With today’s article, we are excited to announce the publication of Ardent Partners’ latest AP research report, “The State of ePayables 2021: Operating in the New Normal”. Over the next few months, this site will feature articles highlighting the key discussion points from the report. If you’d like access to this report, make sure to register for our newsletter with a business email address.
About the Report:
In 2021, the accounts payable (“AP”) profession continues to gain momentum and impact business operations and results in an increasingly strategic way. The global uncertainty that pervades today’s market indicates the very real threat of a deep economic downturn. In response, the CFO’s new “hierarchy of needs” has placed a laser focus on business continuity and ensuring the liquidity needed to fund ongoing operations. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, this renewed focus on liquidity and cash management is poised to pull AP into the limelight with an urgency never before seen.
In the age of globalization, a pebble tossed halfway around the world can have a rippling effect that builds across the oceans and lands as a tidal wave. The coronavirus is that pebble – the cause of a truly global pandemic with implications that have been both devastating and surreal. COVID-19’s immediate impact on financial operations was to place many accounts payable (“AP”) professionals in harm’s way as they worked to ensure business continuity. These AP professionals worked urgently to keep their businesses going, bolster financial resilience, and help to prepare their enterprises for the next economic phase. In 2020, AP had never been more important to business operations and business results. Sixteen months later, AP’s importance remains at an apex.
In June, 2021, as many communities, businesses, and countries begin to turn the corner and emerge from the most severe COVID-19 restrictions, others have seemingly just entered very tough times. This makes the immediate future of business, in general, and accounts payable, specifically, hard to predict. What is clear, however, is that the pandemic has already begun to make lasting changes that will affect future generations of AP professionals. It is also certain that when the pandemic finally ends, AP will be “Operating in the New Normal.”
Ardent’s 16th annual State of ePayables market research report will help you gain insight into best practices, benchmark performance against the Best-in-Class, and, learn key strategies to improve operations and performance. This report includes benchmarks, recommendations, and analysis that all AP leaders and their teams can use to better understand the state of AP today.
This Report is sponsored by:
