Businesses can engage with SDGs by business solutions that bring solutions to society, rather than causing problems. By adopting what Marga Hoek calls a shared value model, they focus on those activities and products that have both a financial return as well as a positive impact on society. By doing good, businesses can also do well, since it unlocks interesting new market opportunities. At the core of shared value are societal and environmental issues which serve as the drivers in propelling profitable shared value business cases across a wide spectrum of industries.

As a way of celebrating World Ocean Day (8^th June), Marga Hoek, author of The Trillion Dollar Shift, looked at some innovative businesses, that have a positive impact on the ocean and people who live off it by taking on the challenge of improving life below water (SDG 14).

ALGIX – Using algae to create new products as plastic alternatives.

Harmful algal growth, known as algae blooms, is increasingly prevalent. At the same time, the world’s plastic consumption continues to increase. ALGIX brings algae from pond to production, utilising algae blooms to produce alternative plastic-free products made from algae, including 3D filaments for 3D printers and plastic foam which has been made into shoes and backpacks.

The company removes algae blooms from ponds and lakes without causing harm or disturbance to fish and plant life. The algae are dried and processed before being combined with plastic resins for filament production. The filament for 3D printing has an algae content of 20%, while the remaining 80% is made from PLA, a nontoxic resin made of lactic acid derived from plant sugars. In 3D printing, using algae-based filament compared to traditional filament requires less energy because of algae filament prints at a lower temperature.

The solution reduces the environmental impacts of global plastic production, which has increased twenty-fold in a 50-year period, reaching 311 million tons in 2014. Together with local volunteers, ALGIX cleans up toxic algae blooms, providing clean waterways and re-establishing sustainable fisheries, where the company operates.

Interface – An innovative solution to plastic pollution.

It is estimated that 10% of plastic pollution in our oceans is from fishing equipment, such as nets, traps and lines – a huge amount, as an example drinking straws account for less than 1%! In 2012, a cross-sector initiative called Net-Works was created through a collaboration Interface and the Zoological Society of London. Together, they aimed to source material for carpets in a way that would benefit communities and the environment, and develop a new model of community-based conservation, which would bring immediate benefits to local people.

Net-Works is an innovative business that empowers people in coastal communities in the developing world to collect and sell discarded fishing nets, thereby removing these nets from the ocean where they wreak havoc with marine life (SDG 14). The nets are sold into the supply chain and recycled into yarn to make carpet tile. Since 2012, over 125 tons of nets that would otherwise have been waste have been collected through Net-Works. For context, approximately 640,000 tons of fishing nets are wasted in the world’s oceans.

ERRICSON – Bringing in technology to bring back mangrove forests.

In Ericsson’s Connected Mangroves project, they worked with Luimewah, a local technology company, to place sensors in the plant site of the newly- planted mangrove saplings. The sensor system provides near real-time information about the mangrove plantation conditions, enabling ICT to play a key role in managing this important resource. The project ensures up to 50% better maturity rates for the mangrove saplings, which in itself assures that the community will increase its mangrove cover substantially in the next few years.

The mangroves are important in rebuilding the ecosystem, as they serve as breeding grounds for crustaceans and fish which attract migratory birds. Malaysia has a diverse array of mangrove species, with 36 out of the 69 species worldwide native to the country. Today, approximately 50% of Malaysian mangroves have been destroyed due to development, aquaculture farms, fire, wood harvesting and pollution. This has caused coastal areas to be unprotected from environmental risks, especially from flooding and tsunamis. Additionally, a recent study shows 35,594 acres of mangrove habitats can prevent the release into the atmosphere of about 13 million metric tons of carbon, which is equivalent to the carbon emissions of 344,000 cars.

DJI – Affordably mapping sea level rise

As 80% of the world’s islands are at an elevation of one meter above sea level, they are at risk of rising sea levels due to climate change. This includes the coral atolls of the Maldives that are home to nearly 400,000 people dispersed over 200 inhabited islands spread over 90,000 square kilometres. This makes communication and transportation a serious logistical challenge. Sophisticated mapping is needed to design actions to protect the island residents from the threats posed by sea-level rise, as well as climate and weather conditions.

To help people on these islands forecast and combat the dangers caused by climate change, DJI and UNDP have partnered to provide drones to local Maldives response teams. Without the drones, it would take almost a year to map 11 islands; the drone was able to map the island of Maibadhoo in just one day. Three-dimensional risk maps represent an important source of data as visual images of the same area taken over time, or before and after a disaster, can identify changes to the landscape thereby providing much-needed evidence for decision-making.

About the Author:

Marga Hoek is a global thought leader on sustainable business, international speaker and the author of The Trillion Dollar Shift, a new book revealing the business opportunities provided by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The Trillion Dollar Shift is published by Routledge, priced at £30.99 in hardback and free in e-book. To order the book go to www.businessforgood.world

“Banks have responded to this new paradigm, digitising their processes by leveraging and making decisions based on data and analytics, and shifting their focus on consumer experiences that go beyond mobile and online”, says Rosanna Woods, UK Managing Director at Drooms. “They have realised that to remain competitive and maintain market share they need to be more strategic and technologically adept, recognising the need to invest in automation, core modernisation and digitisation.” Below, Rosanna tells us why a collaborative approach is the way forward.

