Monthly Archives: November 2013

What’s Behind OpenText’s Purchase of Supply Chain Integration Company GXS?

Open Text Corporation, a global leader in Enterprise Information Management (EIM), announced recently that it has entered into an agreement and plan of merger to acquire GXS Group, Inc. (GXS), a leader in business-to-business (B2B) cloud integration, pursuant to which GXS will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of OpenText.

OpenText’s acquisition of GXS for $1.165 billion is further proof that the market is entering in an era of Enterprise Information Management.  The GXS acquisition further strengthens the Information Exchange Pillar of OpenText with the addition of market leading cloud-based business-to-business integration services.

OpenText is an important partner to SAP for accounts payable automation; however, the document management needs of larger enterprises are now mature.  Software sales growth for accounts payable automation is slowing and opportunity now lies in electronic transactions.  GXS has made a big commitment to the financial supply chain – a fast growing market with tremendous potential.

Together OpenText and GXS expect to serve more than 55.000 trading partners and 80.000 customers and support approximately 16 billion annual transactions in the cloud.

“In today’s global and highly distributed business, the on-going complexities and costs of do-it-yourself B2B integration pose significant challenges to organizations that need to integrate and orchestrate multi-enterprise processes across time, geographies and a multitude of trading partners,” said Bob Segert, President and Chief Executive Officer of GXS. “Integrating the GXS portfolio into OpenText will allow CIOs to focus their efforts on driving revenue growth while enabling innovation to stay ahead of the competition.”

Click here to view the entire OpenText press release.

Kyriba Launches Proactive Treasury Management

SaaS leader unveils next generation of successful treasury strategy, to enable forward-thinking finance departments to optimize their cash, manage their risk and work their capital

Kyriba, a leader in cloud-based treasury management solutions, recently launched Proactive Treasury Management (PTM). Proactive Treasury Management is a new set of solutions and methodology for treasury departments to better anticipate and plan for market volatility, regulation and fraud, as well as leverage opportunities for growth. By implementing PTM, organizations optimize their cash, manage their risk and work their capital more successfully.

PTM was developed in response to several recent changes within treasury: increased exposure to financial risk and fraud, continuing convergence and centralization of cash and liquidity tools and processes, and the growing need for treasuries to unlock deeper strategic value within the organization. Recent data has shown that 59 percent of CFOs see an increase in risk exposure compared to five years ago1, and 77 percent of North American organizations will have regional or global cash concentration centers by the end of 20142. Meanwhile, treasury teams feel the need to spend 50 percent more of their time than present on decision support and a third less time on transactional tasks3, in order to better support their businesses.

Kyriba established PTM in collaboration with its clients and industry thought-leaders, bringing together best-practice treasury solutions from some of the world’s largest and most successful organizations, into a single solution and methodology. The new approach will allow treasury teams to better adapt to the “new normal” of economic volatility, while delivering the visibility and control to increase business value for the organization.

Click here to view the entire Kyriba press release.

Today’s treasury managers are tasked to do more with less.  Cloud-based treasury management solutions work to balance both the traditional tasks of managing cash, short-term debt and investments, while also providing the capability to manage capital market activities, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity, insurance and pension programs, and working capital management.

Mark your calendar to check back for PayStream’s upcoming Q1 2014 Treasury Workstation report.  The report will provide detailed information on these sophisticated tools and how they enable companies to optimize treasury operations and achieve greater profitability.

To learn more about this upcoming report, click through to the PayStream Research Calendar.

 

Billtrust Debuts EmailPlus, Combining Convenience of Email Bill Delivery with Electronic Payment

 Billtrust, a leading outsourced billing and payment services provider, recently announced the debut of EmailPlus, an easy-to-deploy service that combines the convenience of email delivery with the benefits of receiving electronic payment and remittance information.

“Today’s businesses are looking to capture the advantages of both ePresentment and ePayment,” said Flint Lane, CEO of Billtrust. “Billtrust delivers over $25 billion worth of email invoices each year, and unfortunately, the majority of these result in a check payment. These checks are incredibly expensive and inefficient to process and often don’t come with clean remittance data.”

Billtrust’s EmailPlus provides a turnkey solution to resolve the challenge for both biller and bill recipient. With EmailPlus, bill recipients receive an attractive, emailed summary of their invoices along with PDF bill attachments. With just one click, bill recipients can securely view and pay invoices, as well as download invoicing data directly into leading accounting packages, such as QuickBooks, and have convenient anytime, anywhere access to invoices.

