Connect to Grow your Business through Basware

1. eBook Series Sustainable Growth in a Connected World Connect to Grow your Business

2. eBook Series Sustainable Growth in a Connected World Failing to strengthen your relationships with business partners may damage your growth prospects In today’s connected global economy no business can succeed alone You may also be struggling with the lack of accurate data to identify which supplier relationships you should be cultivating for a deeper, more strategic relationship. Not every partner is equal so it makes sense to concentrate on those who can best support your growth agenda, but do you have the information and data to make this decision? Fortunately, with e-invoicing and business networks now reaching mass adoption, supplier collaboration tools are playing a leading role in helping finance and procurement teams develop closer and more profitable relationships with partners. As a finance leader, you’ll understand the need for businesses to find new ways to grow, stay ahead of the competition and meet the expectations of customers and stakeholders. The cost of failing to connect Without a strong connection between you and your suppliers, it’s going to be difficult to agree on better payment terms, reduce payment cycles and obtain better price points. There is also the risk and potential cost to your business in relying on a relationship that’s less reliable and predictable than it could be. You might feel your supplier relationships are working well and there is no real need to improve communication. But have you stopped and considered whether those relationships represent best value or whether you are leaving money on the table? You’ll also recognise the pivotal role business partners play in helping you achieve sustainable success. Partners support your business strategy, supplying goods and services and delivering your products to end customers. If your partner relationships are not as strong as they could be, you may be missing out on opportunities to grow your business. There are, of course, many things that can get in the way of your ability to create stronger connections with your partners – too much paperwork, drawn-out and inefficient processes, inaccurate information, out-dated technology and complex regulatory requirements. You’ll know how much time and effort you and your teams spend managing these things, with the result that strengthening relationships often takes a backseat to other priorities. If you don’t have a healthy relationship with your partners, can you rely on them when it really matters? Can you effectively plan and forecast when it’s difficult to predict what they might do? And are your terms of business with them as beneficial as they could be? 02 www.basware.com

3. eBook Series Sustainable Growth in a Connected World Connecting is simple with business networks can spend time building closer relationships with the 10-20% of partners that matter the most. Many of our customers have faced similar challenges and have overcome them to build stronger partner relationships and, in turn, unlock new growth opportunities. Stronger relationships begin with e-invoicing The service that has played the most critical role in driving ‘business connectivity at scale’ is e-invoicing. You probably know some of the benefits of e-invoicing: it significantly reduces both the cost and time to process payments, cash moves faster in the supply chain and suppliers are better positioned to take advantage of the opportunities to innovate and pass on savings. E-invoicing also enables buyers to manage a much higher volume of invoices with fewer errors and less manual intervention. This means faster payments, greater accuracy, visibility and control to manage your business and set the stage to have more meaningful and productive conversations with your partners. As with many significant changes in the way we work, technology plays a key role. For a number of years business networks have acted as a simple platform for buyers and suppliers to exchange product or pricing information, invoices or purchase orders. Thanks to innovative new services, and the vast number of businesses connected, these networks have evolved to help businesses transform their financial operations. By providing more actionable insights that feed into a business’s finance and procurement processes they have elevated the role and contribution of finance leaders and their teams. Business networks help remove many of the inefficiencies that stop business relationships from flourishing. By connecting across a common platform you are able to pay suppliers faster, gain access to rich transactional data and have a far greater visibility of spend and payment details. It also becomes much easier to right size your supply base and identify strategic suppliers, so you How do I get started? The first step is to define what you want to achieve. What benefits are you looking for when implementing e-invoicing? It may be the opportunity to get early payment discounts, productivity gains or streamline your supplier base. 03 www.basware.com

4. eBook Series Sustainable Growth in a Connected World You may also want to start sending sales invoices electronically. Next you will need to agree who will run the project. Although procurement owns the supplier relationship, finance owns many of the KPI’s these projects incorporate. After agreeing on the project set-up, you should then start looking into targets and timelines. In many cases, businesses start e-invoicing with a big blast to get as many partners as possible using e-invoicing. Benefits of e-invoicing for Accounts Receivable: Benefits of e-invoicing for Accounts Payable: › Cost savings: Get rid of paper and expensive manual processes and realize savings of up to 90% in admin costs. › Efficiency: Automate your invoice processing. Get rid of paper and save time. ›Cost savings: Reduce the costs of handling invoices by more than 50%. If you’ve chosen to start receiving invoices with your suppliers, your first step is to categorize your supplier base. You will need to decide how many suppliers you want to on-board for e-invoicing and what volume of invoices you process that represents. ›Cash flow: Get paid faster. E-invoicing speeds up your customers’ ability to pay you. › Accuracy: Receive high quality electronic invoices in the same format from all your suppliers. › Visibility: Increase visibility and control over account receivables with invoice status tracking. It’s also useful to understand how many of your existing suppliers are already capable of sending e-invoices. This is the time when you need to start looking into different business network providers and what they’re offering. Some will provide tools that you can offer to your suppliers for sending e-invoicing without them having to invest in it themselves. ›Compliance: Enjoy global VAT/tax compliance and automatic format conversions to meet your customers’ needs. ›Discounts: Benefit from early pay discount programs due to reduced invoice cycle times. 04 www.basware.com

