One of the most optimal solutions to tackle these pressures that GPOs are dealing with is implementing digital transformation in the workplace. By investing in digital transformation initiatives in order-to-cash, shared services leaders could elevate themselves to a more strategic role in the office of a CFO.

According to Forbes, 84% of digital transformation projects end up as a failure- primarily because of a one-directional approach to drive this transformation, and not focusing on all the 3 levers of digital transformation at once. Order-to-cash GPOs exploring digital transformation initiatives right now cannot afford to make a wrong decision. You can go through this webinar to hear experts from HighRadius talk about how you can leverage this Gartner cost decision framework to enable better decisions for your digital transformation strategy.

The Three-Legged Stool Analogy

The three levers of digital transformation- People, Process, and Technology are similar to the legs of a three-legged stool. They’re codependent on each other and even if one breaks down, the stool would fall.
Here are three ways as to how automation in A/R could impact the three main drivers of every business in the future:

1. People management

The challenge for GPOs in this area is to get the A/R teams to embrace automation to perform tactical tasks, allowing them to shift their focus on to more high-impact tasks like performing credit reviews and making well-informed, data-backed decisions.
For that to happen, shared services leaders would need to ensure that the teams are able to accept and co-exist in the same ecosystem as technology.

1.1 Explain the team about automation-

• Help them understand how automation trims down the paper and labor-intensive A/R operations.
• Explain to them that with automation in place, they would be able to take up other strategic tasks and apply their context-sensitive intelligence to machine recommendations.
• Assure them that automation doesn’t act as a replacement but instead as an enabler and value-driver.

1.2 Prepare them to ease their way through the change-

• Conduct workshops and train your team to ensure that they completely understand and adapt to how the A/R processes around them would transform.
• The shift from legacy to a new system and adjusting to it could be a long-drawn process and hence, give the team the space to get accustomed to the changes in the workplace.

1.3 Boost your team’s morale-

• Just making your team familiar with the change, isn’t enough- you need to keep them engaged and motivated.
• One way this could be achieved is by conducting interactive sessions with a No-Shop Talk agenda once in a while and coming up with creative ways to appreciate the efforts put in and the work done by the team.

2. Process management

The roadblock that GPOs face here is to identify process gaps in the A/R operations and look for a scope of improvement in them.
An ideal way to clear these blocks would be to devote time in executing process improvement strategies.

2.1 Perform Fit-Gap analysis-

Focus on the leaks and pain-points in the A/R process to think through how your expectations from a digital transformation initiative would look like.

2.2 Apply lean six sigma and kaizen-

Implement agile methodologies to strategize on how to achieve desired outcomes from automation and evaluate how the new system is delivering in comparison to the legacy one.

3. Technology investment

Technology investment is the most crucial aspect of any business, hence GPOs need to ensure that they invest in the right piece of technology and get the stakeholder buy-in to achieve the finance executives’ goals.
In order to do that, it is necessary to stay updated with the evolving market trends. Here are a few trends that global shared services are working towards:

3.1 Shifting to a cloud-based automation system-

Acts as a single source of truth keeping together all the customer master data consolidated in one place.
Enables real-time visibility over the receivables and allows inter-team collaboration.
Helps in streamlining workflows and reduces the time spent on getting approvals from different stakeholders.

3.2 Installing self-service portals to digitally enable the customers-

• According to a study by Apex Analytix, 43% of the shared services leaders believe that self-service portals would see a rise in SSCs in the post-pandemic landscape.
• It would act as a gateway that allows both the customers as well as the employees to view invoices, make payments, view outstanding disputes, etc.

It would also reduce the number of touchpoints a user would have to go through earlier to resolve an issue.

3.3 Investing in AI-enabled digital assistants for A/R-

• Artificial intelligence-powered assistants help improve user experience by organizing an A/R analyst’s worklist and arranging action items based on priority levels while also suggesting where to start the day.
• It transcribes live customer calls, highlighting the important points. It then saves them in the call log allowing the analyst to quickly track all the essential details from the call and act accordingly.
• It is also capable of suggesting intelligent action items based on the call with the customer and allows the analyst to make quick, strategic decisions.

You can learn more about AI-powered digital assistants and how they can help in creating value for your A/R in this 3-minute read blog.