 The changing landscape of investment banking

2019 is proving to be a momentous year for the global investment banking industry as it returns to normalcy in terms of profitability and capital adequacy. Global M&A activities, mainly by large US banks, are creating opportunities to expand overseas and acquire FinTech startups.

Today, most investment banks are enthusiastic about digital transformation initiatives to reduce costs and improve customer experience. Although investments banks adhere to their conservative business model, digitisation has shifted power to investors, who favour partnering with banks that are digitally more advanced.

Opportunities amid regulatory challenges

In Europe, the introduction of wide-ranging regulations has also impacted the working environment for banks. For example, the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) has encouraged innovation and competition between incumbents and FinTechs, while implementation of the revised General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) framework has given EU citizens comprehensive data protection, forcing banks to ensure the privacy of customers’ data.

While addressing the myriad requirements of these new and contradicting regulations makes data management more daunting for banks, the major challenge for most of them is that data is being managed in siloed and disparate systems, making it all the more difficult to understand clients’ needs and demands.

Today, most investment banks are enthusiastic about digital transformation initiatives to reduce costs and improve customer experience.

However, the good news is that more banks are recognising the capabilities of cognitive technologies in gathering intelligent insights on customers, compliance and operations making collaboration with FinTechs more attractive. Also, robotic process automation (RPA) is rapidly gaining popularity as it brings productivity benefits to the table.

Helpful technology

The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been particularly helpful for banks in processes including client servicing, trading, post-trade operations such as reconciliations, transactions reporting, tax operations and enterprise risk management.

While much of the media attention towards AI has focused on its potential capacity to replace humans, at present it is seeing much more practical use in terms of complementing human intelligence. ‘Augmented’ intelligence involves machines assisting humans in their decision-making processes.

A sub-field of AI – Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a good example of augmented intelligence in practice. NLP systems are designed to read and interpret human languages. A key application of this in relation to banking is the analysis of substantial amounts of ‘unstructured data’, which is data that as yet cannot be ‘read’ by machines, such as PDF files, images and audio materials.

Banking is a data-intensive sector and many key tasks demand correct interpretation of partly structured data. Therefore, NLP has the potential to make processes much more efficient with less effort required from humans. As such, FinTechs have been quick to apply this technology because of its value in improving customer interactions, making collaboration with them attractive for most banks.

The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been particularly helpful for banks in processes including client servicing, trading, post-trade operations such as reconciliations, transactions reporting, tax operations and enterprise risk management.

Role in M&A

Technologies such as virtual data rooms (VDRs) come into their own for banks when used in M&A deals, helping to address many of the challenges such pursuits face even at the best of times. There are several key causes of failure, including politics around the deal, culture clashes among the personnel involved and, in particular, parties being unprepared for the due diligence phase. In this latter regard, M&A deals rarely fail because of a lack of knowledge. Rather, it is about how that knowledge is handled. Over half of deals fail because those parties involved are reluctant to confront issues head-on.

Buyers often proceed with deals despite the challenges because they feel obligated by the amounts of time and money involved. They should, however, be prepared to cut their losses if the risks outweigh the benefits. For example, allocating inadequate resources during the review stage cost Bank of America $50 billion in legal fees post its acquisition of Countrywide Financial in 2008, let alone the reputational damage it suffered for inheriting the past mistakes of the mortgage lender.

A VDR enhances the M&A process by increasing the power to collect, process and distribute information to the right parties with much greater security and accuracy. It digitises relevant documents, automates tasks and streamlines workflows.

Authorised users, including those inside a company and their external stakeholders, are connected digitally and in a secure environment with real-time access to all relevant documentation, depending on users’ individual permission levels.

A VDR enhances the M&A process by increasing the power to collect, process and distribute information to the right parties with much greater security and accuracy. It digitises relevant documents, automates tasks and streamlines workflows.

Creating a database in which documents can be updated consistently gives asset owners full control and the ability to react to the latest market conditions, bringing assets to market quickly when the conditions are right, sometimes at short notice.

One of the strengths of the Drooms NXG VDR is its Findings Manager function. This improves the vendor due diligence both prior and during the sales process. It allows for the automatic pre-selection of documents and helps in the assessment of potential risks and opportunities within a transaction. This yields greater control, instils confidence in potential buyers and cuts disruption to existing business.

Blockchain first

Macro forces such as blockchain are also slowly revolutionising many areas of banking. For example, blockchain made it possible to automate approvals of contracts as well as protect the transfer of confidential data from hackers and fraudster whenever transactions are made. In 2018, Drooms became the first provider to move its VDR offering into the blockchain age, using this modern technology to enhance the security of transaction data archives. Up to that point, all data had been stored on physical data carriers following completion of a transaction. But now it can be stored on Drooms’ own servers with blockchain protection. As a result, the secured data cannot be lost, is non-manipulable and is accessible to all parties involved in a transaction at any time.

A new threat

As more financial institutions start to adopt technologies created by FinTechs, a likely threat is emerging. Tech giants such as the likes of Amazon, Alibaba, Apple and Google are attracting customers in the payments domain by offering alternative ways of managing finances. In the US, Amazon is already offering its customers the option to turn spare change into gift cards, and parents can also give children their allowances via a reloadable debit card for example. In India, customers pay delivery fees through a Cashload feature and store excess cash from previous purchases in their account, as well as deposit money for future orders.

