With all of the recent market activity, it is not surprising that more and more people are talking about and focusing on Business Networks (sometimes referred to as B2B, Supplier, or Payment Networks) and it is not surprising that more and more enterprises are using them. I think this is great because, I have been focused on Business Networks, working to develop them and/or researching and analyzing them for more than 12 years. We’ve had the occasion to share our views in the past (see immediately below) and in two weeks time we will share our current views on the rapidly evolving state of the Business Network (see a little farther below).

In the Fall of 2010, we published a series entitled “The Future of P2P” (scroll to bottom of this link) that looked at how the eProcurement marketplace would evolve over the next few years. One article focused on the impact that networks would have on procurement professionals – click here to read it. In the Fall of 2011,we wrote an article called Six Major Trends for AP in 2012 that said

we have already entered what we believe is “The Decade of the (P2P/Supplier/Payment) Network.” Enabling more suppliers onto your system faster is the best way to drive full value from your investment in the solutions that you and your suppliers use to communicate, collaborate, and transact.

It appears that we were onto something because in the Fall of 2012 (this month!), Ardent Partners research found in its CPO Rising 2012: Keeping Score survey that 42% of all procurement departments report that business networks have had either a critical or significant impact on their business.

On December 13th, I will be digging deeper into these recent findings in an upcoming webinar sponsored by Hubwoo and discussing our views on how business networks are changing the procurement paradigm.

Here’s the official webinar description:

STEP CHANGE: How Business Networks are Changing the Procurement Paradigm

December 13, 2012
11:00am ET & 4:00pm GMT

Featuring:  Andrew Bartolini of Ardent Partners

A paradigm shift in the way trading partners communicate, transact, and collaborate has begun and business networks are at the core of this shift. Recent research from Ardent Partners has shown that procurement departments are using business networks more frequently and achieving greater results from their usage and Hubwoo customers like Honeywell, Nationwide and BASF, to name just a few, are part of this trend.

Join Andrew Bartolini, Chief Research Officer at Ardent Partners as he presents Ardent’s recent research on B2B business networks and discusses how procurement organizations are using networks to improve collaboration with suppliers and drive results across the entire Source-to-Settle process. Webinar attendees will:

  1. Learn about the advanced collaborative capabilities available in next generation business networks, including smart invoicing and payment.
  2. Understand the strategies that leading procurement organizations use to drive adoption internally and externally.
  3. Gain insight into different business network operating models and hear about their relative benefits

Click here to register

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