[Editor’s Note: Ardent Partners recently published its Accounts Payable-themed report, “Accounts Payable 2022: Big Trends and Predictions”. Over the next few weeks, this site will feature articles highlighting the key discussion points from the report.
The third year of the new decade began much as last year did: with great uncertainty and a global pandemic that will not fade. COVID-19 appears to be something that must be dealt with for the foreseeable future. As such, 2022 will see the business world continuing to operate in a new and yet, seemingly similar, ‘new normal’ that will be driven by new realities, new ideas, accelerated digital transformation, and new leadership. Here are four of Ardent Partners’ top AP predictions for the year.
Prediction #1: The Hybrid Workforce becomes the Standard
Any time a major event impacts our lives, we learn, we react and adapt – As a profession, AP and finance leaders have seen that it is possible to manage operations with a distributed workforce. As companies rethink their office strategies, it is inevitable that hybrid and fully remote workers will become standard. This transition will continue to accelerate as enterprises have come to realize that employees can be productive and focused when not in the ‘office’; remote work results in reduced operating cost for both organizations and employees; enables employees to achieve a better work/life balance; and is fast becoming a competitive requirement to both retain existing staff as well as attract new talent.
Ardent Partners research shows that 90% of executives expect more of their workers to be operating in a remote environment next year. When it comes to office work, the way things were is not how they will be. Distributed teams are the norm now, and, both workers and executives have realized the benefits of the remote and hybrid work models. AP leaders operating with a pre-pandemic mindset on worker location must evolve with the times or risk losing their top talent.
Prediction #2: AP Managers Will Develop New, Flexible Staffing Models (and Remain in Perpetual Hiring Mode)
The challenging events of the past couple of years not only stressed the limits of business operations, they accelerated key drivers in the evolution of talent management and the rise of the “Future of Work” movement. However, the relationship between employer and employee has been changing over the last decade or two – the days of working 40 years for a single employer and retiring with full benefits and a gold watch are over. Hiring managers have to account for this and rethink their traditional staffing and hiring strategies in order to prepare for the ‘Future of Work’.
Today’s labor market is extremely challenging for employers and finding talent is problem confronting most enterprises. Unemployment rates are at an all-time low and open positions are at an all-time high. The simple truth is that traditional hiring practices will need to adapt, change, and overcome the obstacles and challenges that exist today. In 2022, more AP staffers frustrated in their current positions will test the job market. Hiring managers will need to respond to larger market shifts – and, amongst other things, look to leverage contingent workforce labor to address shortages that will likely exist long into the future.
Prediction #3: Adoption of AP Automation Rises Sharply
Digital transformation is on a major upswing and that will continue in 2022. AP professionals and anyone who has interacted with an AP staff understands the important role technology can play in achieving seamless business operations. This was never more obvious or on display more than during the beginning of the pandemic when many AP staffers were deemed as essential workers, and had to go into their offices to handle, sort through and open the mail looking for paper invoices needing to be paid and paper checks that needed to be deposited. It is imply astounding that AP workers were put in harm’s way due to the fact that so many organizations were still handling and processing paper invoices and payments.
One positive outcome of all this was a realization by many senior executives that a change was needed. The Pandemic has served to unlock the pent-up demand of finance departments looking to initiate a digital transformation for AP or for all of finance. And, that has triggered a marked increase in technology investments for AP departments. In fact, the past two years have set records for the number of AP automation projects initiated in North America and we expect this investment and adoption to continue in the year ahead.
Prediction #4: AI Will Significantly Improve Productivity
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most disruptive technological innovations to hit the business community since perhaps the introduction of the commercial internet in the early 1990s. AI has a rich legacy as both an academic discipline and a continuously-evolving set of autonomous and self-learning operating systems whose development spans the better part of a century. It is simultaneously one of the most widely lauded, feared, and misunderstood phenomena of the contemporary business environment, representing significant opportunity for many knowledge workers and significant peril for many others.
AI has quickly emerged as a core component in the development of next-generation AP automation technologies and functionality, including data capture, validation, matching, coding, fraud prevention, and spend analytics. 2022 will be a historic year for AI-driven payables and payment solutions and those that use them. Keep an eye on these technologies and the benefits they bring to AP.