With platform companies’ potential to exploit customer data and come up with innovative solutions to address customer pain points, there is a lingering risk of disintermediation for banks. Customers who feel that tech companies alone meet their banking needs may decide to switch to non-banking channels. And there is also the possibility that tech giants may provide banking services in the future, making services provided by banks non-exclusive. Although big techs pre-dominantly target the origination and payments domain of banking, a stronger foothold by platform companies could threaten the survival of many banks in the industry.

Towards modernisation

The various areas of the banking industry will undoubtedly continue to evolve at varying speeds. And as time progresses more banks will likely partner with innovative FinTechs to remain competitive and market relevant. Potential for creative and ground-breaking collaborations and advanced modernisation will also likely increase.

That said, as technology transforms the future of banking, so ought banks’ mindset towards cognitive technologies and collaboration with FinTechs. After all, technology is not a panacea and it is accompanied by many challenges as well as opportunities.

A 2018 IDG Cloud Computing Study found that 73% of businesses have at least one application in the cloud. However, from spend analysis to invoicing, the spend management industry is often stuck utilising outdated, paper-based or on-premise processes that cause inefficiency and budgetary mishaps.

 In order to run the procure-to-pay process at maximum operational efficiency, it’s time for the spend management industry to migrate to the cloud. Stanton Jandrell, Fraxion’s CEO, discusses the four ways in which moving spend management to the cloud would benefit your business.

Improved efficiency and productivity

Research from the Tungsten Network found that businesses waste an average 6,500 man hours annually because of inefficient, paper-based payment processes. Unfortunately, many organisations still handle spend management with this traditional model leading millions of invoices to be written out by hand, sometimes even on simple notebook paper like the image below. With this system in place, invoices or other documents are more likely to get lost or misfiled – and even a small misfiling is costly. In fact, a misfiling rate of 0.5% in a four-drawer cabinet can lead to 1,000 misfiled documents.

Utilising a cloud solution for spend management boosts productivity by implementing simple automation that drives efficiency and removes the need for paperwork — for example, moving requisition requests to an automated form that submits the request and notifies appropriate approvers. According to a Harvard Business Review study, 74% of organisations reported that cloud services have given them a competitive advantage because of the ease and speed. As information is hosted in the cloud, this also makes remote access easier for stakeholders through mobile applications. This way, if an error occurs or a request must be handled immediately, employees can still access the system to provide a quick response.

With the heightened visibility of cybersecurity disasters over the past few years, many businesses assume that, once data is in the cloud, it’s more likely to fall into the wrong hands. And, when money is involved, this concern becomes even more prevalent.

Budget Visibility

Organisations that run manual processes have limited or no view of the budgetary impact that a requisition may have. Worse still is that the impact against the budget is typically only visible in a budget variance report that gets generated a few weeks after month end. At this point, intervention is impossible.

While a tremendous amount of effort goes into building a budget, if organisations aren't able to “operationalise” the budget insight into the approval process, the efforts are wasted.

Improved cash flow oversight

Cash flow can make or break a business. Often, businesses see budgetary discretions because of unapproved spend or overestimated funds. In reality, the overall lack of visibility into what the business is spending day to day can add up to 40% of the total spend. Spend management systems operating in the cloud provide greater control over cash flow through the automatic authorisation of suppliers, enforcement of budgets and recommendation of approval processes before any costs are incurred. Cloud-based systems provide a comprehensive audit trail and detailed view of the entire process, providing stakeholders with greater insight into each step. This helps create a more efficient and regulated spend management process — which is vital to business success, especially when you consider that companies lose 20 to 30%  in revenue every year due to inefficiencies and errors.

Detailed reporting and analytics

Leveraging a cloud system for spend forecasting allows businesses to shift from the ‘management’ of spend to the ‘enablement’ of smarter spending through improved visibility into needs, budgets and costs. Analytics and back-end insights are vital for the success of a cloud system – and CIOs are recognising this fact, with 66%  planning to invest more time in cloud-based analytics throughout 2019. As data is gathered with each requisition, approval and transaction, cloud systems have the ability to provide detailed analytics that can help identify spending trends and augment forecasting. The ability to effectively forecast leads to long-term bottom line savings through more effective management of the dollars in and out of the business.

When you move spend management to the cloud, data remains safe from damage or loss of physical storage like a mobile device, laptop or paper documentation.

Better security

One concern that often comes up in internal conversations about cloud migration is security and data protection. With the heightened visibility of cybersecurity disasters over the past few years, many businesses assume that, once data is in the cloud, it’s more likely to fall into the wrong hands. And, when money is involved, this concern becomes even more prevalent. However, this is not the case. In fact, paper-based or on-premise processes are much more likely to face security threats since there is not an established and visible trail of spend in place. On average, on-premise users experience 61.4 attacks while cloud systems only experience 27.8.

When you move spend management to the cloud, data remains safe from damage or loss of physical storage like a mobile device, laptop or paper documentation. This is because the cloud provides the opportunity for comprehensive data backups that can be recovered in case of an emergency.

