The impact of technology on credit managers: the convergence of data analytics, and process automation.(selected topic)

Publication: Business Credit

Publication Date: 01-OCT-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 National Association of Credit Management

As credit and collections managers survey their profession, they see a ground swell of support for new technologies. After years of declining budgets for IT investment, there is pent up demand for productivity enhancements in the form of centralization, standardization, and outsourcing of financial functions. The reasons are numerous.

* Inaccurate forecasting of DSO, write-offs and loss provisions is no longer acceptable.

* Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is more important today as memories of Enron, Tyco and other corporate scandals are fresh in the minds of CFOs.

* Sarbanes-Oxley has created an urgent need to implement company-wide internal controls.

Even though the economy has turned, companies are still looking to do more with less. Consequently, the elimination of redundant and inefficient tasks and the automation of repetitive tasks are crucial. Credit and collections managers need to be able to deliver on these needs, while at the same time, managing their continuing day-to-day activities. ROI is also playing a larger role in today's climate. These pressures are creating significant challenges because the state of credit and collections technology for many companies is woefully inadequate.

Among the hurdles are:

Rigid Technology: Despite some recent progress, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendors lack the full range of capabilities necessary for complete trade receivables management. Frequent, extensive and costly upgrades and customization are often needed. Additionally, many companies still have multiple ERP systems across business units and countries, underscoring the need for a single unifying view. To address these issues, some companies have created a patchwork of third-party software solutions, spreadsheets and home-grown systems that fail to provide a full feature set, do not easily scale with their businesses and lack critical workflow capabilities....

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