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04 Nov Every little helps
Shoppers and investors were taken by surprise when Tesco announced a £250m black hole in their profits last month. Tesco’s suppliers, however, were not. The supermarket, the second-largest retailer in the world, has been under pressure for some time. Shoppers are increasingly turning their backs on the big weekly grocery shop in favour of home delivery services, discount rivals Aldi and Lidl and local convenience stores. These trends have hit sales at Tesco’s big out-of-town supermarkets and its market share has declined significantly in the past year. Profit warnings led to the resignation of the Chief Executive, Philip Clarke, in July. The honeymoon for his replacement, Dave Lewis, didn’t last long. In the first few days he was confronted by a whistler blower who warned that Finance were incorrectly booking payments received from suppliers related to in-store promotions. Unfortunately Dave Lewis’s misery didn’t stop there. Recently, Tesco announced that its profits had been overstated by £263m, more than have been initially estimated and not long after, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) confirmed that it is carrying out a criminal investigation.26 Oct Back to basics – the difference between price and cost
When implementing Purchase to Pay, the strength of the objections to change can be surprising. People prefer paper. They don't want to change. They want things immediately and they refuse to follow new processes. They think they can get a better deal themselves compared to the prices offered on a supplier catalog. It's been the same for years - decades even - and it's that last objection: "I can get a better deal myself" that can be the most difficult because it is - or more precisely appears to be - a valid objection. So how do you overcome it?23 Oct 26 is a magic number
Today, another post from Richard Manson from CloudTrade Let’s start at the beginning. What do we know about 26? Wikipedia - the font of all knowledge - tells me that 26 is ‘the natural number following 25 and preceding 27’. OK, I can go with this. That’s pretty accurate I guess. But I know it is more than that. So what else? Apparently a shape with 26 faces is a rhombicuboctahedron. But, hey, my 2 year old could have told me that... (Note to self, remember that for the next pub quiz). It is the atomic number for Iron (also useful for the pub quiz). But moving away from impressive ways to win £50 on a Thursday night... What else do we know? The 26th letter and the last letter of the English alphabet is Z. It is the length of a marathon (26 miles and 385 yards to be exact). The human foot and ankle has 26 bones. 26 is the total number of cases on the US version of Deal or No Deal. ....OK, I feel we are now slipping back to the realms of the pub quiz. So we can see there are many interesting instances of the number 26. Yet the most important (in our eyes at least!) seems to be missing. And without wishing to question the accuracy of Wikipedia, I feel it my duty to reveal the most important, yet missing, reference.10 Oct An unusual convergence – P2P and slot machines
What links the P2P Summit in Vegas later this month and the entrepreneur of the year award? The P2P Summit, (which by the way you should attend – see here) is one of the most important dates in the calendar but, being very honest, I struggled to see the connection between Las Vegas and P2P until I saw the announcement today about the London AIM market entrepreneur of the year award.08 Oct Why P2P & why now?
Posted at 16:45h
in AP Automation, e-invoicing, e-Procurement, Electronic Invoicing, Purchase to Pay
This week I had the pleasure to support a seminar session run by Canon promoting their P2P offering. This is the transcript of my presentation
P2P has always been important - important in the sense that it has always been important to ensure that the correct approval is given before something is bought. It’s important in the sense that it has always been important to ensure that suppliers are paid according to contractual terms - and important in the sense that it’s important to ensure that the details on an invoice sent by a supplier match what was asked for and what was delivered.
But P2P has taken on a greater importance in recent years and there are three things that have put P2P in the spotlight
- Visibility
- Accountability
- Automation