5 tech trends shaping P2P.
Gaining the strategic value of your Procure-to-Pay(P2P) process.

Contents

5 tech trends shaping P2P

The power of P2P

3

A fresh perspective on P2P3

5 technology trends shaping the P2P process

5

Using P2P to drive strategic value

6

Build an enterprise supplier network

7

Improve supplier management

7

Increase procurement and AP automation

8

Ensure vendor compliance

9

Deliver supply chain visibility

10

Working with the P2P leader

11

How OpenText solutions help optimize your P2P process

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A fully digitized P2P process
improves• Strategic business andfinancial decision• Cashflow and free up
working capital• Operational and supply chain
performance• Inventory control andreduce costs• Response to customer
demand signals• Supplier collaborationand communication• Business resilience, agility
and innovation• Supplier compliance andreduce supply chain risk
• Gain full visibility into
procurement, supply chain andaccounts payable processes

In recent years, the P2P process has moved from being seen as a cost center tobecoming a strategic driver. Get it right and organizations benefit from higher
process efficiencies, larger cost savings, better inventory control, improved supply
chain visibility and faster order cycle times. Highly effective P2P operations build
supplier relationships that facilitate the levels of resilience, agility and innovation
required to meet challenges such as the coronavirus pandemic. This white paper
examines the digital tools helping to optimize your P2P performance.

The power of P2P
The common view of Procure-to-Pay (P2P) is a process that covers pretty much
everything from the identification of need, the purchasing of products or services
through to invoice processing and supplier payment. In the past, it’s been complex,
spanned different departments and added time and costs into business operations.
However, a well-designed, digital P2P process overcomes these issues and gives
you the levers to gain much more from your supplier relationships.
Here are some scenarios that every procurement or finance professional will befamiliar with: Supplier deliveries are late or inaccurate. Many invoices contain errors
and some you can’t find at all. Delayed payments mean suppliers are threatening tostop supply. Spend planning is based as much on gut feel as meaningful date. The
potential for maverick spending or invoice fraud is a constant thorn in the side.
It is estimated that the average business wastes 1000's of hours each year on
inefficient payment practices alone – such as chasing PO numbers, processing
paper invoices and responding to supplier enquiries1.
There’s a paradox in the fact that the supplier relationship was the first to begin todigitally transform. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has been available for overfour decades allowing partners to exchange business documents electronically. Yet,a 2019 study from Billentis showed that 70% of all invoices processed globally arestill paper-based. Other research suggests 80% of organizations still use manual orsemi-digital tools to manage their P2P cycle.
While most organizations have made significant progress in digitally enabling theirtrading partner communities, it’s still not enough to be able to optimize the P2P
process. Even where 80% of suppliers are trading digitally, the same cost, errors
and lack of visibility remain within a process that still retains inefficient manualcomponents.

A fresh perspective on P2PPreviously, it has been all too easy to see P2P as a series of inter-related tasks
that were necessary to fulfill the supply side of operations. The focus could beplaced on driven up efficiencies and driving down cost. Increasingly, today, a
new perspective is taking root that sees P2P as the cornerstone of a value chain
encompassing research, production, supply chain and finance. If the P2P process is
not functioning optimally, the business itself is suffering and not just through poor
supplier relationships.
The COVID-19 pandemic shone a spotlight on procurement and the supply chain.
It exposed many fault lines with organizations thrown into reactive mode and often
unable to maintain the supply levels they needed. The ability to quickly identify andonboard new sources as well as automate as much of the P2P process as possible
distinguished leaders from the rest.
1 https://www.sourcetoday.com/supply-chain/article/21866901/
inefficient-purchasetopay-processes-cost-businesses-6500-manhours-annually

