Purchase to Pay

You think purchase to pay is a back office function? e-invoicing is a technical innovation? AP automation an incremental improvement to financial supply chain management? And you wonder why nothing ever gets achieved. P2P is as boring as you make it. The reality is though, that purchase to pay, positioned properly, can deliver commercial benefits on a scale that would astound most executives.

I have sometimes described purchase to pay as sitting at the least glamorous end of the business spectrum. At one end is the sex, drug and rock 'n' roll world of PR, marketing and sales - life at the coal face where business really happens - and then at the other end there's the back office functions like purchasing, finance, internal audit. And if we take a closer look at the back office, sitting quietly right at the wrong end of the glamour spectrum is accounts payable. A colleague once described accounts payable as "the spinsters department". Jason Busch doesn't spare his vitriol in his criticism of AP suggesting that "most companies would likely be better off blowing up their AP function". To be fair he does suggest a more constructive fate for AP by describing how they might transform into a high value add supply chain finance operation - something I would strongly endorse. But for the time being, I want to defend AP. Why? Because much of the criticism is unfair and especially when it comes from purchasing.

I wonder if it's just me that recalls that embarrassing teenage episode when one of your friends declares their new membership of the biker club. Proudly carrying their full face helmet, they don't volunteer that they haven't actually managed to save enough money for the bike yet. I cringe when think of it the same way I cringe when I hear CPOs claim their savings.

I like and admire good sales people. I would even go so far as to say that I enjoy being sold to - when it's done well. Taking the time to understand me and my situation, my objectives, my likes and dislikes. Adding value to the purchasing process by overlaying technical expertise to help me refine my requirements. Being respectful of the competition and respectful of the constraints on my purchasing process that at times can make me appear to be a difficult buyer. This is what I like. I'm a sucker for a good, professional sales pitch. Which is why I was so disappointed recently to come across one of the worst sales pitches I have ever witnessed from a company - a software vendor in the P2P space - who really should have known better.

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?

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.