[Editor’s Note: In Ardent’s “Supply Management Metrics that Matter in 2018” (click to download), we discuss the supply management industry’s best and most widely used metrics that can inform and educate procurement and AP professionals on what is happening in the market and how best to build a high-performing department.]
The concept of an intelligent supply management operation is not dependent upon a single technology, process, or strategy, but rather an ecosystem of interconnected and interdependent plans, solutions, and innovations whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Whether in procurement, Accounts Payable (“AP”), or another business discipline, intelligent teams rely upon a few common elements: collaboration, communication, automation, data, and analytics. While many AP and finance professionals face significant challenges in building a high-performing and intelligent department, the Best-in-Class know that they must be able to develop and expand the organization’s intellectual capacity and invest in ways to fully leverage it across the entire scope of operations.
AP’s Keys to Success
Within AP, there is a great opportunity to transform and modernize the function, and should be undertaken sooner rather than later. But for most AP departments to successfully initiate the process, they will need to find both a business catalyst and either an executive sponsor (like the CFO or Treasurer) or a strong functional partner (like procurement). Until these are found, AP departments can aid their cause by promoting an agenda that is focused on becoming a more strategic business unit, as well as a more trusted business partner for supplier, data, and cash management needs.
In an age when enterprise agility, digital transformation, and the continued evolution of the modern company dictate the pace of business, there is no better time for the rise of a more strategic AP function. Leveraging technology is now pervasive throughout the contemporary business, helping to fuel new ideas and strategies and prescribe real-time responses to dynamic market pressures and challenges. Accounts Payable sits in a more critical position than it ever has before, and utilizing technology to streamline the AP process can enable more strategic activities to be carried out. The dawn of the strategic AP function, in which this longstanding and strategic enterprise unit expands its reach and influence through intelligence and operational prowess, is here.
Conclusion
There are different views on where to start, but the end-point for Best-in-Class AP teams is in finding the optimal mix of talented staff, and the right processes and systems to support them. Leveraging technology will help them do it. These “Metrics that Matter” represent a window into the performance of procurement and AP operations. Over the next few years, this new type of intelligence is going to enable both AP/Finance and procurement leaders to view their operations differently and, by doing so, it is going to force these leaders to manage it differently as well. The ability to make better-informed decisions across an organization can and will be game-changing. This new intelligence, coupled with agility, are going to be fundamental drivers that help push AP, procurement, and supply chain to the next level of performance.
To see all of the “Metrics that Matter” download our eBook today!
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