStream’s upcoming research report on automating payables for SMEs this Q4.

Tradeshift on Lou Dobbs Tonight

PayStream Advisors was very excited to see Tradeshift CEO, Christian Lanng, on the business news show, Lou Dobbs Tonight. Lanng spoke with Dobbs about the Tradeshift platform and its ability to speed up payment processes between larger companies and their smaller supply chains. As a company, Tradeshift is trying to solve the problem of frequent late payments between these big buyers and little suppliers. According to Lanng, more than $16 Trillion globally is locked up in late payments from large companies with big, complicated processes. Small companies are not getting paid and because of this, they can’t hire the next employee, can’t get access to finance, and go bankrupt in the thousands, impacting economic growth.

How does Tradeshift specifically prevent late payments from strangling these small businesses? In the interview, Lanng explained how Tradeshift uses business transaction software to automate “the whole process between large businesses and small suppliers globally, making the actions of the supply chain much more efficient.” Their solutions give companies all the data they need to get access to better credit and finance, and to get paid faster.

Dobbs wondered whether the large buyers would be opposed to any of this automation, asking Lanng how much big companies relied on lag time. Lanng brought it back to the big picture, pointing out that though large companies used this method to conserve cash flow, it was ultimately more strategic to automate the processes. “You’re hurting your supply chain and your suppliers can’t grow. If they can’t grow, you don’t get cheaper products or cheaper prices.”

Dobbs also brought up Tradeshift’s movements over the past few years. From a “cold garage” in Denmark, Tradeshift has grown into a global company with over 200 employees in five countries. They set up most recently in Silicon Valley, and Lanng says that even though the Valley is the tech capital of the world and an extremely competitive environment, Tradeshift thrives and stays sharp off the competition. For them, staying sharp is important as they continue to grow in what they consider to be the last frontier of cloud-based business software: supply-chain processes.

PayStream feels this was a wonderful opportunity for Tradeshift, and we believe Christian Lanng did a great job in showing the company’s mission and drive. Check out the rest of their Lou Dobbs Tonight interview here.

Tradeshift Nabs National Health Service

The National Health Service is making big plans, and it involves AP automation. NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) is moving to do away with paper invoicing by implementing an eInvoicing system that’s free for suppliers to use. They’ve already been using a partially automated system since 2005, but out of their 7 million invoices a year, only 7% are processed electronically. The SBS, NHS’ division providing business services in the areas of finance and accounting, is no longer satisfied with that number.

Simon Murphy, NHS SBS director of finance and accounting said: “Implementing eInvoicing is an incredibly important step for us in simplifying and modernizing supplier interactions on behalf of our clients, by allowing our organization and our suppliers to focus on value-adding activities.” For such a powerful and extensive organization, going paper-less will be a huge transition- one that’s fortunately already been started, but a big one nonetheless.

Who’s going to help with this transition? After a successful pilot demo ended in April, Tradeshift was awarded the contract. One of the greatest reasons for their selection was their free supplier-platform. NHS SBS feels their first eInvoicing solution did not encourage suppliers to use it due to the costs and processes involved. Tradeshift, known for their effective supplier-onboarding techniques, seem to be just the right company for grabbing those suppliers who’ve been reluctant to work with the NHS SBS electronically.

Murphy feels that implementation will be the right decision for the NHS: “The core purpose of what we [SBS] do is to work on behalf of the NHS and invest in things they might not be able to do themselves. We have the ability to invest in those things that push the NHS into the digital efficiencies that are available.”

It’s evident that the service knows what they want and that they’re very optimistic about the results. Murphy is confident in the benefits of a successfully implemented solution: he is expecting an ROI of 90%-100%. PayStream Advisors has faith that Tradeshift can and will deliver these results. We’re also congratulating them on the landing of such positive customers!

Inviting Top Developers to B2B: Tradeshift Studio

Tradeshift, a leading platform that allows enterprises to increase supply chain productivity and efficacy has recently announced Tradeshift Studio. The initiative provides technology and design consulting and expertise for app development, as well as funding and resources for third-party developers. The initiative enables customers to create customized transaction and workflow applications in order to increase their speed of change and decrease their cost of change.

By functioning as an application design and development agency to Tradeshift customers, Tradeshift Studio simplifies the transition to working with the cloud-based platform because applications can be tailored to the needs of each customer and the companies with which they do business. In addition, this customization can be done without incurring the cost and time that often happens with adapting applications to existing platforms.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Christian Lanng, Co-Founder and CEO of Tradeshift, and our Managing Director, Henry Ijams to discuss Tradeshift Studio and where they feel the supply chain finance and P2P market is headed.

The P2P space is moving very fast with increasing openings around big data and analytics. There’s more opportunity for the back office to be reactive and part of the decision making process. They can help drive innovation; they know where the issues are and where manual transactions are getting away. For them, the next generation of challenges in P2P is really about delivering value to their organizations.

The B2B realm hasn’t done well in attracting smart young developers and thus apps aren’t really making their way to the space. B2C organizations often attract the top talent and thus the B2B market is underserved. However, today’s top developers generally know very little about enterprise-level organizations, processes, or accounting in general. That’s why this initiative is so powerful—Tradeshift studio is providing them with the knowledge and experience.

At each of Tradeshift’s offices in Copenhagen, China, and San Francisco, mentors and product designers are available to give interested developers the data and guidance they need. Furthermore, Tradeshift has allocated $5 million to fund this program with $150k-$500k available for each project. They will also help market new products by promotion throughout their channels, app marketplace, and sales teams. Developers are also given full access to technical support and APIs. In short, financial tech startups and developers wishing to tackle the largely untapped B2B market now have an incubating ally to help them in their journey.

In regards to the evolution of the P2P space Christian said, “In 5-10 years, you’re not going to be thinking about the 4-5 applications that make up P2P, you’ll be thinking of the 50-100 applications that make up P2P. So I think the whole one-size fits-all and one-vendor-to-rule-all strategy is doomed to fail with something as complex as the supply chain.” At PayStream Advisors, we couldn’t agree more. We are very excited to see where this groundbreaking development leads the market. To learn more about Tradeshift, click here. To read Christian’s blog on the topic, click here.

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