Julie Den [0:02]
Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today’s discussion that’s conducted by hire radius. My name is Julie den, and I’ll be the moderator for today’s session. A few housekeeping notes. Before we get started, all participants will be on mute throughout the webinar. So if you have a question, please enter it in the Q&A or chatbox on the right-hand side of your screen. These questions will be answered at the end of the presentation. If we aren’t able to get to all of the questions, we promise to answer them individually in a follow-up email. In addition, everyone will receive a recording of this session within the next couple of days. With that being said, We now welcome everyone to this discussion on quick lens technologies deployment options for AR leaders in the COVID economy. In the discussion today, we have Bill Weiss. He is the vice president of credit and collections at HighRadius. Bill is a driven executive leader with a proven track record in business development, sales, growth, marketing, product development, and operations management. He is well versed in both startups and midsize company environments. He is a digital transformation enthusiast and is responsible for global strategic alliances and partnerships in the credit collections and payments industry. Let’s go ahead and get started, Bill, the screen is all yours.
Bill Weiss [1:20]
All right. Thank you. Wow, that was a great introduction. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I’m so happy to be here. And let’s get started. So here is our agenda for today, we are going to start out with why the right time is NOW in thinking about AR automation. Then we’re going to talk about quick win technology deployment options for enterprise and midsize AR leaders. Then a little about the HighRadius portion. That’s scheduled to last about 15 minutes. And then for those of you that are able to stay longer, we would like to have a little bit of a q&a as well. So that’s the agenda. And with that being said, let’s get started. So first, why is the right time now. So starting out before the COVID pandemic. You know, businesses were exploring ways they could use technology to create new or modify existing business processes meeting changing business and marketing conditions. So by employing automation, companies are expected to maximize the internal team productivity and efficiency, allowing business leaders to do so to do more with less. I’m sure you’ve heard that expression many times over. Overall technology speeds up processes, increases productivity, and allows teams to be more effective. ultimately helping companies achieve goals faster and better. So this was our world before March of 2020. Over the years, technology has had a significant role to play in creating value for AR leaders. Here are three ways in which technology has helped finance teams to create value over the years. So first, technology provides end-to-end control and visibility of receivables. Second, it enables highly accurate Cash Forecasting. Third, automation allows teams to reallocate resource resources from transaction-based clerical work to high-impact tasks. And looking at the impact of this pandemic on businesses. The benefit of these values is even more important today. In the current economy, technology will play a big role to ensure the elevation of accounts receivable and the office of the CFO. So now, the COVID pandemic enters March 2020. Many businesses exploring digital transformation initiatives before the COVID crisis, were considering putting it on hold, given the challenges and political negative outcomes and impact of Coronavirus. There were concerns that undertaking a new project would be out of the question. How can they continue to embark on the digital transformation with limited resources, budget cuts, and furloughs? Some thought it would be too hard to execute. So our survey when asked the key challenge areas that business leaders today need guidance on the top two areas of focus. We’re working capital and cash flow 87% of business leaders who were surveyed said risk management and tightening credit control was a key challenge for them. And 78% of managing DSO through effective collections was a roadblock on their business front. So to manage your working capital and gain visibility into your cash flow. As a credit leader, you’ll want to prioritize what risk your business is exposed to and how you could reduce and manage that risk. You also need to make sure that the cash inflow for the next 90 days is maximized. And a key way to do that is through effective collections. Within the HR function credit and collections team have a more significant role to play as they revised policies to tighten control and also minimize risk exposure to the business and also read redefined collection strategies to ensure that no account is left behind another expression that You may have heard so the truth is right now is the time. Right now is the time when automation is needed more than ever is what I’m trying to say. Because it helps air teams secure the financial health of a business and it moves them into a more strategic role in the CFOs office. So businesses are realizing the true potential of technology and keeping operations running. And companies that leverage technologies are at a competitive advantage over their counterparts. So these are what I consider the cornerstones of achieving working capital and cash flow goals. First