P R OCUR EMENT INSIGHTS
Smith adds : “ We deal with all compliancy issues in Europe and Latin America , and other parts of the world , including the B2G initiatives . We can format our documents to meet all the different compliancy issues that are out there . On the B2G initiatives , we have to tailor the way the invoices are formatted , specifically to the different government initiatives . In Latin America , we ’ ve got to make sure the government sees invoices before they ’ re sent out to suppliers , and we ’ ve got to make sure we ’ re showing that VAT is being collected with the different compliancy issues throughout Europe .”
In terms of what ’ s on the horizon , promising to disrupt the global supply chain management industry , Smith sees advancements in robotic processing and AI , revealing that this is a “ big part ” of Esker ’ s solution .
“ Through AI and robotics we are able to automate things faster and adapt to everybody ’ s environment . Even though what we do is similar in every company , in many cases there ’ s nuance involved with orders and invoices but no matter what kind of document we ’ re dealing with , having robotics and artificial intelligence built into our solutions enables faster adaption to environments . There ’ s a lot of talk around this right now and in the next few years we ’ re going to see huge advancements to speed up and enhance the whole supply chain management process .”
While discussing companies ’ interest in embracing digital documents over paper documents , Smith tells Supply Chain Digital that he experienced a level of resistance to even going paperless until fairly recently . He cites younger generations entering the workforce as a key factor in driving a change in mentality .
“ I ’ ve been talking about paperless for probably 30 years and it ’ s really been in the last five years that I ’ ve started to see many of the things that we talked about way back when , really starting to take hold . The younger generations are used to using electronics – laptops , tablets , phones – and that ’ s the way that they are used to doing their daily activities . To receive something via paper seems odd to them and , quite frankly , they ’ re forcing people even in my generation to think differently ,” he states .
48 May 2018