At Taulia Connect Tuesday, Hackett’s Amy Fong provided an overview of dozens of various Hackett Group metrics and benchmarks spanning procurement, accounts payable, treasury and related areas. Hackett is increasingly delving into certain aspects of technology as well in its survey work, including the usage of supplier networks to support the source-to-pay process.
Yesterday, I tweeted from Taulia Connect that Tom Mathis, head of procurement at of Milliken (he calls himself chief sourcing officer) is the funniest CPO on the planet. He is in the wrong line of work. Seriously, he’s Seinfeld/Larry David funny. Mathis spent 45 minutes keeping the crowd on their toes with a bunch of one-liners — in addition to telling a great story of procurement, accounts payable and treasury improvements at Milliken.
Earlier today, Hackett’s Amy Fong gave a phenomenal talk, taking the audience on a journey through a range of Hackett purchase-to-pay (P2P), treasury and payables benchmarks, KPIs and recommendations. I’ll cover a number of the highlights from the presentation in a separate post, but I wanted to share one quick highlight that jumped out at me. It’s a radical finding: In a 2015 Hackett Payment Practices Poll, the firm found that treasury departments primarily want to implement solutions “to provide supplier financial liquidity rather than direct working capital improvements.”
Earlier this morning, Cedric Bru, Taulia’s CEO, welcomed approximately 400 attendees to Taulia Connect, the firm’s customer conference in San Francisco. Cedric’s talk was about as visionary and big picture as it gets. He spent less than a minute going through the usual company and product updates that a CEO often frames at these types of events (see some quick updates on company numbers below). He spent more time making the audience dance. (Yes, he took us through a few moves.)
Cedric Bru, Taulia’s CEO, is no stranger to the world of trade financing and supplier connectivity. Just before Taulia Connect, Cedric shared with me a number of thoughts on topics ranging from Taulia’s position in the market today to the future of trade financing beyond the current world of e-invoicing, dynamic discounting and supply chain finance. We’ll feature this interview in multiple installments throughout the week, in addition to live coverage from Taulia Connect.
Taulia reported record fourth quarter results Monday, with new bookings growth up 219%. The financial supply chain solution company said the new customers it gained in the fourth quarter will add 50,000 suppliers in 71 countries, as well as $65 billion in spend to the existing Taulia platform. Additional milestones for Taulia in Q4 included making more than $50 billion in financing available to suppliers across the globe and retaining its 100% customer renewal rate.
While many organizations believe that savings originates from a good contract, it really comes from good execution. A negotiated rate reduction of 5% is just a hypothetical savings number if the organization fails to implement and then capture the savings in practice. On average, Spend Matters research suggests that companies typically do not capture 30% or more of negotiated savings. There are a variety of reasons for this, including maverick spend and expedited shipping, but a big reason is simply overspending based on a failure to align functions and systems.
Despite all of the talk of alignment in trade publications or solution provider marketing content, procurement and finance are rarely on the same page. The reason is simple: Procurement sees its job as acquiring goods — and increasingly services, too. Accounts payable (A/P) sees its job as processing invoices in-line with finance's guidelines in the most efficient way possible. Too often, purchasing and A/P alignment doesn’t happen, though the savings realization would improve it if did.
As a stand-alone capability, dynamic discounting often plays second fiddle to eProcurement and invoice automation/e-invoicing investments. Yet the dynamic discounting tools sector has been around […]