Industry news

In my last blog, I examined how electronic data interchange (EDI) and digital signatures fare against one another when it comes to data processing and integration. In this blog, I will examine how effective EDI and digital signatures are for archiving e-Invoices and enabling human readability.

Buyers and suppliers within member states of the European Union are required by law to store electronic invoices for a set period of time and this timeframe varies from country to country. This VAT regulation applies for all forms of electronic invoices, regardless of their format, and so this includes both signed and unsigned EDI as well as digitally signed documents. While there are some country-to-country variations in the length of time for which invoices are stored and what information is required, the archival of e-Invoices must follow the overarching European law. As this regulation pertains to all electronic formats, neither EDI nor digital signatures have the advantage when it comes to archival.

However, the difference between the two lies in the fact that the documents have to be presented in a human readable format upon request of the tax auditor. Digitally signed PDF format documents are often already human readable by default, and when XML-based standards are used, human readability is easily achieved through style-sheets.

On the other hand, non-XML EDI must be converted through a rendering tool, typically in real-time, and historically, there was confusion in some countries as to whether EDI must be printed to paper for storage as a compliant invoice.

So, digital signatures are easier to present in a human readable format, but in order to remain compliant with European VAT regulations there are a number of other key considerations that cannot be ignored. It is important that your e-Invoicing solution can store data within a secure environment, provide, upon request, an audit trail of transactions in order to prove that the invoice was processed and delivered without any modification. Your e-Invoicing solution must be able to swiftly provide auditors with information relevant to demonstrate compliance with the necessary regulations, without consuming excessive time and resources.

The Relationship Manager (RM) will play a pivotal part in ensuring the smooth running and therefore, the performance of business-to-business relationships. The RM will be responsible for developing, implementing and then maintaining the collaborative business relationship management process throughout the organisation and becomes the repository for knowledge and experience in collaborative working.

Externally, the RM manages the relationships with networks of organisations, often involving dependencies. It is likely that this web of relationships is highly complicated. Where you find strong relationship management there is less friction and scattering of resources which allows the partner organisations to move forward and achieve their aims.

Central to the RMs role is synchronizing work with his/her opposite number(s) in partner companies. An appropriate level of authority is essential to enable this to happen. This good governance involves consistent management, cohesive policies, guidance, process oversight and leadership. Regular meetings will discuss past performance, current issues, forecasts and plans. Actions will be agreed, resourced and monitored and people assigned will be held to account for their area of responsibility. The overall aim is to maintain the relevance of the joint enterprise in line with objectives and against a background of changes in the external environment. When the relationship comes to an end, the RMs will work together to facilitate an orderly exit.

The BSi’s Collaboration Standard – BS 11000 offers a ready made framework for managing business-to-business relationships. It provides a motive for maintaining your processes at peak performance and is a mark of a quality organisation which can give you a competitive edge.

The guiding principles are as follows:

1. Business as usual – Relationship management is an integral part of your business and should not be seen as a ‘bolt on’.

2. Seek authoritative advice – Decide how the value of your collaborative relationships can be improved.

3. Review what you do – Identify the things you need to do to improve the way you work with your partners.

4. Talk to your partners – Discuss and agree an improved structure for working together.

5. Implement and document – Jointly start doing what you agreed and keep records.

6. Manage the on-going relationship – Stick to the principles.

7. Continuous improvement – Make performance improvement inevitable by frequently reviewing with your partners how you are working together.

Good relationship management has the capability to give you startling results. Do as little or as much as you need to do and the increase in business performance will repay your investment many times over.

Although relationship management is an iterative process that moves around the Relationship Management Cycle and can be entered at any point, in practice it does have three distinct operational phases. These are the Decision Phase (choosing a partner), the Operations Phase (working together) and the Exit Phase (a clean break) which we will cover in our next three blogs.

About the Authors

Andrew Humphries and Linda McComie are acknowledged experts in the field of business relationship management. Their company, SCCI Ltd, specialises in transforming business relationships and alliances around the world into more effective and efficient revenue generating operations.