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The need to build business resilience in response to the coronavirus has
accelerated trends towards digital transformation and automation. Industry
research points to the belief that most companies’ existing procurement challenges
were exasperated by the pandemic, and that the effects of the pandemic havemade automation more appealing.
With employees working remotely dealing with potentially a completely new rangeof suppliers, manual processes are not just inefficient but hugely detriment tobusiness. This has accelerated the adoption of digital tools to enable companies
to easily shift their P2P activities to a fully remote environment in which employees
can communicate with suppliers, receive documents, approve purchasing, track
goods and pay invoices online.
Increasing the integration and collaboration between the procurement and AP teams
helps better manage the P2P process and speed sourcing and supply activities. The
supplier that goes through the tendering and sourcing process is the same one thatcreates and delivers the goods and the same one who’d like to get paid on time andtake advantage of any supply chain financing opportunities available.
Being able to establish an end-to-end, digital P2P process provides the basis forthe resilience, agility and innovation that organizations are looking to achieve.
This remains a major challenge and motivates companies to increase supply
chain visibility and automation, as well as address poor communication between
procurement and AP.
Moving forward, the need is greater than ever for enterprise supplier networks thatenable organizations to digitally enable their entire trading partner community with
automating as many P2P activities and workflows as possible. The emergence ofcloud-based enterprise platforms, such as OpenText Business Network, facilitate
the exchange of key business documents – including orders, invoices and other key
supply chain documentation – while providing the digital foundation for effective
supplier collaboration and communication.

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5 technology trends shaping the P2P process
The focus on procurement and the supply chain during the COVID-19 pandemic has
demonstrated the need for well-implemented digital solutions to ensure flexibility andagility of business operations. In particular, five key technology areas are becoming
essential to rapidly evolve the P2P process.
Digitization
Moving from manual to digital process and workflows has the potential to deliver
new and disruptive business models, increase supplier collaboration and enhanceinnovation. However, many organizations believe that their procurement and financefunctions are prepared for the impact of digitization and that they are amongst the
top three business areas to benefit from digital transformation.
Within P2P, digitization of internal processes has to be integrated with the digitizationof the organization’s trading partner community. For example, businesses using
OpenText Active Orders have demonstrated improvements in buyer and supplierproductivity by up to 25% by removing paper from communications and minimizing
the use of costly and error-prone manual interactions. Beyond cost and efficiency,
digitizing supplier relationships speeds up reaction times and deepens collaboration.
Cloud
Cloud is rapidly becoming the major technology platform for every type of business.
Within P2P, the move to the cloud has been consistent but patchy. Both theeProcurement and eInvoicing sectors are well established and growing but cloudbased AP solutions are relatively new. In addition, some early eProcurement andeInvoicing adopters have relied on their own on-premise technology that is now
becoming outdated.
Deploying a cloud-based P2P solution offers more than the ability to automate
the exchange of purchase, supply chain and finance documents. It provides theopportunity to develop a cloud platform that facilitates efficient, secure and compliant
data integration and management across digital business ecosystems—connecting
people, systems, and things. It allows organizations to break down the departmental
information silos and increasingly integrate the entire P2P process.
Automation
With the drive to digitization, organizations are looking to automate as much of theP2P process as possible, where manual intervention for high-volume repeatable
tasks – such as purchase requisition to purchase order conversion and invoiceprocessing - is removed. Organizations have started to realize that automation ofvarious finance and procurement processes will have the biggest impact on theirorganization, with automation of payments topping the list.
As well as freeing employees from mundane tasks, automation of key businessprocesses and workflows gives more time to strategic activities such as negotiating
price and terms, undertaking spend analysis, and supplier selection. As productivity
and quality increases, automation helps speed the entire P2P process and strengthen
supplier and customer relationships.