Effective spend management is vital for the success of businesses across various industries. By utilising a cloud-based spend management system, businesses can see improved productivity, greater visibility into spend, more control over policies and procedures, improved forecasting and better data security. In order to maximise operational effectiveness, it’s time for businesses to move away from the outdated, paper-based processes of the past and dive into the future with a cloud platform.

A recent Deloitte survey of global chief procurement officers stated that 78% of procurement leaders saw cost reduction as their top business strategy. A survey by Scout RFP shows that 77% of financial respondents from companies with more than 1,000 employees said that procurement makes finance and the enterprise more effective, a clear sign that procurement and finance are a match made in heaven.

How can finance and procurement work alongside each other to drive greater business impact for the enterprise as a whole? By investing in the proper technology, teams can easily integrate sourcing into more areas of the business and at the same time increase spend under management. Technology, in turn, must add value to the overall process.

 Invest in the proper tools

When companies invest in tools that provide greater transparency and allow collaboration between people they can bridge the gap between finance and procurement teams. A solution that integrates real-time sourcing more closely with financial planning can provide better visibility into strategic projects and spend under management. In turn, finance and procurement teams can source smarter, plan better, and align business objectives. This way, businesses strategically plan for the future without ‘looking in the rear view mirror’.

Proper sourcing solutions provide complete visibility into funding for projects, execution terms, and data points on cost streams.

Proper sourcing solutions provide complete visibility into funding for projects, execution terms, and data points on cost streams. Not only will this prevent future financial surprises, but will create a clear F&A roadmap, benefiting the company’s overall cash position. When the enterprise has complete visibility into the procurement process — including the stakeholders and suppliers — it can lead to more competitive turnaround times and allow teams to deliver more benefits to the business, without losing sight of projects and timelines. Full visibility for executives allows them to understand where finance and procurement are spending — and creating greater business impact — and report alongside the overall company goals.

More importantly, teams feel more valued and part of the larger enterprise goals when business partners see the business impact generated from procurement and sourcing efforts. Collaboration is the key component that elevates the visibility needed for procurement and finance teams to drive results for the enterprise as a whole. Through collaboration, teams can communicate their goals clearly, understand benefits, conquer challenges, and truly partner with suppliers, making this a winning strategy for all parties involved.

Scale the business with more savings

Anaplan, a pioneer in Connected Planning, utilised these key e-sourcing features to scale their business. Traditionally, Anaplan’s procurement team was known as the firefighting team — constantly putting out fires to satisfy 700 employees in a dozen offices around the globe. The continuous stream of requests put the company’s ability to scale at risk and blocked legal, finance, and compliance teams from accessing critical projects they needed to evaluate. There was no visibility into the projects and a lack of collaboration across the board. With dozens of contracts in the queue at a time, the procurement team was dangerously close to losing context on key decisions.

Levi Strauss & Co. is another example of a company combining the powers of procurement and finance. Since implementing a sourcing platform, the finance and procurement teams have been able to not only see where they are saving but how they can categorise the savings to communicate better results to the business partners.

The company knew it needed to invest in the proper technology to increase the procurement team’s efficiency to support their growth and make it easy to communicate sourcing’s impact on the rest of the company. Within just one year of implementing an e-sourcing platform, Anaplan grew to more than 1,000 employees, generated more than $240 million in revenue, and has 20 offices in 13 countries supporting more than 1,000 customers. Procurement and sourcing are now connected with all functions of the organisation, including finance, risk, and planning. Anaplan now supports contracts for more than 50% of their global spend because they are able to collaboratively source for the future thanks to these new capabilities.

Levi Strauss & Co. is another example of a company combining the powers of procurement and finance. Since implementing a sourcing platform, the finance and procurement teams have been able to not only see where they are saving but how they can categorise the savings to communicate better results to the business partners.

When companies utilise comprehensive sourcing tools, they can empower procurement and finance teams to drive company performance, source smarter, plan better, and align business objectives, ultimately leading to greater business impact and financial success.

What is the circular economy?

The ‘circular economy’ is a phrase frequently used in the media and by politicians – there is a huge amount written on the subject, which makes it easy to get confused about what exactly it means.

At its core, the circular economy is a simple principle – it’s about sustainability. It’s an economy that considers the environmental and social impact of the way we buy and use things, and ultimately the way that we can maximise the beneficial use of our resources.

At a practical level, what does adopting the circular economy look like for businesses?

Although it’s a simple concept at heart, truly adopting a circular economy would be difficult to achieve overnight. It requires a change of mindset towards how we can be more sustainable and this needs to be present at every level within a business. Those who adopt the circular economy will design products and services in such a way that:

• the value added in manufactured products is maintained through maintenance, reuse, and remanufacture;
• where value can no longer be retained in the above way, products and packaging are recycled;
• energy inputs are sourced from renewable sources;
• resource use is consistent and responsible, making the most of natural resources.

A recent study indicates that if all EU states were to adopt the circular economy, there would be a potential €1.8 trillion collective economic annual benefit by 2030. There are also, however, further benefits to businesses that adopt the circular economy beyond improved efficiency and reduction of costs.

A recent study indicates that if all EU states were to adopt the circular economy, there would be a potential €1.8 trillion collective economic annual benefit by 2030.

Benefits to business

There are three broad categories of benefits for businesses adopting the circular economy – environmental, social and economic.

