A Roundup of Basware’s Digital Connect Webinar Series

As part of Basware’s Connect Digital series, each of the following webinars focused on the importance of visibility and how it is required for success-and beyond that, how transparency is needed to mitigate risk, ensure business continuity, source innovation, and adapt to rapid change.

“The Changing Dynamics of Global Trade”

During this webinar, we discuss five key trends that are shaping global trade right now, and what’s driving them:

Covid-19

The top trend is Covid-19 and its immediate and ongoing economic impact on trade, GDP, and consumer confidence. The big question is the speed with which the global economy can recover.

US-China trade relations

Before Covid-19, the biggest factor in global trade was the tensions between the US and China, their Phase 1 trade deal that China may not be able to execute on, and the tariffs they impose on each other and other countries.

Europe trade relations

While larger in monetary volume than the US-China trade, the EU has also seen a lot of tariff changes over the last few years. All of which again will have far-reaching implications for businesses, especially in the finance and procurement departments who will be under even more pressure to generate savings.

Rising non-tariff protectionism

Government subsidies, rather than tariffs, are perhaps the larger form of distortionary measures likely to hamper global trade by making it harder for foreign companies to compete in their industries when it comes to purchasing goods and/or services.

Taxing digital trade

The WTO moratorium is up for review and is not expected to be extended. This will have an unprecedented impact on global trade, and companies that rely on the internet to do international business will suffer.

Read more about the EIU report here.

“Winning the Peace: Is Now the Time to Change Our System?”

In this webinar Bertrand Badré, former Managing Director and CFO of The World Bank, joined Basware’s CFO Martti Nurminen, to discuss:

• The challenges of COVID-19 and how we have to address both at a macro level and specifically amongst CFOs

• How prepared we were for this pandemic both from an economic standpoint and amongst private enterprise

• And what we need to change to have a positive exit from this crisis

They discussed the challenges the current crisis has highlighted in our financial systems, its impact on organisations as well as the global economy, and what a positive exit could look like.

 "What started as a health crisis, amplified into financial crisis” - Bertrand Badré

What will the new system look like and how do we deliver it?

We need to improve and build something better than how it was before the crisis.

Expecting a change from “the top” is unlikely to occur-it more likely needs to be driven from the bottom up. As individuals, we have a responsibility as consumers, citizens, investors, members of the workforce, etc., to hold companies/institutions accountable.

“Coexistence and collaboration between customers, partners, and even with competitors to an extent are key to success post-crisis (an ecosystem approach)” - Martti Nurminen 

Collaboration is vital, but technology will lead to an evolution and a better state of business. One that allows for increased transparency, automation, and remote working capabilities.

“Visible Commerce”

In this webinar, we explore the innovative concept of “Visible Commerce” and how it can help you deliver business with purpose and discuss how a transparent approach to your Finance, Procurement, and supply chain operations will help your organisation better meet the needs of the future of procure to pay (P2P).

Three main topics covered were: an introduction to Visible Commerce, what Visible Commerce looks like in today’s industry, and how Basware is currently implementing Visible Commerce practices.

An introduction to Visible Commerce and an explanation of the concept

What is Visible Commerce? It's complete visibility across all the flows of money, goods, and services around the world. A state where transparency and data lead to more effective and ethical decision making – a better world economy for all.

What Visible Commerce looks like in today’s industry, where it is now, and where it’s going in the future

What it looks like:

Companies need full visibility into spend, need cash flow, savings, and insight into the supply chain

Where it is now:

Fractured, with technology like AI and machine-learning but needing a smart solution to tie them all together and use the data to provide visibility in meaningful ways.

“Cleaning up your supply chain”

In our webinar, “Cleaning up your supply chain”, we discuss the importance of having your supplier data consolidated into a single, easy to access location. Additionally, we covered the significance of data quality, the key benefits of efficient supplier management, and how to recognise key suppliers and verify their financial position.

During times of disruption, the quality of your supplier data is of the utmost importance. Because of this, it’s important to ensure your supplier master data is always up to date. The problem is many companies’ data is fragmented and stored in different systems making it hard to consolidate, update, and locate information.

It all starts with supplier data collection and identification. Then, it becomes easy to better identify your suppliers, determine your supplier hierarchy, achieve greater visibility of your total spend, and identify risk data such as a supplier’s financial statements.

Read more about this webinar here.

“Determining Your Future Tech Strategy”

In this webinar, Magnus Bergfors, VP European Research and Lead Analyst, from Spend Matters discusses the future of Procurement technology. 

Though an end-to-end source-to-pay (S2P) suite often seems more appealing than a specialist solution at first glance, there are advantages and disadvantages to this type of approach. Sure, your business will have fewer solutions to deal with and fewer integration points with an end-to-end approach. However, there are many practical issues when looking at end-to-end solutions. For example, your organisation will sacrifice specific functionalities with a unified suite. And when you sacrifice too much, it starts impacting your ability to manage your spend and stay agile in your operations.

“Instead of talking about suites, I think we should be talking about platforms.”

There are a lot of different ways your organisation can determine if it’s time to consider an increase in procurement technology. But, at the core of your planning, it really depends on your business needs and what your strategic roadmap looks like.

The CFO Perspective on Business Transformation & Cloud

Business transformations can be a tricky thing. They’re not innately difficult, but for transformation to happen successfully you need to make sure you’re taking into consideration not only the technology but also culture and the people involved.

In this illuminating webinar, Jonathan Smare, Enterprise Transformation Executive and Finance Lead with Amazon Web Services (AWS) discusses why business challenges are prompting digital transformations; how Amazon worked through their own digital transformation; and what a modern digital company looks like amid today’s current business climate.

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