e-invoicing

The problem with start-ups is they’re start-ups. For large organizations, it’s a difficult choice to go with a relatively new business even if their business model stacks up, which makes securing new business doubly difficult. And it makes the early years of a start-up the most challenging. Investors and industry observers know this and slow growth and moderate sales figures are expected but even with a great proposition, world class marketing and favourable write-ups from bloggers and analysts, there comes a point when the business model needs proving. We need to taste the pudding. Which is why we’re delighted to see the latest announcement from Tradeshift.

There’s been something in the air all year electronic invoicing. There has been before but this time it’s different. Exciting developments in Latin America as government mandate its use and European government following suit. The market research conducted by Paystream Advisors in collaboration with Purchasing Insight shows some exciting growth evidence (some of which will be presented at EXPP in Berlin in a few weeks) and it’s all backed up by an increasing number of new win announcements, the latest of which comes from OB10. It has just been announced that Australian building products company CSR has selected OB10,  to offer electronic invoicing to its 10,000 suppliers.

This is the year for e-invoicing. It’s been said every year for the last decade at least. But what’s the reality? If you refer to marketing texts you’ll find that the innovators and the early adopters make up something like 15% of the market. You don’t get to see mass adoption of a disruptive technology until the early majority start to take a new idea on board, but once it does, we see a the tipping point. There’s no going back and the world changes. And for the last 10 years the tipping point for e-invoicing has been just around the corner. Is this year any different?

Today we're delighted to welcome a post from Christian Hjorth, CCO at Tradeshift

There once was a time in business when you bought a box, it did what you expected until it became obsolete and then you bought a new one. The key functions of your company were essentially run by equipment and (often-expensive) experts in-house who knew how to get the most from it.

Of course, the cloud has changed all that - and while I’m sure we don’t need to go into the full history of that here, there is one aspect of this shift that is becoming more and more important. When you’re talking about software-as-a-service, it’s nothing without consistent and improving service.

The business case for e-invoicing is normally measured from the perspective of the accounts payable process in the buying organization. Indeed, it is often said that most if not all of the benefits are stacked in the buyers favor - it’s the buyers that get to automate and eliminate process whereas for the supplier they only seem to incur costs. It’s time suppliers woke up. Take a simplistic view and you can barely make a business case for e-invoicing but take a closer look and the benefits can be astonishing.