The circular economy is grounded in tackling the key environmental issues that we are all familiar with today. Through adopting the principles of the circular economy, businesses can reduce their reliance on using and disposing of the world’s natural resources. Businesses then, through the circular economy, have an opportunity to contribute towards the global effort to tackle climate change.

From a social perspective, a greater understanding of where we source our materials has several benefits for businesses. Consumers’ mindsets have changed significantly in this space recently, becoming increasingly socially and environmentally aware; leading to a tendency for consumers to favour companies that are socially responsible. At the same time, a higher calibre of employee is likely to be attracted to such businesses.

Finally, from an economic standpoint, circular economy driven businesses are at their very heart more efficient and are therefore likely to be more profitable. A report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in 2015 emphasised the vast financial benefits for the manufacturing industry if it were to embrace a cyclical design process. Businesses that adopt these principles will also reap the financial benefits of improving energy efficiency.

From an economic standpoint, circular economy driven businesses are at their very heart more efficient and are therefore likely to be more profitable.

What does the future hold for the circular economy?

Although in its relative infancy, regulation in support of the circular economy is coming. As global political momentum gathers around climate change and marine plastic pollution, politicians, stakeholders and ultimately businesses will need to adapt. Those who have already taken steps in this direction will benefit the most.

There are already companies that are shaping themselves around capitalising on the circular economy (i.e. Toast Ale here in the UK).  There is still time for less sustainability-minded companies to take the necessary steps to adapt their business models to position themselves within the circular economy.

 Learn more about how Ditto Sustainability is using their patented technology to play a part in consulting companies as they move towards the circular economy: http://www.dittosustainability.ai/

Controlling data is modern commerce’s greatest challenge - particularly in the rapidly changing financial services sector. Building smart controls that can extract, filter and combine data to feed business logic, frees developers to mix and match sources quickly and reliably. Those controls are APIs (Application Programming Interface), explains Carlos Oliveira from Spinr. They handle the complexities of each data source, hiding the mechanical details of access and control, and translate data to a common format.

Once a common API or network of APIs has been created for data sources, any conceivable application or service can be built to that API.

How does that work in practice?

Consider the commercial environment facing a typical up-and-coming FinTech company. Thinking with APIs helps such a business get ahead of the market. Hundreds of new, technology-based firms are starting up every year, and they are giving more established competitors a run for their money. The lesson is clear: APIs are driving business growth today, and companies that don’t embrace that trend will fall behind.

Challenges and answers in digital finance

Today’s customers know what they want, and are no longer resistant to changing their financial services providers. BAI reports that from millennials to baby boomers, customers expect a highly consistent omnichannel experience above all. They’re also looking for an emphasis on mobile, highly usable tools for customisation, and a way to bring together the information and services they want.

Meanwhile, financial service providers are keen to analyse customer data so they can come up with new ideas and customise offers and services for more personalised customer experiences.

What resources do organisations have to help make this happen? As the old maxim says, you fight with the army you have, not the army you want. Think about any financial business: their existing technical estate likely includes many different data stores from CRM to email, and the company’s development process may be anywhere along the pathway from waterfall to DevOps. They also have to consider performance, compliance and security. But the customer doesn’t care about any of this. The customer just wants their financial services provider to be seamless, efficient and easy to use.

The lesson is clear: APIs are driving business growth today, and companies that don’t embrace that trend will fall behind.

Management of these elements is done by APIs effectively breaking them down into optimal logical components that can be reconnected in the simplest possible way.

Say you have a new product and want to target a specific demographic of people. If you have built APIs across your data sources that work in a consistent way, then your new product developers need to only learn that once. Using a new data source takes seconds.

Such capabilities are useful for organisations of any size. But they can be especially valuable for small and medium-sized businesses looking to remain competitive against larger companies with far greater available resources.

APIs enable more than just speed and efficiency

When financial organisations adopt an API-first mindset, they also gain other benefits as well:

1. Democratising innovation

Because APIs hide complexity, they create simple, abstract concepts that anyone can grasp and use in what-if thinking, even if they’re not programmers. Using tools as simple as pencil and paper, or codeless graphical design software, anyone with sector expertise in a company can sketch out how to build a system around data that can address a need or offer a brand-new idea. This can be invaluable across financial services, where customers’ needs are ever-changing.

Far too often in all business, a lot of valuable information and experience is never used because IT is seen as a disabler rather than an enabler. APIs don’t cure this entirely but they do offer a path through it.

2. Opening up new data sources

There are well over 20,000 open sources of data available online through APIs, according to the ProgrammableWeb API Directory. And that number has been growing by around 15 new APIs per day.

These APIs provide data from every category of source: geographic, social media, weather, advertising, economics and so on. They also provide a signpost to how the future is shaping up, especially in finance. For example, the emergence of Open Banking – built on open APIs – is driving a lot of new thinking at every level of financial services across the board.

3. Opening up new business models

Once a company has built internal APIs that make data accessible to new ideas and services, it’s a small step to making some of that data available to external interests. Any company that is successful in a market has a high degree of current knowledge of that sector, often locked up in data sets across many sources. Other businesses could become new markets for that knowledge, using it either for their own internal purposes or as part of a partnership or joint enterprise.