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Data and analytics
Smarter processes backed by data and powered by automation are the future for
P2P operations. When data quality improves, automation becomes all the more
effective. Organizations are faced with a growing amount of information from bothinternal and external sources and harnessing the value of the data is becoming key
for business success.
While data and analytics were originally used to reactively drill down into operations,capabilities are changing quickly. Using advanced analytics combined with AI andmachine learning, organizations can use P2P data to not just look at your current stateof operations but make a proactive and informed plan for the future. Organizations
are now turning the information held within their procurement, supply chain and AP
functions to drive actionable insight and improve decision-making.
Integrated P2P ecosystems
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for agility, resilience and adaptability
within your trading partner community. At its height, the pandemic saw major disruption
to global supply chains. The companies that succeed were the ones that were able toadapt their supplier networks or create entirely new ones. The supply chain has been
reframed as a digital ecosystem of suppliers, customers and partners.
Creating and integrated a P2P ecosystem means finding new ways of securely sharing
information to encourage collaboration and innovation with your suppliers. In the
coming years, there will be a focus on organizations to move towards touch-lessprocurement by effectivelylinking P2P data across internal departments and with the
supplier ecosystem.

Using P2P to drive strategic value
There are many moving parts to an end-to-end P2P process (see Figure 1) and,traditionally, it has been split between different departments that have implemented
their own systems and applications to address their own business need. While
this ‘best of breed’ approach allowed the teams to benefit from high degrees offunctionality, it created silos of information and didn’t enable transparency orvisibility across the entire process.
This full suite approach allows you to gain maximum value from your P2P process byholistically addressing a number of strategic areas within your business.
Payment released

Purchase
order

Invoice dispute

Invoice approved

Invoice received

Purchase order
response

P2P
process

Goods received

Order change
response

Inventory report

Shipment tracking

5 tech trends shaping P2P

Purchase orderchangeOrder shipped

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Build an enterprise supplier network
Increasingly, the procurement function within organizations is becoming the central
hub connecting commercial, financial and supply chain operations. This is causing a
re-assessment of supply chain relationships and how a supplier network s developed
and managed. The requirement for a flexible and scalable supplier ecosystem is built
on digital platforms that enable fast and effective information exchange.
This begins with the ability to digitize your entire trading partner community. It’s nolonger sufficient to be trading digital with 50% or even 80% of your suppliers. Digital
onboarding allows you to digitize business transactions with suppliers, regardlessof their size or technical capabilities. It helps connect 100% of your trading partners
so you can fully optimize operations and increase customer satisfaction withgreater speed, less manual processing and fewer errors.
As well as quickly onboarding new suppliers, the enterprise supplier network allows
for the effective exchange of business and supply chain documentation. It provides
tools to drive community management and collaboration as well as measuring
supplier performance. By delivering 360-degree insight into digitized transactions
across the community, the enterprise supplier network helps boost productivity andreduce risk within the P2P process.

Improve supplier management
The P2P functions within an organization are moving from tactical cost control to amore strategic activity addressing the entire value chain to drive business direction
and competitive advantage. Supplier management is a core activity to meet thisapproach. Over the years, the meaning of supplier management has evolved to become
not just about cost and efficiency but include elements such as supplier vetting andqualification, supplier performance, supplier development and risk management.
At the same time, supply chains have become global, complex and multilayered. Large organizations today may have hundreds or thousands of suppliers
spread across the world making the effective management of the supply chain
highly challenging. Organizations need digital connectivity and visibility into
supplier activities all the way down the supply chain tiers. It’s essential that yourorganization can monitor the performance of every supplier to ensure KPIs are
met and to deepen the supplier relationship by offering financial incentives anddiscounts based on performance.
To further enhance improvement throughout the supply chain, there is real value inworking in close collaboration and building stronger relationships with suppliers.
When it comes to realizing product improvement, accessing new markets andincorporating sustainability initiatives, suppliers are playing an increasingly pivotal
role. For many organizations, suppliers have transformed from simple providers tostrategic partners intimately involved in operations and product development.
Effective collaboration requires continuous information sharing. Most enterpriseplatforms offer a range of tools to manage supplier performance and facilitate
collaboration across trading part communities. For instance, OpenText Active
Community lets you centralize trading partner profile data in a single, shared directoryof information that can be securely accessed across the organization and extended
community. With up-to-date partner information and the ability to connect and share
information at all levels within your ecosystem, B2B community management solutions
provide the platform to drive collaboration and improved relationships.

