Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan at Kofax
When it comes to digitalization today, many businesses are caught up in the race to integrate technology into their daily operations and make sure their company will withstand these difficult times. In fact, according to the Kofax 2022 Intelligent Automation Benchmark Study, 89% of worldwide executives believe that digitally transformed businesses have a competitive edge, and 90% of global executives believe that automating activities post-COVID will ensure company continuity.
Because of this, companies aiming to increase their resilience should consider expediting their technological development by considering e-services like e-invoicing. These services have four main benefits: automatic updates, accessibility from anywhere, speed and cost reductions, and scalability. DigitalCFO Asia spoke with Matthew Thomson, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan at Kofax to learn more about how organisations can use automation to gain resiliency in their business.
While most Companies in Singapore and Asia are already digitising their invoicing processes, what are the major challenges amidst this shift?
Throughout the Asia Pacific, we see a very volatile economic landscape. According to Matthew, the world is in a very unsettled space right now. We’re seeing interest rates rise, we’re seeing the cost-of-living increase, which is impacting all of us and we’re seeing fuel prices rise. Thus, what was really intended to be conveyed was that both the problems and costs associated with conducting business are rising. Digital transactions and transformation have already occurred and are almost the new norm. When we think about E-invoicing, many financial institutions, in particular, are talking about large increases in digital transactions per year.
Every year, Kofax does an intelligent automation study, and in 2022, they found that:
- 85% of C-suites said that they would focus their intelligent automation on accounts payable automation
- 82% said invoice automation
- 84% said transaction processing
- 83% said bank statement processing
All of this ties in again with invoicing. However, these issues affect not only the public sector but also the business sector and how we work with suppliers. One of the difficulties people are trying to solve is the amount of paperwork produced by the invoicing operations because it has historically been a very labor-intensive process. Another challenge is reducing the number of duplicate payments, which greatly impacts business, suppliers, and clients. Unfortunately, whenever we involve humans in a process, we run the risk of making mistakes. We may not all make mistakes, but someone might along the way.
Automation and Intelligent Automation
It can enhance productivity across a firm since you can use your resources more effectively and there is less chance of human error. First, it drives faster response times because the procedures are more water created. When you’re able to monitor control and standardising processes, you’re actually able to increase your compliance – according to Matthew. The identification of problems is another important consideration. Process and automation may enable you to spot issues and difficulties earlier.
Being able to automate and make these procedures seamless can actually promote greater customer engagement and faster response times, which has a flow-on impact. When you look at dealing with customers, it typically includes a lot of processes and time, and this can be time-consuming. If we’re able to get better and faster data, you can make more accurate decisions and more accurate decisions can again improve customer retention the customer focus. it also drives cross-sell and upsell opportunities. So, with this automation you can improve your customer engagement and your customers.
Operations are key and it’s often in a very critical part of any company. However, because there are so many procedures involved in these activities, the operations team will benefit if you can look to make them smooth. They can function more efficiently. They can direct and concentrate on greater invention.
Promoting Resiliency
“It’s being able to cope with change and cope with unexpected change,” quoted Matthew. We all bear several scars, as the pandemic made clear. All of us had to adjust to the sudden change. And you need to be adaptable to deal with change in custom. They must recognize and automate your duties and procedures in order to respond quickly and be nimble. 90% of C-suites believed that automating workflows only during post-covid, can already ensure business continuity. 89% of C-suites also believed that digitally transformed companies have a competitive advantage.