5. eBook Series Sustainable Growth in a Connected World Navigating global complexity Once connected via e-invoicing you can establish even stronger links to your partners, and take your relationship to a new level. With access to, and visibility of, up-to-date and accurate information coupled with a detailed transaction history, you are much better equipped to plan and forecast, negotiate better trading terms and realise even more value in your relationships. The closer you are, the higher the opportunity cost of changing partners and the more important your continued business is to your suppliers. Growing demand for compliance If you trade internationally you’ll understand the challenges of working with partners that speak a different language, use a different currency and operate under a different set of rules and customs in another time zone. If you’re still relying on paper invoices when trading across borders you’ll be in even more pain as they’re difficult to track, costly to process and tend to get lost. You also have the added worry about compliance with all the local rules and customs of the countries you do business in. E-invoicing is particularly useful in ensuring compliance to VAT/GST rules but through internal policies you are also able to address other elements of compliance such as on-contract buying. › 23% of CPO’s see addressing compliance as the biggest benefit of P2P systems. Source: Supply Management ›39% of spend in organisations without e-procurement systems is off contract and therefore a compliance headache. Source: Aberdeen Group › Improving spend compliance from 60% to 95% would reduce cost of goods sold by 4% translating into a direct impact on operating cost reduction and profitability. Source: Payable Place Today’s global e-invoicing solutions help companies navigate the complexity of trading across the world as they already incorporate local rules, which means you’re automatically compliant with local regulations and requirements. Freed up from red tape and bureaucracy you can spend less time worrying about the small print and more time on growing your business wherever in the world the opportunities lie. Setting the foundation for future growth A strong foundation will include solutions that help you better manage, control and optimise your business through automation, visibility and process excellence. 05 www.basware.com

6. eBook Series Sustainable Growth in a Connected World It’s easy to connect, so why wait? Get in touch today and see how Basware can help “Networks that will handle purchase orders and invoice transactions will continue to be a necessary part of B2B commerce. But with document delivery becoming commoditized and B2B relationships beginning to require real-time collaboration between buyers and suppliers, new opportunities are emerging for supplier networks to become broader-scope business networks.” Your partners play a pivotal role in your business strategy, so why lose your competitive advantage by failing to take advantage of stronger connections and deeper relationships? About Basware: Basware is the global leader in providing networked purchase-to-pay solutions, e-invoicing and innovative financing services. Basware’s commerce and financing network connects businesses in over 100 countries and territories around the globe. As the largest open business network in the world, Basware provides scale and reach for organizations of all sizes, enabling them to grow their business and unlock value across their operations by simplifying and streamlining financial processes. Small and large companies around the world achieve significant cost savings, more flexible payment terms, greater efficiencies and closer relationships with their suppliers. Find out more at www.basware.com. If the opportunity to be more efficient is not compelling enough, can you turn your back on the prospect of what better relationships with your partners can bring? Why miss out on improved visibility and accuracy of financial information that will enable you to negotiate improved terms with your partners? Why risk unreliable and less predictable partners impacting the quality of your supply chain? Source: Vendor Landscape: B2B Business Networks, Forrester Research, Inc., September 14, 2015 Thanks to e-invoicing and open business networks, it’s easy to make the right connections. Not only do they provide that important first step by improving the way you do business with your partners, they also provide the foundation for managing and optimising your business and unlocking further growth. And if you trade across borders they make it much simpler to navigate global complexity. “Consider moving to a vendor that offers a more comprehensive solution that includes a procurement network to support supplier collaboration” Follow Basware on Twitter: @Basware, join the discussion on the Basware LinkedIn, Basware Facebook and Basware Blog and subscribe for the latest news. Source: Technology Insights for Procurement Insights, Gartner 2016 06 www.basware.com