credit. Automation for credit software enables you to access data elements that you need. And real-time monitoring allows you to focus on customers when they’re starting to show derogatory trends. So you can quickly collect so automating processes like Dunning and correspondence is key. But software can now offer a payment date prediction so you can better prioritize. And then customer satisfaction offering self-service electronic payment options has never been more important than in a pandemic environment. And using technology to resolve claims and disputes quickly is also key. So given the challenges and potential negative outcomes and impact of Coronavirus, you might think that undertaking a new project would be out of the question. You might think digital transformation is not possible with limited resources, budget cuts, and furloughs. And it’s just too hard to execute. But according to a CX CX o survey conducted by IDC Media Center, enterprise collaboration platforms will benefit most from the end of the epidemic, with 76% of surveyed industrial users choosing to adopt collaboration platforms, followed by cloud computing, robotics, AI, big data and 5g. So in reality, digital transformation is the new means by which businesses are going to be able to adapt to COVID-19 and beyond. Businesses are actually realizing the true potential of technology and keeping operations running. And companies that are leveraging technology are at a competitive advantage over their counterparts. As I’ve mentioned previously, the findings also indicated that tech-oriented companies felt left stretched into business. And now many businesses have had to adapt to huge changes such as remote working. And additional changes in adoption seem more doable and less daunting. Now, change happened and we changed with the times. So you know, bottom line, we assess we learned and we adapted. This outbreak has shown that work from home can work. Some companies are doing it permanently. And it provides opportunities for new developments in the future and what could possibly be a norm after the crisis has passed. So quick win deployment options for enterprise and midsize businesses. So traditionally, midsize companies have had smaller AR teams with shared resources across the order to cash functions including credit, billing, Cash app collection, and collections. Resources are often repurposed or reallocated. And there’s a lot of non-standardized processes. Usually, they lack extensive IT systems or dedicated resources. As companies grow, there’s an increase in functional requirements and business complexities. And now the graph of growth. I like the name of the graph of growth that shows solution functionalities and costs increase with your company’s growth and business requirements. So once you get into multiple ERPs, multiple languages, different currencies, different geographies, the requirements get more complex, and the solution costs are generally higher. So for instance, for small businesses first, for small and mid-sized businesses, usually we’ll see that there’s one ERP, there are two to five people in the process. For enterprise companies, usually, there’s more than one ERP. There are dedicated teams for different organic cash functions. And there’s global implementation. For fortune 100 companies, there’s more than there’s also more than one our ERP. But there are multiple business units and shared services. There are dedicated teams for different order to cash functions, global implementation, and complex payment scenarios. So the bottom line here is we’re here to grow with you. We now have the radius one AR suite for small and midsize businesses. We have integrated receivables on the enterprise level, and we have integrated receivables with AI and touch voice capabilities for the fortune 100. So these are the three apps that are now available for small and midsize companies. First e-invoicing and collections app. This offers account prioritization based on industry-specific best practices, a native VoIP calling mechanism to simplify correspondence, you can deliver invoices via email and directly into major Accounts Payable software packages and accept payments. via ACH and credit cards that in and of itself are a great value. B cash reconciliation app offers Auto Capture remittance data across check stubs, emails, and web portals. It minimizes lockbox fees, eliminates bank keys and charges. It reduces manual intervention for invoice matching and enables early disputed invocations for faster, faster resolution and recovery. And also the credit risk app. This enables much faster customer onboarding, it’s got ready to use online credit application templates. It’s got automated credit scoring, it’s streamlined periodic, is long-term reviews with built-in real-time credit monitoring. So basically, the radius one AR suite has a lightning-fast development: it’s a few weeks rather than a few months, with barely any effort. And it has preconfigured industry best process practices. And we of course still have the end and real-time order cash platform we always have as this is the internally developed fully integrated order cash solution. We get the credit Cloud helps bring customers on board, manage ongoing credit risk, electronic invoice presentment and payments gives a digital platform to engage your customers digitally they can view invoices statements make payments log disputes, cash application Cloud helps automatically apply