APIs offer a simple, standard, secure and highly usable route to explore these ideas and find new ways to sell what a company does.

The customer just wants their financial services provider to be seamless, efficient and easy to use.

As Bottomline Technologies stated last year, this is very prevalent across financial services: “Innovations underway include apps to help consumers find the best investment or borrowing offers in the market and tools for businesses to manage their cash more efficiently or forecast working capital requirements more effectively. And this is just the start.”

Where next?

Quickly connecting multiple applications and data sources is a significant operational benefit for financial services companies, but building innovative digital platforms is truly transformational.

By connecting your own legacy systems with third-party data and cloud applications, you may aggregate information flows and create new services, like market updates, from your own digital platforms. This could deliver value to customers with the potential to generate new revenue opportunities.

APIs are now at the centre of innovation creation and also help to enforce the ontology and data standards throughout an organisation. This, in turn, demonstrates the importance of financial services embracing APIs to help solve their key integration challenges, as well as automating and streamlining data operations.

Website: https://www.spinr.io/

Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) have never had more on their plate. According to a recent McKinsey Company report, five functions other than finance now report to the CFO: risk, regulatory compliance, M&A, IT and digitalisation. Stretching themselves across all of these areas makes CFOs not just extremely busy, but puts a lot of responsibility on their plate, especially when they’re doing all this while facing economic uncertainty, strict regulations and scrutiny from investors. When you consider that these leaders, like the rest of us, only have a limited number of productive hours in a day, then how can we make sure they’re focusing on the most important parts of their jobs?

In our demanding business landscape, we need to understand that the CFO is required to be a true strategic leader, not just the head of the finance department.

For CFOs, thriving at work has, for a while now, meant more than being good with numbers. Especially in today’s terms, it means ‘getting ahead’ of any uncertainty and equipping themselves with the power of future-gazing, being able to look ahead and apply reliable insight to any future scenarios. Nearly half of businesses have changed their models to become more agile and the CFO is expected to be the driving force behind that.

For CFOs, thriving at work has, for a while now, meant more than being good with numbers.

The CFO has been given all of their additional responsibilities thanks to their unique position at the helm of the organisation. Our heads of finance are among an elite few with access to data pertaining to all parts of the business. This is especially the case as regulations and compliance laws become stricter, resulting in different business units, even within one company, putting access to their own individual data sets on lock-down. And, if you only have a few people allowed a true oversight of connected data and processes in an age where businesses are driven by data? You take full advantage of it.

Here’s where we need to empower the CFO to do all they can to make the best use of all business information; both by having a platform from which they can easily access and understand it, and secondly, making sure they have enough time in their day to make full use of it.

It’s under these conditions that we’re seeing CFOs start to turn to ERP solutions with embedded artificial intelligence. By both freeing up and maximising their time, they help make the best use of the productive hours they have available. After all, CFOs are still dedicating far too much of their time to tasks that just keep the finance function up and running. Requisitions, purchase orders and vendor invoicing need to happen. But, when cloud-based ERP with automation comes with the intelligent financial management capabilities to handle these routine duties, it not only frees CFOs up from doing them – but makes them more reliable as it eliminates human error. Given recent Accenture research showed finance staff spend an average of 60% and 70% of their time on tasks such as processing transactions, accounting, controlling, compliance and reporting, that’s a lot more time back in their day. This time can instead be spent on the more strategic parts of their job, finding insights that empower the valuable guidance they can give the CEO and help to drive the business forward.

Organisations need their leaders to be pushing themselves where it matters, focusing as much as possible on the bigger picture and going above and beyond in their mission to perfect their business strategy. Equipped with cloud-based ERP applications that add automation to the equation, CFOs can speed up manual tasks as well as eliminate time-consuming and costly upgrades from their routines. Imagine a future where the CFO is able to juggle all the jobs they have at hand, ensuring everything happens as effectively as possible, while also making sure the largest chunk of their time is dedicated to progressing their business. An attractive proposition, right?

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When considering where to take your company to, try to think differently to all of the other companies out there. Don’t jump for the easy route of heading straight to the US or an easy nearby market, for example from the UK to Ireland.

Home in on your options

Before you make a move, decide on your options. Does it make financial and logical sense to expand by city, country or by language?  If you’re looking to expand straight into another country over a city first, then take a private jet charter and talk to the locals. It’s imperative when expanding your business globally, to spend some time on the ground where you are wanting to set up base and speak to people who live and work there. You could look at all the data trends for your business sector in that country and analyse whether or not the market will suit your model, but nothing beats the invaluable insight of the people who reside there full time.

Prioritise the markets

There isn’t much point trying to jump into every single market that’s detailed in your statistics document. Think about what really matters to your business and what direction you’re heading in.

Is this new market as big as your home market or bigger? If the answer is no, then it’s meaningless expanding your business into this country, unless you have a strong reason. Are there similarities across markets? If you are a logistics or eCommerce business, the likelihood is that you’ll need established distribution hubs that cover most of Europe and beyond – make sure you check out factors like this before you make the move.

Can you get ahead of the local competition? When you head to your desired location and speak to the locals, get an idea of how established your competitors are. Are they start ups who you will have certain advantages over, or are they big conglomerates who may be hard to beat?

