The 5 pillars of touchless P2P

P2P processes should be so seamless it’s boring—executing in the background, with minimal intervention by your teams. In fact, imagine a consumer-like experience where your suppliers can set up and manage accounts. Your internal users can see negotiated contracts, use digital workflows to be more productive, and make decisions within controls. It’s easier for all participants to do what’s right than subvert controls, so exceptions, fraud, and waste just fade away.

Your C-suite finally gets the data it needs for setting strategy and driving operational efficiency programs. Your users enjoy their jobs more and make better financial decisions. And your suppliers are happier because they’re getting paid on time and improving their working capital.

Sound like something you want to explore? Here’s what you’ll need to think through to get started.

1. Alignment

Create one vision, business case, and roadmap. One senior leader should lead the P2P journey and work with other stakeholders to align around a common vision for touchless P2P and what it will deliver for your company. For example, your company may want to reduce its total P2P costs so that you can charge less back to the business, accelerate your cycle time for inventory to production, or increase working capital to drive momentum and reduce risks.

2. Data

Creating accurate master data before implementing a business spend management platform is essential. Typically, there’s no one owner of master data. As a result, there’s not a single source of truth. By allowing procurement to take leadership here, all your teams—from sourcing, to purchasing, finance, warehousing, and accounts payable—can have access to the same information.

3. Process

Touchless P2P is only possible when technology meets stakeholder needs and correctly architected processes. One challenge is that stakeholders won’t adopt processes that aren’t intuitive. Another is that flexible SaaS platforms are now infinitely configurable and can be used as a Band-Aid for bad processes. As a result, it’s worth the time and investment to fix what’s broken before connecting your processes to a business spend management platform. You’ll be better able to push key levers and achieve the outcomes you desire.

4. Culture

Create a culture of continuous improvement by starting at the beginning. Take the time to understand what your teams care about and the problems they need solved. Design processes that solve the worst pain points and communicate your plan for fixing even more processes as the program progresses.

5. Technology

Companies, such as Coupa, provide end-to-end business spend management solutions that enable organizations to break down silos and achieve touchless P2P. With globally available data and streamlined procurement processes, your business functions can be key players in accomplishing other strategic goals, such as driving innovation, improving margins, and increasing organizational agility.

Want a deeper dive on these pillars? Explore our eBook: How to reach touchless P2P Nirvana.