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You joined Basware almost a year ago, from a long background in the payments industry – what kind of initiatives are you hoping to drive at Basware?

Well, one of the things banks struggle with is the ability to add additional data to a payment, which is something that’s so desired by clients so that they can get a full view of the transaction. And the other issue is that you’re often just one part of a long chain on the client side. My most recent position was with Bank of America Merrill Lynch – but prior to that I was Head of Innovation at ING, and we were very aware that the payment element was now a commodity, so the big question was - how do we stay relevant for the client?

And we thought the answer was probably to move up the chain, to integrate more with invoices for example. But at that point, the culture or the timing didn’t work out for the bank – but it was an idea which really captivated me. I truly believe that we can merge what’s going on in the AP and invoicing space together with what payments and finance can do.  I don’t think anyone’s found the perfect answer yet, but the opportunity at Basware came along and I thought – that’s exactly the space I want to be in.

Finding a solution to what keeps CFO’s up at night might seem an impossible quest given today’s climate, but it’s one which Seal Software might just have the answer to. In the tangled world of contracts, Seal aims to represent the “single source of truth”. Curious to find out what that meant, we sought out their VP Contract Strategy, Lloyd Alexander.

Guest article by Procurious

Q: A lot of solution providers call themselves “end to end” providers, though few of them actually are. Do you feel confident that this is something Ariba can offer?

Absolutely.  We’re already offering it today. Every day, billions of consumers around the world use sites like Facebook, Amazon, Uber, etc.  to manage their personal lives because they make things so easy.  When you shop on Amazon, you don’t worry about connecting to each individual merchant. When it comes time to pay, you don’t worry about integrating into each individual bank or credit card company. It’s all done for you within the network.

The same is true with the Ariba Network. Everything companies need to manage commerce – from sourcing and orders through invoice and payment – is there for them.  They don’t need to worry about connecting to individual trading partners using multiple systems – with more than 1.8 million companies in 190 countries, chances are they’re already connected and in one place. And if they aren’t, they can be within minutes. Or they can tap into the community to find new partners.