For billers, EmailPlus delivers the first business-to-business billing email platform that combines electronic bill delivery and payments. In addition to the efficiency of sending out invoices via email, billers receive electronic payment and remittance data that can load automatically into ERP systems.

“Simply put, this product makes sense. My company sends over 80 percent of its bills through electronic channels, but we’ve struggled with online payment growth. Integrating payments into email is a great way for us to move our customer base to a more convenient form of payment that benefits our operation,” said Rob Richardson, Director of Credit at Corken Steel Products Company.

“Increasing the use of online payments that deliver the needed remittance data is becoming more important for companies as they face slower mail times, increased costs and inefficiencies in payment application,” said Bruno Perreault, SVP of Payments at Billtrust. “This service is the new path to electronic payment adoption.”

Click to view the entire Billtrust press release.

To learn more about the benefits of electronic payments, download a complimentary copy of PayStream’s ePayments report.

Cloud Business Software Developer and Reseller Named to Fast Track 50 List for Sixth Year

e2b teknologies, cloud business application developer and reseller of ERP and CRM solutions, recently announced the company has been named to the Lake-Geauga Fast Track 50 List for the sixth year in a row. Winners of the Fast Track 50 Award were honored at an awards banquet at La Malfa Centre in Mentor, Ohio.

Last year the company was inducted into the hall of fame after having been named to the list five years in a row, e2b teknologies continued the trend in 2013 and has now been a member of the list of the fastest growing companies since 2007. The Lake-Geauga Fast Track 50 is a business recognition program that awards local companies in Lake and Geauga counties for their growth and success. Each year, the Fast Track 50 committee compiles a list of the fastest growing companies in the region based on sales and employment growth.

“With so many successful companies in our region we are honored to have been named to the hall of fame in 2012 and now as a six-time winner of the fast track award in 2013,” said Lynne Henslee, President of e2b teknologies. “Our employees work hard to provide quality service to our customers and ensure we are always an innovative and relevant participant in our industry. It is both our employees and our customers to whom we owe our continued growth and success.”

To learn more about e2b teknologies, download a complimentary copy of PayStream’s Revenue Cycle Management report. The report features a detailed profile on e2b teknologies.

ADP Enhances Electronic Invoicing Solution to Help Streamline Processes and Boost Productivity for Midsized and Large Businesses

ADP®, a leading global provider of Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions, recently  announced that new enhancements to its electronic invoicing offering from its ADP Procure-to-Pay Solutions ® (P2P) platform will help boost productivity for midsized and large businesses. The enhancements include the extension of existing invoice collaboration tools, improved visibility and access to accounts payable data, more advanced coding capabilities and a mobile application.  Businesses can now improve their accounts payable process and process invoices more efficiently than ever before by taking advantage of these capabilities to reduce the need for manual methods and streamline overall workflow.

The latest enhancements include to ADP’s P2P electronic invoicing solution include:

  • Advanced messaging for invoice collaboration.  By opening the lines of communication between multiple teams but managing invoices within a single system, businesses are in a better position to streamline supplier communications, reduce internal handoffs and ensure timely resolution of invoice status inquiries, questions and disputes.  Businesses can also help improve consistency by distributing messages to multiple vendors simultaneously.
  • Improved visibility into accounts payable data.  Businesses now have more comprehensive access to their accounts payable data and transaction-level information, and can access it quickly and easily through ADP’s system.  Custom queries and filters, scheduled reports and flexible options to share data via email, system alerts or the P2P dashboard improve visibility and help allow for more strategic decision-making around processes and supplier relationships.
  • More advanced coding.  Enhancements to ADP’s rule-based coding engine now allow for advanced supplier-level coding and establishment of both approval thresholds and multiple levels of approval.  These changes provide businesses with greater flexibility and control as they focus on driving invoice automation and managing costs.

In conjunction with these updates, ADP is launching a mobile version of ADP Procure-to-Pay Solutions that allows users to manage accounts payable activity while on the go.  Through the mobile app, businesses can approve, view, forward, dispute and/or add comments to invoices from mobile device, allowing further improved productivity.

Click  to view the entire ADP press release.

Download a complimentary copy of PayStream’s 2012 eInvoicing Adoption Benchmarking report that includes a detailed ADP profile that will provide you with more information on ADP’s eInvoicing solution.

