Following yesterdays O2C Summit seminar in Stockholm I want to share some insights. They will not come as a surprise to you but I am curious as to how to overcome them.
We speak with different dialects.
So also in the automated P2P and O2C process world. We don’t use different languages but there is enogh difference in how we speak so that neither internal functions nor business partners are able to simply add on to what we say.
I am for instance talking about e-invoicing. Listening to a company – they have undertaken an incredible journey automating their order to cash process looking at every single entry point a customer might have along the business process. Almost all their orders (many at low cost) are entered digitally and the visibility and control down the line to the invoice is clear as a whistle.
But when the invoice is to be sent and recieved something happens, it is many times percieved a too costly process to map the different dialects, contents, formats so they don’t. Not talking about a specific copmany here. The entire internal process on one hand O2C and the other P2P might be automated – but the different dialects put an end, an ugly dot, to the final touch.
Does it matter? Should we stop trying so hard. Not understanding, or wanting to understand, the dialects but enforcing our own and simply leave it at the internal processes?
How can we move towards talking about cash management and working capital in relation to for instance e-invoicing if we won’t understand a different dialect?