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Working Capital Management

22 Oct

Posted at 14:10h in Financial Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Finance, Working Capital Management by
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A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with Tony Duggan, CEO of Crossflow Payments, an organisation looking at alternative ways to bring together suppliers and corporate buyers and strengthen supply chains. Supply Chain Finance is a bit of a buzzword at the moment. The old guard, the banks who seem to have tunnel vision for the very big trade finance deals, and the factors who exploit to a greater or lesser extent the vulnerabilities of small and medium sized businesses view the new SCF players with a mixture of  doubt, suspicion and (although they’d not admit it) – fear. And they’re right to. Some of the new models emerging are innovative and impressive and they promise to take business away from the traditionalists. Crossflow is going to do just that in my view. Inspired by hands on experience in industry, Crossflow Payments has taken the concept of ‘Just In Time’ manufacturing and applied it to the financial supply chain. Tony believes that this can help transform the way financial supply chains operate.

13 Oct

Posted at 13:10h in AP Automation, The Rest, Working Capital Management by
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The BBC reports today the the Prompt Payment Code - a UK government backed initiative to encourage big business to pay on time - isn't working. In other news, the sun came up this morning and it is expected to get dark sometime tonight. The Prompt Payment Code provides little more than gentle encouragement to business to demonstrate - in words at least - that they will pay according to terms. I wouldn't criticize for one moment those businesses that have signed up to it. I know that they are sincere in their intentions. But the code doesn't have teeth. It doesn't name and shame transgressors. It doesn't hold business to account if they pay little attention to actually delivering against the promise. And it's hardly surprising therefore that it's not working.

23 Sep

Posted at 07:10h in AP Automation, Purchase to Pay, Purchase to Pay Process, Supplier Networks, Supply Chain, Supply Chain Finance, Working Capital Management by
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On the back of the extraordinary announcements over recent weeks , MasterCard and Basware have just declared another supply chain finance deal. It's a big deal and it's another sign if we needed it that products and services providing working capital support to business is one of the faster growing areas in B2B. I chatted to Esa Tihilä, CEO of Basware and Hany Fam, President, Global Strategic Alliances at MasterCard last week about this new partnership. It's good news for Basware - they now have an important new string to their bow, but I think it's even better news for MasterCard who couldn't have chosen a better partner.

11 Sep

Posted at 08:31h in AP Automation, Electronic Invoicing, Supply Chain, Supply Chain Finance, Working Capital Management by
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Q4 2013 may well be remembered as the inflexion point for AP automation and supply chain finance. The synergy between e-invoicing and supply chain finance (SCF) has been recognized for some time but the reality of business is that despite the benefits staring us in the face, it takes time to put the pieces together and for it to become a reality. Software needs to be developed or adapted, marketing campaigns crafted and pilot programmes need to run their course. This all takes years. So when we see solutions emerging and new offerings launched, it’s not because everyone has suddenly seen the light – the early adopters saw the light a long time ago and what we’re seeing now is the culmination of years of effort. The OB10 deal announced last week follows two years of behind the scenes discussion. Tradeshift’s $3bn fund to support small business is the realization of a vision that Christian Lanng shared with me about 3 years ago and just this week a new player on the scene, Crossflow Payments, emerged into the fading light of late summer after 3 years of research and development.  I met Tony Duggan, the CEO, this week in The City of London to understand what they have to offer.

10 Sep

Posted at 09:00h in Financial Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Finance, Working Capital Management by
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I’d grown accustomed to the sunshine that we’ve enjoyed in the UK for most of the summer and yesterday, ill-equipped for normal British weather, I got soaked, literally to the skin, in an unexpectedly heavy rain shower in London. Summer’s almost gone and there’s definitely a change in the air. It’s been a long time coming but now the convergence of demand for liquity amongst cash strapped small businesses and the supply of alternative funds seems to be happening. There was some big news on these lines last week when OB10’s acquisition was announced. There’s a few new players joining the market that we’ll hear a lot about in the coming weeks. All of this is very interesting but today’s news is quite simply breathtaking. Tradeshift signaled some time ago that they were going to be leveraging their platform to deliver some form of supply chain finance offering to support small businesses but today they’ve lifted the lid on their plans and revealed exactly what it is they’ll be doing. In a nutshell it’s this: $3 billion.

01 Jul

Posted at 11:56h in Financial Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Finance, Working Capital Management by
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We have highlighted many times the challenges of working capital management. It’s become a cliché to refer to the “perfect storm” – the combination of virtually zero interest rates and constrained liquidity that gives both cash rich, large businesses and cash strapped suppliers a headache. But every cloud has a silver lining. Better working capital management provides an opportunity and now, REL, the specialist working capital arm of Hackett, has revealed the size of the prize, in Europe - a total of €762bn is tied up in excess working capital - equivalent to 6 per cent of EU GDP!

19 Apr

Posted at 12:15h in Financial Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain, Supply Chain Finance, The Rest, Vendor Risk Management, Working Capital Management by
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Critical components in your supply chain are at risk - and you may not even know it. There are numerous points of failure in today's complex supply chains and because of the difficulty that upstream suppliers have funding their business from day to day, the risk of a damaging and expensive failure is increasing. And it gets worse. Efforts to cut costs have resulted in leaner, riskier supply chains held together by a network small suppliers. If the risk of financial failure isn't mitigated it could have disastrous consequences - which is why businesses - especially in Europe - should begin to take supply chain finance more seriously.