[Editor’s Note: Ardent released its 15th annual “State of ePayables 2020: Ensuring Continuity, Building Resiliency, and Rising to the Challenge” market research report. Click to get your copy.]
As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the globe, maintaining operations and the liquidity to fund them has become the top priority for enterprises around the world. And, while the pandemic has anointed specific winners and losers, the pervasive uncertainty that cuts across all industries and geographies ensures that cash, liquidity, and the ability to manage them well will be critical to all businesses over the next 12 months. As we continue to navigate these disruptive days, it is clear that some of an enterprise’s best opportunities (and most critical priorities) will play to the strengths and expertise of its AP department. This means that AP must work deliberately and aggressively to support the larger enterprise – pushing to help ensure its continuity and build its resilience. AP must rise to the challenge.
The impact of the worldwide crisis on AP and all other business functions has included the physical disruption that has required entire departments (and companies) to work from home, the mental disruption of facing broad-reaching furloughs and layoffs, and the financial disruption driven by the massive downswing in a majority of markets and industries. And, while the perception of AP continues to evolve from that of a back office role-player to one that sits in a strategic hub of efficiency and intelligence, the current market challenges present an extraordinary opportunity for AP departments to shine. The AP leaders who utilize smart strategies to address short-term enterprise needs (like optimizing working capital and positively impacting cash positions) while pressing forward on longer-term initiatives (like driving a digital transformation and enabling more intelligent supplier relationship management) position themselves and their organizations to play an increasingly strategic role when the recovery inevitably begins.
And, while the recovery is a ‘not if’, but when event, the ‘when’ the recovery commences remains highly uncertain, particularly given new Ardent Partners State of ePayables 2020 market research that shows that essentially every business has, not surprisingly, been negatively impacted by the current pandemic. As shown in the figure above, 58% of companies have experienced either an “extraordinary” or “significant impact” as a direct result of the pandemic with a plethora of issues cited including employee safety and well-being, sales/revenue, cash flow, and supply chain disruptions, among others. Notably, not a single survey respondent’s business has been unaffected. COVID-19 is taking no prisoners. Next week we will take a look at how the Coronavirus has had an impact on the AP department.