Leverage Partner and Channel Relationships

Working with your partners is a solid strategy when looking to expand globally. Maybe the distribution company you work with has its headquarters in your desired country or has a strong presence there. Keep your partners in the loop with your growth plans, you never know when you’ll need to lean on them for a greater insight and potential assistance as you drive your expansion forwards.

Don’t be confused with these terms as they only have one common idea, and that is to earn a profit! However, some investors almost always end up committing mistakes in the beginning. Since investments belong to a larger scale, you may focus first in trading so that you could easily understand it.

When we say traders, they are the ones who are into buying and selling goods, currencies or even stocks. They may be transacting using their own capital or using others’, whether a single proprietorship, partnership or a company. You can check the link and reviews about nextmarkets, stock exchange experts, money market and the likes for more information about trading to get more idea about this.

Traders can be vulnerable, most especially those who are just on their initial stage. Therefore, it is a must that a beginner trader should consider all the necessary factors in order to avoid committing the same common mistakes. And what are those general trading mistakes or flaws? You may try considering and understanding the following:

1. Failure to study the business project itself and just believing on hearsays, suggestions or proposals

As a beginner trader, you owe yourself everything. Whether you succeed or fail, there is no other person to be blamed for or to be proud of but you. It is your decision that can make or break your business because you’ve certainly relied on what you have studied, researched, and gathered about the business trading that you are handling.

As a start-up trader, you need to do a post-trading analysis to be able to determine your next move. Otherwise, you’d be left hanging, losing and crying over your lost capital. Do not dare to follow the advice from random people around you as some may be giving you the right advice because they are really concerned about your business, while some may be there to mess it up with how you manage your business. So if you will not primarily consider this aspect, you know what will happen to all your trading transactions.

2. Failure to focus on the positive side and failure to prepare for the negative ones

This component is sometimes being ignored by most beginners in the trading venture. You may be willing to take the risks, but you may also not be prepared to do so. Why? The business know-how may be present, but the guts do not exist. You must be mentally and emotionally prepared as a trader. You should be firm and certain of all your decisions. Emotional trading must be avoided at all times and be aware of its consequences in the business.

3. Failure to use a trading journal and completely learning at least one or two trading methods

When you are initiating a new business journey, you should be taking note of all the details, whether you are earning and so on. In that way, you would know what to change, remove, replace or retain on the methods that you are using or applying for future reference. Don’t rely on just remembering things when needed, but a good reminder is the one that you have absolute knowledge and experience. When there is something to decide now, you can go back and check what you’ve done in the past in any similar situation. It may look like a diary, but it is really helpful.

On the other hand, you can only refine gold by putting it on fire. You may fail several times, but take the chance of redefining and remolding your trading strategy instead of always looking and applying a new one. You may come up with the right trading strategy which is applicable to what you need by doing the trial and error experiment. Practice makes things perfect after all.

4. Failure to adapt the changing markets and business strategies

In business, you may also hear of the terms such as old school, traditional, obsolete, outdated, outworn, and stodgy. These words may be referred to the business techniques, strategies, and methods that are being used and applied. Unfortunately, the business deals of today’s world are far beyond what these traders have done before. For this reason, beginner traders must be open to new and advanced business marketing procedures and all. This will save the entire business from losing its target clients, affiliates and even investors. Thus, you will rest assured that your business is secured and stable.

5. Failure to expect the unexpected

A beginner trader should bear in mind that in the trading world, all things might occur or happen. Of course, you are expecting for continuous profits, more clients and even business expansions. However, as a trader, you should be realistic and expect worse case scenarios so that you can prepare and plan for the right move to take in case these business mishaps happen. Your venture in the business world will not always be rainbows and butterflies, so you must have an alternative action for every scenario that may happen. Also, in business, it is advisable to have more sources, investments or other methods for unexpected events or losses. This will help you in making the business to recover or rise again after every fall.

6. Failure to understand that difference between the long-term and short-term perspective

Beginner traders should be aware of the differences between the long-term and short-term perspective so that you would know how to deal with things in every situation. There are some factors that are beyond your control such as fortuitous events that can affect your business. Therefore, you need to make stable and suitable back-up plans for that just in case anything happens.

7. Failure to analyze the trading performance at the right time

In business, it is not advantageous to analyze the performance of your business on a daily basis since each day is different from other days. As a beginner trader, you should focus on doing your best method each day and gather all the necessary data in a long-term range before you compare its performance to become more competitive, stable, feasible and profitable.

8. Failure to know your competitors

A trader must be aware not only of how he runs the trading business, how it goes, or how it gets more clients or affiliates but also of how his trading competitors manage their own businesses. Your competitors play a vital role in your business, and knowing how to deal with your competitors will give you an advantage. That is why we have this saying that goes like this, “If you cannot beat them, join them.” Instead of getting more enemies, it would be wiser to turn them into your allies. Get involved with a fair play in a healthy kind of competition.

There are still lots of quotations, sayings, and words of wisdom that you can best relate with as far as successes and failures are concerned. Still, you should not rely on words to make your business succeed. Do the legwork and use the right strategies to manage your business.

Describing activities aimed at ensuring that customers pay their invoices within the defined payment terms and conditions, credit management can protect businesses from late or non-payment; contributing to a healthy cash flow and profitability. An effective credit management strategy should be an essential part of any firm’s financial management, but what does it involve and what does best practice in this area look like?

