Ardent recently completed its annual AP-themed market research study, “The State of ePayables 2021: Operating in the New Normal”, which is part of an ongoing dialogue that the Ardent team has had with AP and finance leaders for more than a decade. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing the results from this year’s study in a series of articles on this site. If you’d like access to this report, make sure to register for our newsletter with a business email address.
In the age of globalization, a pebble tossed halfway around the world can have a rippling effect that builds across the oceans and lands as a tidal wave. The coronavirus is that pebble – the cause of a truly global pandemic with implications that have been both devastating and surreal. COVID-19’s immediate impact on financial operations was to place many accounts payable (“AP”) professionals in harm’s way as they worked to ensure business continuity. These AP professionals worked urgently to keep their businesses going, bolster financial resilience, and help to prepare their enterprises for the next economic phase. In 2020, AP had never been more important to business operations and business results. Sixteen months later, AP’s importance remains at an apex.
In July, 2021, as many communities, businesses, and countries begin to turn the corner and emerge from the most severe COVID-19 restrictions, others have seemingly just entered very tough times. This makes the immediate future of business, in general, and accounts payable, specifically, hard to predict. What is clear, however, is that the pandemic has already begun to make lasting changes that will affect future generations of AP professionals. It is also certain that when the pandemic finally ends, AP will be “Operating in the New Normal.”
As many communities, businesses, and countries begin to turn the corner and emerge from the most severe COVID-19 restrictions, others have seemingly just entered very tough times. When the entire world will emerge from this pandemic is unclear, what is certain, however, is that it will, in fact, emerge. And when it does, a majority of accounts payable teams will be operating with new tools at hand. Many more will be operating with a new mindset. All will be operating in the “new normal”.
The context of the business’s “new normal” or “next normal” is neither a new nor static theory. But rather, it is an evolving set of guidelines and strategies that dictate how enterprises can reacclimate and thrive in the aftermath of a severe event or period. The suggested range of processes and strategies for adapting to a new world of work that will continue to morph and evolve until the long-term view is clear. In 2021, the new normal refers to a post-pandemic world. Unfortunately, the long-term ramifications of COVID-19 are still unclear, even after more than sixteen months of crisis. That is because while vaccine campaigns have been (and continue to be) successful in many regions across the globe, the COVID-19 battle rages on in other areas experiencing third and fourth waves of infections, hospitalizations, and death. Right now, the state of accounts payable (AP) is, in essence, the state of the world as it evolves through the next months of this once-in-a- century public health crisis.
AP is an Enterprise Value Driver
A value driver is a factor that increases the worth of an asset, function, process, outcome, or business. Over the past few years, it has become clear to a majority of business leaders that AP is an enterprise value driver. This year, exactly two-thirds of all enterprises now believe that their AP team is either “very valuable” or “exceptionally valuable.” These numbers that have increased in no small part due to the once-in-a-century global pandemic. The “AP is becoming more strategically valuable” dialogue has been occurring for the past several years as more finance, treasury, and procurement executives have been able to view first-hand the impact that AP can deliver to the greater organization. And, the changing tide of perceptions captured in this year’s survey is a hopeful mark of things to come (and the general future of AP and how it will fit into the modern, digitized business world).
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