Insights

There are few that would disagree that Ariba sits firmly amongst the best in class procurement vendors. Its heritage goes back to the pioneering days of e-procurement and it has continued to innovate successfully ever since, diversifying its portfolio of solutions across the P2P spectrum. But while its procurement credentials are impeccable - the first P - how credible is Ariba at addressing the second P at the payment end of the spectrum?

You get social media - I can tell because you're using it now. And for those professional people who still don't get it, they need to catch up soon. Now that Google has entered the fray with Google+, even the die hard cynics are going to realize it's importance. But knowing it's important doesn't mean you understand it and not understanding social media in the corporate world can lead to anything from embarrassment to disaster. So what are the worst mistakes you can make with corporate social media? We've compiled a short list based on real mistakes that real corporates are making today.

It's some time since I heard anyone claim that a pdf invoice was an electronic invoice - but people used to. Fundamentally missing the point of "e-anything" it seemed, some organisations would claim to be embracing the 21st century by replacing paper with pdfs. Fantastic! Well it would be if they didn't print the soft copies in order to process them. This is not a joke. Even today, in 2011, I know of a bank - a global bank - that does just this. It's pathetic!

Readsoft and OB10 have announced a new global partnerships - aimed it seems at delivering the synergy that the two organisation can deliver around e-invoicing and AP automation. The press release states that the two companies have developed a "comprehensive, end-to-end business process solution that will integrate seamlessly with SAP, Oracle and other leading financial and ERP systems using the ReadSoft INVOICE COCKPIT Suite as a universal invoice hub to control all invoice processing irrespective of document format."

Purchasing is a complex set of interconnected and dependent people, processes and technology. - market knowledge; benchmarking information; purchase to pay and accounting systems and processes and last but by no means least - data. Data - your procurement organization's Achilles heal.

There's been a good debate on linkedin over the past few days full of insightful and educated opinions on every side of the e-invoicing discussion. It was started by Christian Lanng from Tradeshift asking what free really means but it spawned into a wide debate about e-invoicing generally and the relative merits of PDF, EDI, XML and of course, scanning which some of the the purists believe, is not the answer to the "e-invoicing problem" because it requires manual intervention.