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Increase procurement and AP automation
The coronavirus pandemic demonstrated the need to digitize and automate as many
key business processes as possible. With more people working from home, manual,
paper-based processes proved difficult and inefficient when faced with serious
disruption. While eProcurement and procurement automation are well established,
AP automation has been growing rapidly in recent years.
Procurement and AP Automation solutions enable companies to seamlessly executeprocesses to speed and improve everything from initiation to approval to archiving.
Tasks, such as processing supplier invoices, use a digital workflow to manage steps
previously handled by a procurement or AP staff member. This reduces the timeand cost in the process while enabling personnel to concentrate on higher value,
more strategic activities such as negotiating price and terms, undertaking spend
analysis, and supplier selection.
However, separating the procurement and AP automation solutions leads toinformation silos and an inability to improve the P2P process end-to-end. Today,
there are cloud-based enterprise platforms – such as OpenText Active Orders – thatfacilitate automation across your P2P operations. These solutions integrate a wide
range of P2P processes, including:• Purchase order and acknowledgement• Shipment tracking with logistics visibility• Supplier performance and KPIs
These data integration platforms provide the necessary digital foundation forautomating and optimizing processes both internally and with your trading partner
community. With sophisticated integration capabilities, the solution allows P2P
automation to integrated with your ERP systems enabling P2P data to be seamlessly
and securely exchanges between your ERP and that of your suppliers.
By eliminating a significant percentage of the manual work required to manage,
approve validate and match invoices, human error is significantly reduced andproductivity increases. The system performs comprehensive data quality checks
to ensure the accuracy of documents that are delivered to ERP and otherbusiness systems.
Beyond time, cost and productivity gains, P2P automation offers significant
business benefits for buyers and suppliers. Disputes are reduced and orders
and invoices are processed quickly so cash flow for both parties improves. Moreeffective payments opens the door for a wide range of discounting and supply chain
finance options. In addition, you have the opportunity to optimize your portfolio ofvendors and suppliers, tackle fraud, and avoid duplicate or erroneous payments.

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Ensure vendor complianceManaging supplier risk is becoming an increasingly complex task. As global
supply chains grow, the relationship isn’t just about money but ensuring that yoursuppliers stay in compliance with your policies and procedures that allow for themost efficient shipment handling. Without the correct systems, time and money
are wasted in while your team manually collects all the information they need to
produce accurate reports for auditing or compliance. This means spending hours
auditing shipments, combing through supplier shipment data, order receipts andother supply chain documents.
Today, your suppliers are a direct extension of your brand and sustainability, ethicalbusiness and social responsibility have become important issues when managing
a supplier network. Understanding your suppliers’ behavior and being able tomonitor their performance and work practices are features that customers now
expect. Some enterprise supplier networks – Such as OpenText Business Network– include capabilities to quickly identify and manage suppliers based on yourpolicies. For example, the OpenText Global Partner Directory allows supply chain
and procurement leaders to search for new trading partners using comprehensive
filters, from product and industry to ethical practices, to maintain continuity andensuring ethical practices.
Today, the adoption of e-invoicing is growing rapidly across the globe and moregovernments are beginning to mandate its use for business-to-government (B2G)
and business-to-business (B2B) transactions2. However, there are a large number of
e-invoicing standards in operation in different regions and countries. Each standard
uses its own data formats, standards and protocols. Solutions such as OpenText
Active Invoices with Compliance (AIC) ensure that you and your suppliers comply withe-invoicing tax regulations in the markets and geographies where you trade.
2 https://www.markit.eu/ww/en/b-gbfq/impacts-of-automation-and-digitisation-on-finance-and

