I received NAPP’s (National Association of Purchasing & Payables) newsletter the other day. There are always one or two articles that catch my interest, but the one in the current issue really jumped out at me. It was titled “Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch” by Mark Trowbridge (and originally appeared in a different publication). What a fantastic headline!

The article was well done and very supply-chain focused, but it struck me that the topic can just as easily be applied to Accounts Payable — particularly with regard to invoice automation. Invoice automation strategies can be designed with the best of intentions, but if you have a culture resistant to change, your investment in invoice automation will not pay off.

But a resistant culture isn’t the end of the world. It just means you’ll need to put some extra thought and energy into ensuring adoption. I believe there are at least 4…

“If you can’t measure if, you can’t manage it.” This statement seems to have been around forever, but it still rings as true as ever. Six Sigma and other similar continuous-improvement methodologies have been applied successfully to process-oriented business functions, such as manufacturing. And that success has led to Six Sigma projects in other areas of business, including Purchasing and AP.

The foundation of Six Sigma, of course, is data. Data for measuring cycle times, defects (or in AP, discrepancies), and more. Even if your organization hasn’t embraced a formal methodology for continuous improvement, data remains the key to unlocking greater efficiency and lower costs in Purchasing and AP.

Do you have a consistent set of key metrics used to measure performance in Purchasing and AP? Do you compare these metrics against standard industry benchmarks? No? Don’t worry — outside of the Fortune 500, Purchasing & AP departments are highly inconsistent in…

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