Editor’s Note: Over the next few weeks on CPO Rising, we’re publishing some “best of” 2019 articles as we reflect on the year and prepare for the new year ahead. 

[Editor’s Note: Ardent Partners recently published its annual AP-themed report, The State of ePayables 2019: Driving Value in the Age of Intelligence. Today’s article is part of an on-going series focused on the report’s key findings. If you would like to get the full report, it is available for download here (registration required).]

‘Smart’ systems are everywhere today. Both the business and consumer worlds have been impacted by the advent of “smart” systems that blend process automation, cognitive intelligence, and real-time operations. Just as the average consumer has the ability to develop a “smart home” that auto-detects when heat, air conditioning, lights, security cameras, etc. should be turned on, smart business systems learn from repeated use and can provide enterprise executives with the power of foresight and intelligence. Within the world of AP, smarter systems can translate into a whole new world of efficiency, including:

• Next-level automation of the traditional components of AP.
• Near-complete eradication of menial and tactical tasks a gateway towards future AP success).
• “Touchless” and holistic (aka “straight-through processing”) invoice and payment management.
• Predictive analytics for forecasting, planning, and budgeting.
• Machine learning-led intelligence that can revolutionize the data that flows through AP.

In Ardent Partners’ 2019 State of ePayables research report, we asked AP, Finance, Treasury, and Procurement professionals what was necessary to transport AP to the next level of achievement. As shown in the chart below, the vast majority (76%) of businesses point to one major attribute as essential to the group’s ultimate success: smarter systems.

Key Elements Required for AP’s Performance to Reach the Next Level

Additionally, deeper and more agile analytics (51%) remain a key piece for AP to achieve higher performance levels in the years to come. Business agility enables organizations to react dynamically to real-time pressures and challenges; agile reporting translates into the capability to extract deep financial and supplier data to help anticipate future scenarios and react accordingly. And ultimately, what is it we hope to gain by analyzing and interrogating data? Smarter and better decision making capabilities.

Not far behind improved analytics, Collaboration and Eradication of Tactical Tasks both came in at 49%. Both of these remain a crucial piece of AP’s ongoing advancement. Since the beginning of time (well almost) AP has known that manual, paper-based tasks need to be automated as much as possible. But only in the more recent past has AP realized and started collaborating more closely with other functions in their organization. Why? To be able to be ‘smarter’ about how they can provide better value to their organization as well as better serve the needs of other departments that rely upon AP. The AP function is destined to do great things, but it cannot (and should not) do it all alone. The “quid pro quo” inherent in AP and stakeholder collaboration means that strategies like procurement/AP collaboration, in addition to providing the CPO and its team with more useful (and actionable) spend/supplier data, boosts the overall strategic value of the AP unit. Similarly, if AP’s core intelligence can be leveraged in conjunction with stakeholders like treasury, the everyday insights that pass through the function can be leveraged for grand enterprise strategic thinking.

Doing things the same way over and over and expecting different results is not the way of the future. AP professionals are starting to realize this in-masse and are looking to technology, aka ‘Smarter Systems’, to help them provide both short-term gains and long-term strategic value to the greater organization. Accounts Payable professionals have never had so much technology at their disposal and now it is up to them to put it to work.

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Tagged in: Ardent Partners Research, ePayables, P2P, Strategy, Technology