This year, we expect several trends to drive the growth of global e-commerce. As companies continue to focus on managing spend and increasing profitability, they will look for ways to increase real-time visibility and control over their finances.
Financial collaboration between trading partners through e-invoicing and transactions over interoperable business commerce networks will continue to increase as companies realize the value that they deliver in visibility, cost savings and improved buyer/supplier relationships. A recent study from Billentis reported that the potential cost savings of e-invoicing is estimated to be as much as 60-80% compared to traditional paper-based processing. We saw growth in this area last year and expect it to continue. In the 2012 e-invoicing study commissioned by Basware, 73% of respondents globally used electronic invoicing to some degree compared to 59% in 2011. Legislative requirements, improvements in connectivity solutions and market awareness will further support this growth.
Analytics will continue to be critical in helping companies uncover financial bottlenecks and opportunities for costs savings. By gathering information across a business commerce network of trading partners, companies will gain greater insights beyond their internal organization. For example, they can uncover procurement and payment trends, optimize performance of the transactional network, and identify opportunities across the financial supply chain for accelerated payments, factoring or other strategies. With this insight across the entire P2P extended network, companies can improve their cash-to-cash conversion cycles and critical performance indicators such as DSOs (days sales outstanding) and DPOs (days payment outstanding).
Cloud-based solutions for finance will increase in popularity since it enables companies of all sizes –SMBs as well as enterprises –to benefit from efficiencies and cost savings. With cloud-based solutions, Accounts Payable and Finance departments can be agile and easily respond to changes in economic conditions, regulations or company developments without involving IT resources. Security will continue to be at the heart of cloud offerings, with providers maintaining the highest levels of security across all financial transactions and business interactions.
Mobile apps will continue to grow, as workers become increasingly accustomed to using the same devices (i.e., smart phones and tablets) at work, as they do at home. Finance departments will continue to see the value of mobile apps for approving invoices and purchase requisitions. By enabling real-time anywhere, anytime access, businesses can speed up the review and approval cycles of invoice and requisition processing, providing data visibility and actionable performance insight on the move.
These trends will enable companies to gain greater visibility and control over their finances as well as conduct effective P2P transactions, identify savings opportunities, and better manage cash flow and spend. All in all, it sounds like it will be a good year for finance.