Wipro has partnered with analytics software developer Quiterian in ordered to provided advanced customer analytics applications to its global client base.

Quiterian will provide self-service software, allowing Wipro customers to incorporate date from multiple sources including email data, social media, and web based information. The service is designed to be used by non-technical users in order to allow for analytic enhanced decision making.

Wipro Technologies Analytics and Information Management senior vice president, K.R Sanjiv, commented: "It will enable us to provide customer insight solutions leveraging capabilities of Quiterian Analytics,"

Research in Motion are preparing to cut as many as 6,000 jobs according to unnamed sources. Such layoffs would see RIM’s global workforce reduced by between 12 and 36 percent.

According to the Globe and Mail a report showed that RIM are planning for "major global restructuring" while a source spoke to Reuters of layoffs affecting as many as 6,000 workers.

RIM, CEO Thorstein Heins, said in May “"We plan to streamline…operations to ensure sales, marketing and product management functions are all structured to support the most profitable business opportunities."

Marubeni, the Japenese trading house is to buy Gavilon, the U.S. based grain merchant which ranks currently as the third largest in the world in marketing network distribution, for $3.6 billion.

Negations have been ongoing since early May. The acquisition will provide Marubeni with greater control of global grain supplies, with the U.S. representing the world’s top grain exporter.

Grains analyst Mike Zuzolo of Global Commodity Analytics, said that: "This acquisition supports an ongoing strategic plan by Asian grain importers to better secure future grain needs via the merger and acquisition process.”

34 percent of employers around the world have difficulty filling jobs because of the lack of talent available according to a report from staffing services giant Manpowergroup.

The percentage gains remains stationary from 2011, but the report identified a increasing view from business that unfilled jobs are likely to have little to no impact on consumers and investors, up 20 percent from last year.

Manpower Chief Executive, Jeff Joerres, commented on the findings, saying: "Leaving positions unfilled may be a short-term fix, but it's a short-sighted and unsustainable approach to addressing talent shortages."

Amazon has announced plans to create over 100 new technology jobs in its development centre in Dublin.

The development centre currently provides support for Amazon Web Services. The new job roles will include cloud development, support, software and network engineers. The jobs will be based around expanding and developing Amazon Simple Service, CloudFront and Amazon Relational Deatabase Service.

Paul Conlon, managing director of the Amazon development centre in Dublin, said: "Dublin has proven to be an excellent location for finding the top talent we need to support our continued growth “

Fujitsu have won a £500 million 5 year contract to provide broadband services and billing solutions to the Post Office. The new contract will also see services provided by TalkTalk, MDS and Capital.

The new contract replaces previous suppliers Logica and BT to provide services for around 500,000 subscribers to the Post Office’s broadband and telephone service. BT had previously held a contract for the past four years, worth as much as £750 million to provide communications services.

Analyst provider TechMarketView commented that the contract could be easily “worth £500 million” and Anthony Miller, managing partner at the company said: ““As prime contractor, Fujitsu will be overseeing the entire migration process, both of the network and of the applications.”

The average earner can expect to see their finances increase by an additional £482 in this year according to a report from Ernst & Young ITEM Club.

Provided economic factors such as oil prices and inflation continue to follow current predictions, wage growth will begin to outpace inflation once more during 2012. Spending growth is expected to rise to 0.8 percent in this year and by 1.1 percent in 2013.

Senior economic adviser to the Ernst & Young, Andrew Goodwin, said: "After the tightest squeeze on consumer incomes in a generation, the worst is now behind us and most people should start to feel a bit better off by the end of the year."

Pressures from markets are increasing on Cloud providers to offer greater flexibility in contract terms.

Research from Queen Mary, University of London demonstrated that most Cloud provides offered one-size-fits-all contracts which are often balanced in favour of the provider. The current scope of contract types at present is very limited and large Cloud users are beginning to push for greater variety.

Professor Christopher Millard, lead academic on the Cloud Legal Project commented: “These are the key contractual issues of concern to users in the cloud market at this relatively immature stage of cloud adoption.”