Stakeholders for Big Data and P2P: Exploring Billentis 2015 E-Invoicing Report

In the 2015 Billentis E-Invoicing report, Bruno Koch notes that big data is gradually making its way into the world of analysis in regards to e-invoicing and purchase-to-pay (P2P). Specifically, he observes, “big data is more than just a buzzword around invoice processing. Large invoice issuers and recipients, service providers and – last but not least – tax authorities are interested and privileged to benefit from big data.”

In 2015, Bruno notes, “Probably more than 500 billion bills/invoices are issued annually in our world. Each of them includes at least 10 data fields, resulting in a bulk of information.” Yet, “until today, most invoice data were available in only a decentralised and unstructured form … [but] with increasing digitization, new opportunities appear for data usage in real-time.”

Where will organizations and governments benefit from the use of big data and e-invoicing?

Bruno observes that a range of “stakeholders” are curious about the topic. These include: “large invoice issuers and receivers
, service providers and tax authorities
.”

To this list, we would suggest a number of other stakeholders are interested in the topic as well. These include:

• Banks and alternative finance providers interested in expanding the value proposition of trade financing beyond approved trade payables financing (e.g., supply chain finance) across a range of invoice discounting programs
• Procurement organizations – not just accounts payable (A/P) groups – within companies that can benefit from savings opportunities generated from big data leveraging invoice fields
• Academics and economists (government and non-government) interested in tracing the movement of cash throughout the supply chain

In the e-invoicing sector, Tungsten was first to market with a big data analytics offering leveraging real-time network data. (See related coverage below.) The solution is limited today – it does not, for example, yet include real-time data cleansing and classification across like SKUs and suppliers – but it is fascinating indeed. Others will no doubt follow Tungsten’s lead in this area.