GTreasury and Hedge Trackers Announce Strategic Alliance

G Treasury SS, LLC and Hedge Trackers, LLC recently announced the establishment of their strategic partnership.  As a result of the alliance the two companies will be able to offer a more comprehensive solution to treasury and accounting professionals for liquidity and hedge management.

Orazio Pater, COO of GTreasury stated “We are very excited to be partnering with Hedge Trackers.  Their world-class tools and service are a perfect fit for our client’s needs and fills a gap in our current offering.”  Helen Kane, founder of Hedge Trackers, was equally as excited about the alliance adding “The cultural and functional synergies between us and GTreasury will really benefit both companies, but more importantly our current and future clients”.

By joining forces Hedge Trackers and GTreasury will be able to offer a comprehensive treasury and accounting system capable of tracking any number of financial transactions.  Transactions can then be hedged according to set internal policies and reported to auditors along with any required documentation.  Mr. Pater added “the complementary nature of our two product offerings will certainly help our clients with their month and quarter end processes and better manage their currency risk”.

Click here to view the entire GTreasury press release.

Today’s treasury managers are tasked to do more with less.  Treasury management solutions work to balance both the traditional tasks of managing cash, short-term debt and investments, while also providing the capability to manage capital market activities, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity, insurance and pension programs, and working capital management.

Mark your calendar to check back for PayStream’s upcoming Q1 2014 Treasury Workstation report.  The report will provide detailed information on these sophisticated tools and how they enable companies to optimize treasury operations and achieve greater profitability.

To learn more about this upcoming report, click through to the PayStream Research Calendar.

 

Reval Announces Atlas as New STP Community Partner

Brings New Approach to FX Exposure Management in an Innovative, End-to-End Workflow 

Reval, a leading global provider of comprehensive and integrated Software-as-a-Service solutions for Treasury and Risk Management (TRM), announced recently that Atlas Risk Advisory is now part of its STP Community of software and service providers. The joint offering will enhance the user experience for companies wanting an accurate approach to FX Exposure Management in an end-to-end TRM workflow.

Reval and Atlas clients will be able to identify, extract and aggregate only the relevant data from their ERP systems and generate accurate forecasted FX exposures. Within a powerful straight-through processing workflow, companies will then be able to make informed hedging decisions, execute and settle their trades. Post-trade, they will be able to perform advanced analytics to analyze their hedge results, quantify any variances and comply with hedge accounting requirements - all through one SaaS TRM platform.

“Identifying and extracting data is just the beginning,” explains Scott Bilter, Atlas Partner. “What companies need is an end-to-end workflow that also incorporates advanced analytics to help net and manipulate their FX exposure data. Our partnership with Reval brings the most innovative workflow for FX Exposure management to treasurers in the market.”

“Atlas offers clients a unique FX risk management methodology, incorporating income statement data with balance sheet data for an accurate, forward-looking picture of FX exposures. This is a more reliable approach than what is sometimes done today, which is to take daily snapshots of balance sheet statements as a proxy for the future,” explains James Gilbert, Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Reval. “We are thrilled to have the power of Atlas as part of Reval’s straight-through processing experience for end-to-end treasury and risk management.”

Click here to view the entire Reval press release.

Today’s treasury managers are tasked to do more with less.  Cloud-based treasury and risk management (TRM) solutions work to balance both the traditional tasks of managing cash, short-term debt and investments, while also providing the capability to manage capital market activities, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity, insurance and pension programs, and working capital management.

Mark your calendar to check back for PayStream’s upcoming Q1 2014 TRM report.  The report will provide detailed information on these sophisticated tools and how they enable companies to optimize treasury operations and achieve greater profitability.

To learn more about this upcoming report, click through to the PayStream Research Calendar.

 

Storebrand Takes Procurement to the Cloud with Ariba

When it comes to efficiently managing the procurement process, there’s no better place to do it than the Cloud. And with the help of applications from Ariba, an SAP Company, Storebrand ASA, a leading player in the Nordic markets for pensions, life and health insurance, banking and asset management is driving rapid supply chain savings without the headaches of managing software. Storebrand, which has been using Ariba’s cloud-based solutions to manage its sourcing and contract management activities since 2010, has expanded its portfolio to include Ariba® Procure-to-Order™, which it will use to drive a more efficient and effective process for buying goods and services across its operations.

