SUPPLY CHAIN
out a growing range of value-added fintech services to sellers on Tradeshift , from early payment options on existing invoices to help with cash flow , through to virtual credit cards for one-off purchasing . MRM : Yes . Many companies incentivise suppliers to join control towers and provide digital records of transactions that can be tracked and traced .
Incentives include faster payments , access to platforms to enhance the supplier ’ s visibility of the network and greater access to the customer ’ s information and future business intentions .
How do businesses convey the benefits of digitisation to suppliers when there are thousands of them in the value chain ? CL : We onboard around 40,000 new suppliers every month , so it ’ s absolutely possible for businesses to achieve their goals at speed and scale .
Automation plays a key role in identifying , personalising and engaging with suppliers at scale . Our adaptive onboarding approach creates fully personalised invitations for sellers , and in each invite , we provide a realtime status update on outstanding invoices , giving sellers a taste of the value they ’ ll get using Tradeshift .
We recently started working with a large customer in the transport and logistics space . We were able to show them that roughly 50 % of their suppliers were already active on the Tradeshift network . Connecting with these suppliers is then simply a matter of plugging into the network . MRM : The scalability of solutions based on blockchain , visual analytics and conversational platforms has increased tenfold in the past few years .
Companies that have a robust cloud backbone for their connected applications
and visibility of their network can handle , by design , thousands of suppliers in their supply network .
The evolution of data lakes and analytics has removed the scalability challenge for supplier connectivity . Today , the challenges are more related to strategy , security , data privacy and willingness to co-operate across the network .
What are the main benefits of suppliers being part of a digital network ? CL : The relationship between buyers and suppliers is still largely governed by the exchange of paper-based documents . These heavily manual processes mean finance teams spend the bulk of their time on pretty
48 June 2022