CPO Rising regularly publishes news stories and general announcements on the people, companies, and events that have and will have a big impact on supply management. Our regular “P2P Tech Roundup” series does the same, albeit with greater focus on the P2P and AP segments of our coverage.
Oildex Launches OpenInvoice Field Ticket
Oildex, a service of Tranzap Inc., and a provider of financial supply chain technology to the oil and gas industry, yesterday announced the release of OpenInvoice Field Ticket™, a new solution which is designed to bring cloud-based document automation to the oil and gas professionals working in the field and help reduce the time between the completion of a work assignment (by a third-party) and the submission and approval of an invoice. For those less familiar with this industry, the submission of a supplier’s field ticket to a customer’s site supervisor, and its subsequent approval, precede the creation of an invoice by the supplier.
The new solution is designed to automate the particularly cumbersome manual process of creating, delivering, and approving field tickets while also enabling better visibility to both the service provider (or contractor) and the buyer’s AP department. The Field Ticket solution connects directly with Oildex’s OpenInvoice AP automation platform, which can help to drive further spend and data visibility. The lack of visibility and time delays caused by a paper-based field ticket management process clearly pose problems for suppliers who may never return to the site or have an easy way to communicate with site supervisors; but, it also creates problems for site operators who are responsible for tracking period expenses against budgets and revenue.
Lyft Releases Customized Expense Reports for Business Customers
Lyft, the transportation network company that facilitates peer-to-peer ridesharing, recently announced that its business customers can now create customized expense reports based on their ride history. This new capability follows on the heels of its April release of which gave business users the ability to differentiate between personal and work-related travel.There is no indication of direct integration with any current travel and expense solution providers, but the new functionality, regardless, is worthwhile for business travelers using Lyft’s service and seeking reimbursement from their employers.
This is another indication of the ongoing trend of “next-gen” B2C companies pursing the enterprise (or B2B) market. We have seen it with Egencia, Amazon Business, Airbnb, and Uber, Lyft’s primary rival, which launched a similar capability last year.
To remain viable in the long-term, traditional travel vendors need to ramp up their responses to these new, disruptive competitors.
SAP Ariba to Enter Chinese Market
SAP Ariba announced last week that it will make its “cloud-based procurement applications” available in China before the end of 2016. In its announcement, SAP Ariba notes that it is already used in other Asian countries, counting over 500,000 Asia-based enterprises as users already.
For a variety of factors, including some political and cultural, Asian markets have lagged their Western brethren in the adoption of supply management solutions. That is starting to change with a recent uptick in Japan and some of the more developed nations. China has remained a more difficult market for foreign companies, including enterprise technology providers, to enter, due to its very high level of government regulation/involvement in business. Recent legislation and other in-country reporting seems to indicate that the barriers to entry are lowering.
SAP Ariba joins other solution providers, like IBM-Emptoris and Tradeshift, who have previously established a presence in China.
Bottomline Technologies Announces Q4 and FY 2016 Earnings
Bottomline Technologies, a provider of cloud-based business payment, invoice and digital banking solutions, including the Paymode-X payment network, last week reported financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended June 30, 2016. Revenues overall for the fourth quarter were $88.1 million, an increase of $2.7 million, or 3% from the fourth quarter of 2015. Revenues for the year were $343.3 million compared to $330.9 million for the preceding term while subscription and transaction revenues increased by 14%. Among the highlights, the company announced that seventeen customers selected Paymode-X in the company’s 4th quarter
Wells Fargo Announces New Leadership for SCF Group
Wells Fargo Capital Finance recently announced the new leadership of its Supply Chain Finance Originations group, which was created in the wake of the October 2015 acquisition of GE Capital’s Commercial Distribution Finance and Vendor Finance operations. John Schmidt, former managing partner and founder of Castle Pines Capital, LLC, which Wells Fargo acquired in 2011, will lead the team. Steve Hopkins, based in Denver, Colo., will lead Vendor Originations for the channel finance team, the technology vertical for Supply Chain Finance; Mike Marcolina, based in Atlanta, will lead Business Development for the channel finance team; and Daniel Pfeiffer, based in Weston, Florida, will lead and manage the Supply Chain Finance sales team for the Supplier Finance and Key Accounts Purchase programs.
The three pieces of the Supply Chain Finance Group, Channel Finance, Supplier Finance, and Sales Finance, are designed to address both B2B payables and receivables, helping to support buyer and supplier operations with the liquidity needed to keep supply chains (and businesses,in general) moving.
Saudi Arabia to Require eInvoicing for B2B Transactions
Thomson Reuters recently reported that an official at the Ministry of Commerce and Investment told the Saudi newspaper, Al Eqtisadiah, that private companies in Saudi Arabia must have their accounting departments ready to accept electronic invoices beginning in 2017. The new requirement is being overseen by the Saudi Department of Zakat and Income Taxes, and is being put into place ahead of new taxes that will be rolled out in 2018. The switch to eInvoicing is designed to make it easier for the Saudi government to collect these new taxes, which are part of a Gulf Cooperation Council agreement designed to standardize taxes across the region. Saudi Arabia plans to introduce a new 5% value-added tax as well as other taxes on specific commodities like soda and tobacco.
American Express Global Business Travel Announces New CEO
American Express Global Business Travel (“GBT”) announced last week that Doug Anderson has been named as its new CEO. Anderson brings more than 30 years of global travel management experience to the role, having joined GBT from Carlson Wagonlit Travel—where he served as CEO for almost a decade. GBT was spun off from American Express more than two years ago, and has operations in 120 countries worldwide.
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