“Storebrand is all about efficiency. We are creating lean processes to maximize relationships with our trading partners and optimize our cost structure,” said Knut Olav Melhus Hoeg, Group CPO, Storebrand. “With Ariba’s solutions in place, we can quickly connect with our suppliers and manage the entire procurement process from sourcing and contracting, to order and receive through a single interface that can be easily accessed and shared.”

To achieve its goals, Storebrand will use Ariba Procure-to-Order in conjunction with Ariba Sourcing™, Ariba Supplier Information and Performance Management™ and Ariba Contract Management™

“We use Ariba Sourcing to source everything from office furniture and IT systems and services to management of properties owned by the group and recruitment services to consultants,” Hoeg said. Likewise, Storebrand uses Ariba Contract Management to centrally manage all of its purchasing agreements and ensure compliance.

With Ariba Procure-to-Order, Storebrand extends these efficiencies to the requisitioning and procurement execution process. The solution enables requisitioners to easily search and access catalogs to quickly find the goods and services they need; all while ensuring compliance with preferred vendor agreements, contracted prices and buying policies.

Why Ariba?  Because it’s easy. “We can be up and running more quickly and cost-effectively with Ariba than we could using other solutions,” Hoeg said.

Storebrand is further speeding adoption and improving supply chain efficiencies by tapping into the Ariba Network, which contains everything that’s needed to for efficient and scalable trading partner discovery, connectivity, and collaboration:

  • Market-leading cloud-based applications for buying, selling and managing cash – all delivered as cost-effective, burden-free services.
  • The world’s largest Web-based trading community, used by more than one million companies to conduct over $500 billion in commerce on an annual basis.
  • Network-derived intelligence and community insights to power better business decisions.

 

Click here to view the entire Ariba press release.

Download a complimentary copy of PayStream’s 2013 Electronic Invoice Benchmark report to learn more about Ariba’s solution functionality.  In addition, download the Electronic Procurement report to learn more about how eProcurement and P2P solutions can drive significant revenue and efficiency results in your company.

Coupa Software’s Global Expansion Drives Record Third Quarter in Revenue and Customer Deployment Success

Coupa Software, a leading provider of cloud solutions for finance, today announced third quarter 2013 results, highlighted by a 100 percent increase in revenue and subscription renewals over Q3 2012, and the launching of five new vertical market solutions. Additionally, the company has now posted 19 quarters of sequential subscription revenue growth.

“Coupa had another exceptional quarter, as our accelerated global growth continued,” said Rob Bernshteyn, chief executive officer, Coupa. “With our customers input and support, we’ve launched five new industry specific solutions this quarter that have been very well received. Our main focus continues to be helping our customers achieve success at spend optimization with our unified cloud suite.”

Key highlights from the quarter include:

  • Revenue increased more than 100 percent. Coupa delivered quarterly revenue growth in Q3 2013 that was in excess of 100 percent over Q3 2012
  • Customer renewal rate remains at about 100 Percent. Contract renewal rates for Q3 2013 were about 100 percent
  • One Vision Roadshow. Coupa completed a global roadshow tour though San Francisco, Columbus, Raleigh, Chicago, London, Toronto, New York, Dallas, and Sydney drawing well over a thousand attendees
  • New vertical market solutions. Coupa delivered five new vertical market solutions with specific configurations and support: retail, financial services, high tech, healthcare, food & beverage
  • Expanded executive management team. JP Krishnamoorthy was hired as Vice President of Engineering, previously at Oracle
  • Coupa release 10. The latest update of the award-winning Coupa suite now offers automated accounts payable reconciliation, new expense reporting capabilities for managing corporate cards, and an enhanced invoicing interface
  • Partner News. Major firms partnering with Coupa sponsored the One Vision roadshow including: Deloitte, KPMG and Orbitz for Business

Highlighted Coupa customer wins: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Interline Brands, Inc., eircom, Ltd., TPG Capital, Vail Resorts Management Company, Al-Elm Security Company, Box, Inc., Endurance International Group, East African Telecom, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, Land O’Lakes, Mercury General Corporation, San Diego Zoo, and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Inc.

“Coupa’s cloud-based solution means our software is continually and seamlessly upgraded,” said Gavin Johnston, vice president, finance & procurement, EMEA, NEC. “Everyone using it experiences exceptional performance and access to key capabilities. We anticipate substantial cost savings over time as we drive towards full compliance.”

Click here to view the entire Coupa press release.

To learn more about Coupa’s solution functionality, download a complimentary copy of PayStream Advisors 2013 Electronic Procurement report.  The report includes a detailed Coupa profile.