Innovation Compensates for Fewer Resources

While on vacation last week, I received an email on my Blackberry with great news! The US GDP is improving! I mentioned it to the friends I was having dinner with and we all started wondering:

How are US companies growing after months of corporate layoffs and despite a continued credit crunch?

Well, once vacation ended, I got my answer pretty quickly. Nearly every conversation I’ve had with our clients since I’ve come back to the office is to discuss how to solve for fewer resources.

One client, for example, has a customer who is uncharacteristically default on their bills right now. Their slow payment is not due to an inability to pay, but the result of layoffs that have occurred in the customer’s accounts payable department, specifically a particular position that they do not plan to replace.

This is trend that I can easily imagine.

With fewer resources, companies need to find new ways to do more with less. By vending out additional work to other vendors reliant upon human-resources (i.e. call centers, accounting firms, collections groups, etc.), the company creates a work-overflow effect that pulls control further and further away from the source.

But by incorporating new tools into the work flow process, companies can maintain a lean cost structure while controlling business practices. That explains why technology companies like Intel, Microsoft, and Apple may be feeling an uptick in B2B sales, but also explains why I’ve had so many calls from clients this week (WSJ, CNN Money).

Our clients understand that innovation and automation are the way to streamline their business processes and maintain relationships with customers, and they look to us to develop new solutions for their payments issues and in the process, we all help to improve the GDP!