With headlines in 2018 dominated by a number of high-profile financial failures, spanning industry sectors, the rise in corporate insolvencies in the UK came as little surprise.  One of the most common reasons that businesses become insolvent is poor cash-flow management, which means that while their profit and loss accounts may seem positive, they may struggle to make payments when they are due.

To help businesses boost their cash position and to avoid cash-flow difficulties, effective credit management is required to ensure customer payments are received on time. Rather than simply reminding customers to make payments promptly, credit management processes and procedures should be robust and comprehensive – from setting out the right terms and conditions when a new customer is taken on, to procedures for enforcement, should the worst-case scenario occur.

New business is often a key commercial focus for organisations, and owner-managers may be reluctant to have difficult conversations about payment terms for fear of damaging customer relationships. Similarly, they may find themselves extending credit lines or flexing their payment terms to keep a key client happy, without considering the impact on the business as a whole. Other common credit management pitfalls include a lack of investment in systems and dedicated personnel to monitor payments and ineffective processes and procedures for managing invoices and reminders.

Business managers must bear in mind that expanding their customer base will bring little value to an organisation unless customers actually pay their bills on time. When scoping for new business, companies can reduce the risk of late payment by conducting thorough credit checks for all potential new customers before contracts are agreed. However, it’s important to note that businesses’ credit risk can change quickly, so rather than conducting a review once a year or only at the start of a contract, this should be monitored on an ongoing basis, throughout the relationship.

Clear and ongoing communication with customers is also vital to ensure payments are received on time; allowing the business to maintain a healthy cash flow. In addition to keeping a good relationship, where margins allow, owner-managers should consider other methods of incentivising customers to comply with the specified payment terms, for example, offering discounts to those who pay before the due date.

Whether outsourced or managed in-house, businesses should audit credit management processes and procedures regularly. These audits should not only cover processes for issuing routine invoices and reminders, but also procedures for engaging a debt collection agency, and where necessary, starting legal proceedings. Whilst such measures are often regarded as a last resort, they could become necessary if all other efforts at recovering debts have been exhausted. Failing to prepare for a worst-case scenario, could result in financial failure if left too long.

Administered by the Chartered Institute of Credit Management, the Prompt Payment Code sets standards for payment practices and best practice, allowing suppliers to raise a challenge if they feel they are not being treated fairly by a customer. By signing up to the Code, businesses send out a strong message to the marketplace that they are dedicated to maintaining fairness in the supply chain by paying customers on time. Business owners can also look for such credentials when forming new partnerships.

Regardless of the size of their client portfolio, owner-managers who fail to make efficient and effective credit management part of the day-to-day running of the business may find themselves struggling to maintain a healthy cash flow. By implementing best practice in this area, they can guard against late payment, strengthen their cash position and minimise the risk of insolvency in the year ahead.

Bethan Evans is an Insolvency Partner at accountancy firm Menzies LLP.

However, it can also refer to how many cycles of change and innovation a business has been through. For example, technology businesses will have to evolve and innovate at a faster pace than a toy manufacturing company, and thereby do more to succeed.

That said, businesses are still regularly failing, so anything the survivors can do to boost their efficiency is of interest to them. A big part of this is ensuring longevity throughout the company, ensuring processes run smoothly while protecting jobs for the long term.

Consequently, here’re the common habits of successful businesses aiming to ensure longevity.

1. Planning Ahead

A company can’t last long if it doesn’t plan ahead. Everything needs to be mapped out constantly; from staff intake numbers required through the years to market changes and trends. Put simply, longevity can only be possible for businesses that are more than willing to adapt. It’s crucial to survival; as the markets change, the businesses evolve with it all.

Additionally, financial affairs need to always be set in order too. Budgeting and auditing are two essential processes that a company needs to upkeep and maintain; without them, they cannot act within their means. It’s all about firm’s grounding themselves in a realistic vision, thereby not wasting resources on dreams and unachievable goals. Once they have some realistic goals in place, they can then workably move from strength to strength, and thereby ensure business longevity.

2. Implementing Technology

Few things are more important to a business than its data. Whether it’s employee information, customer statistics or performance data, it’s all incredibly sensitive material that’s vital to a business’s functionality. If any of it is misplaced or stolen, a firm can find itself crippled to varying degrees of severity depending on what’s lost.

However, businesses these days are implementing technology for all their data protection needs. They’ll use things like cloud services to ensure that all their information is easily accessible and safely stored. All the vital data can be viewed from one digital place that’s secure, boosting the efficiency, and of course longevity, of the firm.

3. Third-Party Advice

Few successful businesses achieved their goals alone. Especially during the early years, much wisdom and guidance would always be needed in order to safely navigate through the markets, whatever they may be. There’re many pitfalls and traps on a company’s journey, and its ultimately third-party advice that helps steer said companies in the right direction.

For example, consultancy companies like Hymans Robertson are always on hand to help, certifying businesses get all the mileage they can out of their operations. They’re a key aspect of ensuring a firm’s sustainability, using their innovative analytical and modelling tools to determine longevity risks within the business. In the end, the businesses that last longest are the ones who aren’t afraid to ask for help and subsequently learn.