The world of predictions. A small taste for you.
Hello all,
Today, I am going to take you to the world of the predictions. It is an exciting exercise we watch every day, on tv shows, newspapers, Internet, talking to friends over a beer, actually, everywhere. A lot of the predictions are based on personal interest, hidden passion, pure guessing, or, believe or not, the act of pissing someone off. Usually, the last one is used between friends, and you tend to be always against your friend, no matter what you are predicting.
But also, there are predictions that are followed by a structured, well prepared, organized thought process. These are the ones most of people believe, and even put money on it (if we are looking at the betting, stocks, etc). I enjoy watching and reading articles about that.
I also decided to share my predictions. I call myself the guy who knows a lot of things, but if you ask me about details, or, charts, or PowerPoint presentations, I am sorry, I am not the right guy. My predictions are based on my 25 years of working experience, combined by a passion of reading, and most importantly, listening to people. I love to listen to people. I really pay attention to what they have to say. I even go one step forward and try to understand their thought process. And it really helps. Even if what they are thinking is completely different from what I believe they are thinking. If you have amazing listening skills, you will also be good in capturing good information.
Anyways, the topic in question is not about how well I listen to people or not, but, how I am able to capture information and save that to my “hard drive”. You should learn more about the capacity our brain has to gather and analyze data.
I can spend pages of pages talking about the human brain, but it is not my field of expertise, I can be guessing and saying something that does not make sense to anyone. But, at least I have the courage and freedom to speak my mind. One more interesting comment about the human brain. I am very good in remembering facts from the past, especially words or phrases that are associated to my work, but I am very bad in remembering what I had for dinner a couple of nights ago. Can you explain that? Is that a case of a short memory? Or, if the specialists like to say: “selective memory”. Go figure.
Anyways, what was my topic of the day...? Hmmmm... Oh yes!! Predictions.
I would like to focus my predictions in a couple of business topics. That’s how I see how companies will survive in the next 10 years. After that, it is very hard to predict, as technology will have a big impact in any type of business. Let’s play the game predicting 10 years. I hope I am retired after that... “I wish”
Customer Service – As I had mentioned on an old article, the Clients are becoming more and more sophisticated. And also, today, you will find a lot of choices when looking for something to acquire. What are the things that are making them to go one way or the other? Price? I guess you can say that, but the market is also very competitive. The war on prices is almost over. The companies out there are offering similar products, with close prices. It is not easy to find a big difference in prices. Unless, you decide to go with a fake, or a “stolen” product. Then, it is not a matter or pricing, but principle.
What does it make a difference for you? I can’t guess it, but if you are a smart person, you like to have an outstanding Customer Service. You want to be treated as king or queen. You want to talk to people that understands and will take care of your problem. You also prefer to talk to a real person, not a machine. And, to finalize, someone who is very knowledgeable of your problem/concern, and will promptly attend you, instead of transferring you to a “voice-machine” or to a “boring” song.
Customer Service will make a difference. Companies must pay attention to their Customer Service department. I am sure you provide a good service; you will have the client back. If the companies are not investing in providing an outstanding Customer Service, they won’t be in the top of the chain 10 years from now.
Procurement – powerful organization, responsible for bringing the money to the company. I always said that. If you have a strong Procurement organization, focused on doing the strategic sourcing, involving regional and global contracts, treating Suppliers like Partners, not enemies, and also, looking at the Logistics part of the business, you will also be ahead of the game. But, they can’t do that on a “solo” journey. Negotiation takes effort and time, and you must have a support organization and technology to complete the package. The procurement guru does not have time (and it shouldn’t) to take care of the administrative tasks. It is not their priority. They must rely on a group of people to help them. And also, there are very interesting IT tools they can use to minimize the effort. Catalogs, automated contracts, automatic replenishment, automated Purchase Order Creation, Acknowledgement, you name it. It is all available. The important thing is to make sure all of the controls are in place. And it should also count a team to perform auditing in the system, contracts, prices, Supplier Invoices, etc. The transformation already started. 10 years from now, Procurement will be the golden “egg” of any organization. I can also see a new generation of CEO’s and CFO’s coming from the Procurement areas. Or, we can call it Supply Chain.
Accounts Payables – that will be my last prediction of the day. And it should be an easy one. I am an AP guy; I remember spending my days sitting in front of a computer, and next to me, a stack full of Invoices, waiting to be keyed in the system. I was a “warrior” trying to process as many Invoices as possible, avoiding making mistakes, but also looking for a number at the end of the day. Uau!! 632 Invoices. I broke the companies’ record.
What is the future of AP, 10 years from now? That guys sitting in front of the compute will no longer exist. I can’t see an AP department getting Invoices and processing. At least, for bigger organizations. Technology is advancing quite fast; you can see today AP software already replacing people. Exchanging of Invoices and accounting information will be mainly done electronically. But, we can’t forget about countries in which it is mandatory to have a paper Invoices. For these places, It will be a bit longer. Maybe 20 years.
Now, the next question is: what do we do with this group of people? Some of them spent their entire career in Accounts Payables. The answer is simple. You make them accountable for the auditing process on the IT world. More technology, stronger controls. The review and analysis becomes more important. Don’t forget. Garbage in, garbage out. It is time now to start looking at the position of an AP Accountant. We have to begin training them for the future. Especially for organizations and countries who are adopting the paperless concept. Where are the Invoices? Who is processing them? Or, maybe, it is another opportunity for this group of people to move into the Procurement processes, in which, it does still require talented people, who has a good business and accounting knowledge.
Take care
Disclaimer
This post is not related to author's employer and the information posted by the author does not necessarily reflect company opinions, being the author the solely responsible for them.