The Positive Side of the Credit Crunch

Difficult times for businesses

Everywhere in the press these days is news of a continuing global credit crisis.  In such testing times there is an even greater incentive for corporates to focus on simplifying internal processes in order to increase efficiencies and cut costs across the enterprise. Many of the companies we talk to are doing precisely this, taking stock after a period of sustained growth and looking at ways to improve their business for the longer term. E-billing and e-invoicing projects are top of the agenda.

Electronic Invoice Presentment (EIP) - A Sliver Lining to the Credit Crisis?

The good news for those looking to improve processes and cut costs is that there are projects which can undertaken within only a few months and deliver tangible benefits within a similar timescale. EIP projects in particular have the ability to quickly transform business processes. Take DHL Europe and their European e-billing project for example.  Here is a project which is paying for itself in terms of corporate process efficiencies which are resulting in real accountable cost savings as well as very real customer benefits. Moreover these deliverables are being achieved very quickly, on average it takes only one month to deploy e-billing within a country. DHL are in fact at the forefront of this new technology and it is great to see how such a massive organisation can pioneer within this space.

Success Breeds Success - European Country Rollout for DHL

Such has been the success of DHL’s project, they have swiftly moved from a pilot phase involving Belgium to a mass country rollout.  As a region DHL are targeting 1/3 of their invoices to be delivered by their e-billing solution and have further plans to roll the system out to a total of 30 countries across the European region. DHL expects to cut up to 336,000 paper invoices a year in the UK alone, where it plans to migrate 40% of customers to the system by the end of 2008. The moto is clear, the more countries with access, the more customers enrolled, the greater the cost savings, now that is good news.