Beyond visibility, networked supply chain finance provides convenience, compliance and trust

Traditionally, supply chains have been about sourcing, production and logistics (rinse and repeat). It’s important to source the right product at the right price, have capacity to produce the final product, and deliver it in a timely, efficient manner while providing real-time updates to better help plan and execute. Now, it’s about “funding” – optimizing the liquidity within the supply chain and incentivizing sustainable, compliant practices in the process. Enter “fintech.”

Financial technology companies that act as intermediaries in facilitating transactions between a company and its suppliers are now essential for ensuring supply chain health. They enable both buyers and suppliers to improve their liquidity by making it possible for the buyer to extend its payables while simultaneously accelerating payment to the supplier. This provides both parties with benefits, including greater liquidity and less variability in the timing of payments.

Organizations are using these “FinTech” platforms to tap previously inaccessible capital within their supply chains to help finance growth in new and emerging markets, develop and support new products, strengthen their financial positions, and increase the capital available to the whole supplier ecosystem.

Fintech creates visibility, and the first examples that typically come to mind are Zelle, PayPal & Venmo. However, one term that isn’t as synonymous with Fintech is “MeBN.” Multi-Enterprise Business Networks (MeBN) at their core provide visibility across the entire supply chain because of the various data sources that integrate with the network and it goes beyond just that. 

Let’s see how MeBNs help you go beyond visibility.

Convenience

Once the supplier is onboarded, the buying firm approves the invoice, and a cascade of processes takes place on the FinTech’s platform. The advantage for the supplier is the ability to obtain payment at a time of its choosing — a big benefit in a period when big manufacturers are extending payment terms.

In a nutshell, it provides faster payment automation, with access to a community of financial providers to offer opportunities for better financing interest rates.

Compliance

The solution enables multinational corporations to gain complete visibility of their end-to-end global trade process – reducing risk, maintaining regulatory compliance, enabling quick and accurate movement, and maximizing profit.

With workflow management tools, the network facilitates information exchange between an organization's trade team and their logistics, compliance, finance, and strategic planning departments. It also connects trade teams with external partners responsible for managing a complex global supply chain, including customs brokers, freight forwarders, customs, shippers, regulators, and banks.

Trust

MeBNs provide an integrated solution that supports a process that begins with procurement and terminates with payment to suppliers. These integrated systems enable buying firms to greatly reduce the burden of administering these functions because they close the loop between procurement and accounts payable and provide a structure that streamlines these processes.

These processes are conducted with more diversified risk due to partner backing, document compliance regulation, data visibility & true data validation, all while creating trust between the banks and suppliers.

While capabilities go beyond that of familiar “FinTech” platforms, Multi-Enterprise Business Networks are providing exponentially more than just visibility into real-time data and exception management. They’re becoming the backbone of the financial healthiness of the supply chain and making the processes more efficient during liquidity crises.

To learn more about building continuity with supply chain digitization, check out the complete best practice guide.