for the payments once they’re received eliminates the manual tasks involved with the process. Deductions when customers don’t pay an invoice in full but deductions Cloud helps manage short payments and resolve disputes faster. And collection Cloud helps create strategies and prioritize follow-up with customers. So and a little bit at the end here about HighRadius. HighRadius has two major lines of business. We started out with integrated receivables back in 2006. And over the past few years, we’ve also expanded into treasury management. A quick history: we started out with on-premise SAP solutions in 2006. We moved to the cloud in 2010. In 2014, we had our first artificial intelligence use case and cash application, it’s now baked into the entire integrated receivables platform. In 2017, we had our Series A strategic investments from Susquehanna growth equity and our banking partners. In 2019, we launched autonomous systems with a touching voice, kind of like a Siri or Alexa interface. And then in 2020, we achieved unicorn status with Series B funding and we were valued at over a billion dollars. This is a partial list of customers. We have dozens of the largest companies in the world using our solution. And they’re represented here and show a wide range of industries. But we also deal with a lot of midsize companies as well. And that shows up on this slide right here. So this is designed to give you an idea of not only the different types of companies we work with but also that it spans over, you know the fortune 100 enterprise and midsize and smaller companies as well. We’ve done over 950 Finance Trent transformation projects over six continents and 45 countries. And our headquarters is in Houston, Texas. We have offices in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and a couple of offices in India as well. And that is the extent of my presentation. And now I will hand it back over for some q&a.
Julie Den [13:38]
All right, it looks like we do have a few questions coming in from the audience here. Okay, one moment. All right. So what is the alternative data that credit teams should be looking at while onboarding new customers in the current economy?
Bill Weiss [13:57]
Right, well, alternative data. One thing would be customer payment data or trade information. That might not seem an alternative to some people, because you can see how companies are paid when you look at a credit report. But there’s also very valuable information that you can gain through other suppliers for credit groups that you kind of can’t find anywhere else. I would also say I would look at their geography and their industry, we should definitely be factoring in those terms. So you know, even if a company has a good credit score, they might be in geography or industry that is not yet is not their credit score might not be taking that into consideration. It might not, it might take some time before that factors in. And then there’s also something called sentiment analysis where that’s the screening of customers’ financial information that’s publicly available. If you’re interested in that, you should google it. There’s a lot of companies that are providing some really interesting tools with regard to sentiment analysis. But those are some ways that I would say some alternative data sources that are definitely worth looking at.
Julie Den [15:09]
Great. All right, I think we have another one here. So just a reminder, if there are any more questions, feel free to enter in the Q&A or chatbox on the right-hand side of your screen. And the next question would be given the need to be empathetic to customers in these tough times, should AR leaders reconsider when to turn an account over to a third party for collections?
Bill Weiss [15:34]
That is a really good question and one that I have been asked before. So doesn’t I don’t have to think about that one a lot there. I would think about whether there is a long-term customer, you know, look at how to look at their loyalty. You know, if they’re suddenly delaying their payments based on COVID-19, I think it’s definitely worthwhile to spend some time working with them. I would also look at the profitability of that customer. Because those are the types of customers that you definitely don’t want to lose at this time, where they might be having some interim struggles, and then look at the cost of outsourcing. Is it worth it? As far as what you’re putting into collecting the money versus where you’d end up, I would say that if you’re gonna outsource to a collection agency, the back end will definitely be a productive option, especially for very delinquent customers. But it might be a good idea to make sure that they’re delaying payments, because if they’re delaying payments on purpose. Those might be the better types to place with a collection agency.
Julie Den [16:46]
Alrighty, let’s see here. We have any more guesses we’re running out of time here. Go ahead and closeout.
Bill Weiss [16:57]
All right. Thanks, everybody for joining this webinar. That didn’t mean to cut you off there. So I’ll let you close it out as well.
Julie Den [17:05]
Yeah, for sure. So thank you, everyone, for participating in this discussion today. If there are any additional questions that you may have regarding today’s topic or would like to connect with us to learn more, please feel free to reach out to us. So once again, thank you all for joining. Thank you, Bill, for presenting and you all have a great day.