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Deliver supply chain visibility
Supply chain complexity has grown from simple domestic supply chains to more
complex and global supply chains vulnerable to disruption, interruption and otherthird-party risks. At its heart, supply chain visibility is about knowing where inventory
is at a particular time, tracking their movement and delivery, and understanding who
you’re doing business with. It provides the link between procurement and accounts
payable to provide an end-to-end P2P process.
Complete visibility into your P2P process helps you evaluate and manage suppliers,
reduce risk within your supplier ecosystem and keep control of spend in inventory
and logistics. However, very few organizations have this supply chain visibility.
Poor visibility makes it difficult for organizations to measure their performance in P2P.
Without the ability to easily measure the impact of procurement policies and spend
control measures, their full impact and potential will not be realized. Equally, lack thevisibility reduces your ability to quickly see when things are going wrong across yoursupply chain and P2P process.
An end-to-end P2P solution – such as OpenText Active Orders - is the best way tohave visibility into products and assets across an extended supply chain network.
It delivers the automated tools necessary for you to see exactly what’s happening
in your supply chain and how each supplier is preforming. The right P2P solution
records and reports data automatically, giving a single point of access for theprocessing of all invoices, purchase orders and business documents.
For example, OpenText Active Orders provides supply chain visibility and enablementof digital and non-digital suppliers. Its key features include:
FeaturesBusiness document exchange

Send EDI/XML documents to all of your suppliers and give suppliers the option to
respond via their chosen format including EDI, XML or web portal.

Order tracking

Search for a specific purchase order (PO) and view all of its associated documents,
such as acknowledgements, PO changes, advanced shipment notices and invoices.

Data quality management

Automated updates to supplier and logistics information lead to higher data quality
with fewer errors and lower exposure. Self-service portals allow suppliers to selfmanage their information.

Supply chain alerting

Configure email alerts to advise of potential issues such as an unacknowledgedorder, delayed shipment or past due invoice.

Supplier performance management

Use B2B scorecards and dashboards to measure supplier performance on metrics
such as order-fill-rates, delivery punctuality and invoice accuracy.
Today, disruptive technologies such as the Internet of Things (IOT) are enabling amuch more granular and real-time view of supply chain operations. Solutions like
OpenText Active Orders enable the transformation of logistics to improve inboundlead time reliability, reduced inventory carrying costs, improved warehouse labor
utilization and reduced retail stock-outs.

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Working with the P2P leader
Learn more

OpenText is the leader in creating and empowering trading partner and supply
chain communities. The company has developed a cloud-based platform focusedon maximizing your P2P investment, though complete channel management and fullpartner community digitization and enablement, complete channel management
and P2P automation. You have the capabilities to manage the end-to-end digitalcommunication lifecycle with your suppliers to deliver the highest level of P2P
quality and compliance, as well as full supply chain visibility.

How OpenText solutions help optimize your P2P process
OpenText provides the digital foundation for automating and obtaining insightof procurement, supply chain and AP processes across a global ecosystem ofsuppliers to deliver complete, end-to-end management of your P2P processes.
OpenText Community Onboarding
Delivered as a managed service, Community Onboarding helps connect companiesof all sizes quickly and easily so they can optimize operations through effective
collaboration and information sharing.
OpenText Active Orders
Active Orders is a cloud-based solution that provides buying organizations with thetechnology and services to optimize transaction management. It offers 360-degreesupply chain visibility with all suppliers, including those not digitally enabled with
their own order management software solution.
OpenText Active Invoices with Compliance
Active Invoices with Compliance is an e-invoicing compliance solution, which
provides capabilities for automating e-invoicing and compliance in over 45 countries.
Active Invoices with Compliance supports data validation, digital signatures, archiving
and delivery based on country-specific requirements.
OpenText Freeway Cloud
Freeway Cloud quickly enables B2B connectivity between buyers and vendors.
Designed for small to medium sized businesses, it is a sophisticated, yet affordable,
EDI solution that is easy to use, even without prior EDI knowledge.
OpenText Integration Managed Services
OpenText Integration Managed Services helps to shield organizations from thecomplexities of managing B2B integration environments, allowing them to focus oncore business activities.

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