Exchange Summit 2014
It’s been an interesting and thought provoking week for Datamolino. This week we were fortunate enough to be invited to present a forum at the Exchange Summit in Barcelona. The summit’s focus was on the benefits of e-invoicing and how it can effect change to full e-supply chain management.
Our colleague Bruno Koch (Billentis Report) delivered the opening presentation of the summit. His pertinent and insightful discussion centred on the industry sectors that are presenting as ‘game changers’ in the uptake of electronic invoicing. Bruno identified SMEs, the public sector and network operators as key in the move towards increased adoption. It was the role of SMEs that was of particular interest to us as Datamolino is set to expand beyond the Czech and Slovak Republics. The obvious benefits of efficacy and reduced costs are attractive for any and all enterprises. This was great news for us and provided more of one of our favourite things – validation.
On day two I presented a solution forum based around how SMEs can get ready for a change in AP processing. We conducted significant market research before launching Datamolino and that formed the basis for our presentation at the summit (you can take a look at our presentation on SlideShare). We wanted to illustrate exactly how SMEs view automated processing and how they view its role within their business. The aim was to highlight the role AP processing plays in the development of e-invoicing for SMEs. I was grateful for an opportunity to showcase our solution following the presentation and hope to capitalise on some of the discussions we had. There was a great amount of interest in Datamolino as a tool for SMEs, and for large enterprises that struggle with the onboarding of SME customers into their systems.
There are a lot of initiatives being developed at a country level that were of particular note. Newton Oller from the Sao Paolo State Finance Secretariat outlined his country’s progressive undertaking to move all tax documents and processing into electronic format. The solution being implemented by Brazil includes the move to an electronic format for all purchase receipts of goods by consumers.
Dynamic discounting was also a hot topic. Increasingly suppliers are willing to offer discounts to purchasers in return for early payment, and e-invoicing is the perfect vehicle to facilitate it. Jan and I saw inspiring presentations by Sylvia Perfetto from Pacific Gas and Electric Company, as well as from Taulia’s Markus Ament and Joe Hyland.
Tradeshift was another organisation making a big splash in the onboarding of SMEs to their platform solution – they proved to be great fun after hours too! Thanks to Lindorff who sponsored an amazing dinner at the Miramar Club, which has one of the most breathtaking views overlooking Barcelona. We are looking forward to the Exchange Summit 2015 – it’s a great organisation and we’re especially grateful to Bruno Koch for including us in this dynamic community.
Andrej