Customer-to-Cash Receivables Solutions – Market Intelligence Research

In this episode of the Business Excelleration^® Podcast, which customer-to-cash receivables solutions providers excel at delivering real value? Which offer the greatest breadth of capabilities? This episode of the Business Excelleration podcast looks at the first piece of research from The Hackett Group’s Market Intelligence Service, which provides a unique analysis and ranking of nine leading C2C solution providers. With Chief Market Intelligence Officer Michel Janssen and Global Customer-to-Cash Advisory Practice Leader Bryan DeGraw.

Welcome to The Hackett Group’s “Business Excelleration Podcast,” where week after week we hear from experts on how to avoid obstacles, manage detours and celebrate milestones on the journey to world-class performance. This episode is hosted by Gary Baker, Group Global Communications director at The Hackett Group. Today’s episode will discuss the first piece of research from The Hackett Group’s customer intelligence survey, which provides a unique analysis and ranking of nine leading customer-to-cash (C2C) solutions providers. His guests are Michel Janssen, chief market intelligence officer, and Bryan DeGraw, Global Customer-to-Cash Advisory Practice leader.

In the study, The Hackett Group took C2C and focused on the receivable solutions aspect of it. This is partly because it is a specialty of The Hackett Group, and they have a significant depth of client base in the space. Additionally, there is a lot of activity in this marketplace for solutions providers to up their game in the SaaS platforms. As a leader of the C2C program, Bryan works one-on-one with global process owners in this space. He adds that receivables management is one of the most challenging components of working capital. It is consistently among the top three questions they receive from clients. Digital transformation and technology landscape was the biggest question asked by global C2C process owners in The Hackett Group’s most recent poll. Getting this process right is more important now than ever before. Chief financial officers are expected to do more with less funds, but this doesn’t mean they are stopping investing in technology. This shines a spotlight on how technology can be leveraged to improve receivables management.

Next, Michel summarizes the findings at the highest level. With the modern customer cash platform, we saw improvements with the customer and employee experience, the insights generated, and some solutions providers focusing on the ecosystem and having all of their data in one place. Compared to legacy, the modern platforms are focusing very deeply on collections management, dispute management and excelling in these areas in terms of the cutting-edge technologies they are bringing to the market. For example, machine learning is being used to create a touchless environment. It is worth noting that when things become automated, fewer things are less likely to be wrong.

Historically, clients want to know what the technology landscape is looking like, and how their performance metrics compare to their peers. The combination of benchmarking data and the program Michel developed was an exciting way to address these questions. The program takes a deep dive into each solution provider’s capabilities. Then, they look at how clients are seeing the value realization within the context of their own businesses. Through the lens of value realization and depth of capabilities, three organizations achieved The Hackett Group’s Digital World Class^® solution providers ranking. Key performance metrics included cash application, collections management and dispute management.

In this space, there is lots of variation in terms of how these tools are being implemented. This means there are ample opportunities for the features and functionalities to drive value realization and penetrate in a deeper sense.  Prior to adopting a more modern platform, organizations were using time-consuming operations to catalog data. Organizations understand the need to free up time to be able to conduct true analysis to determine why their problems keep arising. After modernizing, transactions become touchless and automated, collections proactive and freed-up time is allotted to improvement activities. In closing, Bryan shares how companies can use this research most effectively.

Time Stamps

• 0:49 – Welcome to this episode hosted by Gary Baker.
• 1:37 – Why does the survey begin with C2C?
• 4:40 – Summarizing the findings at the highest level.
• 8:52 – The metrics and criteria used in the study.
• 11:47 – The best organizations in the study.
• 17:30 – Operations prior to adopting a modern platform.
• 19:40 – How companies can use this research most effectively.