Outlook among CEOs, CIOs, and CFOs suggest inflation and rising interest rates spotlight a need for improved CX in the billing and payment cycle between businesses.
LAS VEGAS—With inflation and interest rates rising, Versapay, the leader in Collaborative Accounts Receivable (AR), has published a new report today from SuiteWorld, Oracle NetSuite’s annual user conference, revealing 1,000 C-suite executives’ biggest economic concerns and the impact the transaction experience has on cash flow.
The report surveyed 1,000 C-level executives at companies with a minimum annual revenue of $100m on their digital transformation efforts. The findings are segmented by C-suite office and show that 45% to 60% of C-level executives in a variety of roles rank inflation and rising interest rates as top concerns for their businesses. Additionally, when executives consider customer experience in their payment process, a clear threat to the business emerged. The findings indicate that over 70% of C-level executives, led by CEOs at 77%, identify that the transaction process can negatively impact customer experience, and ultimately cash flow.
At the heart of the transaction process problem is customer communication. 99% of CEOs say disputes that hold up payments could be resolved with better communication with the customer. Over three-quarters of CFOs, CIOs and CEOs say they have more work to do in digitizing their Accounts Receivable department to solve this.
“For the first time in many years, we have the perfect storm of inflation driving up costs while rising interest rates are making working capital more expensive,” said Craig O’Neill, CEO at Versapay. “The imperative to optimize working capital by accelerating the invoice-to-cash cycle has never been greater and taking a customer-first approach will be the most effective way to weather the storm.”
Other highlights
• 96% of the C-suite executives said they agree that there is more work to be done to digitize accounts receivable
• 89% of all C-suite executives surveyed agreed that the C-suite is only as good as their customer experience (93% of CEOs, 90% of CFOs and 88% of CIOs)
• 81% of CEOs admit that accounts receivable processes can be a source of negative customer experiences
• Nearly nine-in-ten (86%) CEOs state that their organization has lost revenue due to confusion or conflicts that arose during the invoice-to-cash process
For more details and insights regarding the survey results, download the Wakefield + Versapay State of Digitization in B2B Finance: Survey of 1,000 Executives Reveals Impact of Customer Experience on B2B Payments report here.
