Author: Pete Loughlin

19 Jun

Posted at 09:14h in AP Automation, e-invoicing, Electronic Invoicing by
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It was announced a few weeks ago that the Mexican Government has given businesses just 6 months to prepare for a major legislative change that will directly affect hundreds of thousands of small and medium sized businesses. And it’s not a trivial change. If businesses want to get paid for goods and services they supply, they’ll need to ensure that they generate invoices correctly and in accordance with the new rules. It’s not optional. There’ll be no excuses. It seems like a good idea to insist on the use of electronic invoices. It’s a mandate for common sense. The Mexican Government is embracing the digital age and at the same time implementing a zero tolerance approach to business taxes. But the rate of change they are imposing could create chaos as businesses fail to meet the deadline.

12 Jun

Posted at 12:39h in AP Automation, e-invoicing, Electronic Invoicing by
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I’ve watched what Mexico is doing with great interest. The people behind the e-invoice mandate in Mexico are courageous and ambitious but they’re not the first to tackle such a challenge. Some time ago I chatted to Christian Lanng, CEO of Tradeshift, about his experience in Denmark and it struck me that there could be some interesting insights from his experience in developing the Danish mandated solution EasyTrade. So I asked him. To what extent, if any, I wondered, is Mexico treading in Denmark’s footsteps?

06 Jun

Posted at 15:06h in Purchase to Pay by
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A major shift in the way P2P departments collaborate has been highlighted in a new survey conducted by Accounts Payable News and sponsored by Basware. The survey highlights the introduction of Heads of P2P, or Global Process Owners as a key driver of this change. Over 58% of departments now work closely together, resulting in increased organisational level recognition for Accounts Payable (A/P) departments. The survey found that collaboration levels were also enabled by an increase in the application of automation solutions and technology, with 43% now using einvoicing, a 6% rise over last year. Despite this, those operating in an almost entirely automated environment remain in the minority, with fewer than 11% of organisations doing so.

05 Jun

Posted at 17:03h in AP Automation, e-invoicing, Electronic Invoicing by
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OB10 operation in the United States, OB10 have just posted record revenues in their financial year just closed. Figures for year ending April 30, 2013 show revenues generated from new buyer customers increased by 56% and the number of new suppliers on the network increased by 46% over the previous year. OB10 believe that the rise in new buyers and suppliers demonstrates that US corporations continue to seek efficiencies, streamline business processes, and improve their use of cash. That hardly surprising. We think that it's further evidence to support the view that e-invoicing is becoming embedded proven best practice in P2P.

03 Jun

Posted at 10:23h in AP Automation, e-invoicing, Electronic Invoicing by
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Not announced formally and officially yet but it seems that the decree is written. Italy will introduce mandatory electronic invoicing in 2014. The formal announcement is expected soon. When Brazil and Mexico embarked on their compulsory electronic invoicing agenda, I was not alone in wondering whether their plans were a little too ambitious. A few years on and I still wonder whether they’re a bit too ambitious but if there’s one thing we’ve learned, those plans aren’t changing. Mandatory e-invoicing is embedded in Latin America and the authorities are demonstrating the resolve and tenacity required to drive this significant change through. And this is what comes to mind when I heard the news that Italy is now embarking on a plan to eliminate paper invoices in public sector by 2015. Is it too ambitious for Italy or is there too much at stake to let it fail?

29 May

Posted at 09:30h in The Rest by
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We would all love to replicate success and when we see new and innovative ideas that disrupt the established order it's exciting to think that we can replicate it. But how do you do that? What's the secret sauce to success? We've all heard successful people say how their success was as a result of hard work. They deserve their success. They've earned it they say. But if it were true that hard work inevitably led to success, that would mean that those who are less successful work less hard. This is palpably untrue. Being in the right place at the right time, having a head start because of the country you grew up in or as a result of your parentage, possessing wealth and good health are all factors in becoming successful - and so is hard work - but the most important factor of all is good luck. Taking a success story and seeking to reverse engineer it to see how it can be replicated is like speaking to a group of lottery winners and asking them how they did it.

27 May

Posted at 20:55h in Social Media by
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The weapons in the marketer's arsenal are always evolving. In the B2C world there's been a frenzied exploitation of social media but in the B2B domain, it seems there is still some caution as the social media marketing landscape is assessed. There is still a great deal of uncertainty about what does and doesn't work and there have been as many high profile backfires as there have been success stories. What's especially interesting is how some of the tools are being used - not as you might expect.