Businesses have many options to consider. Some choices could grow the business to impossible sizes like Amazon or Walmart, while others could end up turning into a relic of the past like Blockbuster. Any Coupa consultant will agree that implementing source-to-pay software is a game-changer.
Optimizing processes within your business always helps many of the components within the process. However, it can be hard to say for sure what will and won’t help your company grow to its full potential. It doesn’t make circumstances any easier when you consider the fact that there are hundreds of companies out there that claim to be able to bring your company to the top.
So, you might be wondering if S2P software would benefit your company, what kinds of companies it benefits, and how exactly it goes about helping companies grow, no matter how big or small they are.
We’ve gone ahead and done a great deal of research to save you the trouble of delving into the internet to look for it yourself. With any luck, by the time you’re done reading this article, you’ll know exactly if and how S2P software could help your company.
What Exactly Is S2P Software?
S2P, or source-to-pay technology, is a type of software that helps with a big part of the logistics of your company. It allows for you to use multiple pieces of software to get to the same goal, and that’s getting your logistics all figured out. Typically, companies use S2P to help them:
- Locate vendors
- Negotiate prices
- Contract with suppliers
- Figure out supply routes
- Send payments
Some companies use this software to do more, but at the end of the day, it’s typically used to get supplies that your company needs into your company’s hands. It actually works exceptionally well, and a lot of companies are using it.
The reason why this software is so useful is that it puts everything you need in one easy-to-use place. Rather than having to go from program to program for contracting, payments, and negotiating, you’re able to do it all at once.
This kind of software is used by all sorts of companies and most of them see a dramatic increase in efficiency when it comes to the acquisition and transportation of goods. That kind of increase in efficiency can make a world of difference in the way your company operates.
How Can S2P Help a Business?
You might have read all of the things that we have already gone over and wondered how this could possibly have an impact on your business. Well, there are a lot of ways that it can help. Making any process more efficient can make a lot of things go a lot more smoothly in general.
The logistics of contacting vendors, negotiating prices, signing contracts, and figuring out supply routes can be more than a little complicated. People go to college specifically to learn logistics so they can help companies and other entities with this.
One of the biggest problems that logistics majors have is trying to make everything as simple as possible. Let’s say, for example, you wanted to get all of these things done but you have to go through multiple portals to make it happen.
Switching from portal to portal takes time, time that you might not have. It can be especially bad if one of the pieces of software is having an outage and don’t we all know that one of them would when you need it the most.
Bundling all of your software together with an S2P software application can make this a lot easier and quicker, but it can also help with a lot of other things, making your life that much easier when you’re trying to deal with this kind of stuff.
Let’s say you’re a company that sells snacks in Saketchuan, and you have a supplier in Guadalajara. The logistics of getting products from Mexico to Canada can be tricky, especially because your package will have to cross over two borders
Using a good S2P solution can help you figure out the easiest way for you to get the goods to your company. Of course, it’s never going to be an easy task. International shipping is almost always a big hassle, but you can make it a little easier with the right software.
What Kind of Businesses can Benefit from S2P Software?
Now we’re getting to the real meat of the article. What kind of businesses could actually benefit from this kind of software? The short answer is most of them, but we know that you came here for something a little more specific than that.
Let’s look at a few specific industries that could benefit from this kind of software the most, without even having to look too deep:
- Automotive
- Foodservice
- Hospitality
- Medical
- Entertainment
- Transportation
- Science
- Technology
- Public administration
- Telecommunications
- Energy
- Engineering
- Mining
- Waste management
- Retail
- Production
There are a lot of other industries that can benefit from this kind of software, as well. The biggest question that you can ask yourself is “does my company need to do business with other companies?” and if the answer is yes, you could probably use S2P software in your business.
Integrating new technology in your business that increases the efficiency of any process is almost always a good idea, no matter your industry. There are some things that are specific to industries that won’t work for others, but S2P is a pretty universally used type of software.
Why Integrating New Technology Matters
As someone who makes decisions in your company, whether you’re the owner, CEO, a board member, or some other decision-maker, you probably have a lot on your plate. Making your business run as efficiently as possible
Technology gets better exponentially, as they say. That means that the jump in technology available from the year 2000 to the year 2010 was less than the jump from 2010 to 2020 by a significant amount, and you know that that’s true if you’re at least 22 years old today.
In 2000 people were using dial-up internet, in 2010 we had switched to broadband and wi-fi, and now in 2020, we have fiber optic internet and Starlink, providing internet from space. As technology gets better, it can help businesses, governments, and individuals get better and better as time goes on.
If you don’t take advantage of using new technologies that are available, you have to face the distinct possibility that your competitors will be ages ahead of you while you’re still using obsolete processes and software.
That might not sound like the worst thing in the world but look at it this way. One extra minute spent every single day on a task comes out to 5 minutes a week, 25 minutes a month, 300 minutes a year. That’s 5 hours that you’re paying for every year for something that can easily be shaved off.
What if it takes longer than that, what if you could shave 10 minutes off a task? That’s 50 hours a year, over a full week of full-time labor that you’re losing to inefficiencies just off 10 minutes a day.
Your competitors that are using the best technology available aren’t wasting that kind of time because they have software that can help make things be that much more efficient. The amount of time that you lose really adds up quickly.
On top of that, being able to say that you’ve optimized your processes can look good to investors, which is a win-win. If investors take interest in your company you want as many things as possible to keep their interest for as long as possible so they’ll inject more money into your company.
No matter how you look at it, using the best technology available can make a dramatic difference in how your company is going to operate both in the short and long term. Your I.T. department would probably even agree.
Getting Ready for The Future
Running a business isn’t an easy task, but it can be done if you understand how to keep a business afloat. Whether that’s new marketing strategies or updating the software that you use for everyday operations, small changes can sometimes change the trajectory of your company’s future forever.
As technology improves our opportunities do as well. Whether that technology helps individuals specifically or has functions that can help anyone, technology helps us all.