The English artist LS Lowry (1887 – 1976) was famous for his paintings of life in the industrial districts of North West England. What is striking is how his ‘matchstick men and matchstick women’ all streamed to work in the mills at the same time and left at the same time. They had no choice. It has taken a global pandemic to jolt us from that Industrial Revolution mindset to today’s digital age to work from anywhere.
Largescale remote working is a new 2020 norm. Yet the concept already feels well-worn, probably because it should have been adopted years ago at the advent of mobile technology. Those old management habits, suspicion that home working equalled slacking, fear of losing control and visibility has kept the workforce in a proverbial strait-jacket and glued to workplaces and watching the clock. The same mindset ensured that the costliest resource, i.e. staff, would become costlier by perpetuating the daily slow, manual, error-prone tasks until it was time to congest the roads again as they had that morning.
A moment’s pause scotches the dinosaurian fears. For example, IT ensures irrefutable accountability, productivity, control and visibility with 24/7 KPIs and dashboards. Overheads suddenly plunge, fears vanish, the planet gets cleaner and work-life balance scales level up.
Those that still need to go on-site, for now anyway until robots become nimbler, can zoom to the workplace and back without falling over those that don’t.
Here’s how.
In order-to-cash (O2C) and procure-to-pay (P2P), the infrastructure, solutions and support are good to go.
In O2C:
- Esker Anywhere™ Mobile App allows users to monitor KPIs & place/track orders from the palm of their hand
- Self-service customer portal enables customers to place orders, resolve disputes etc. anytime, anywhere
- End-to-end connectivity between all applications, enables collectors, customer service & AR managers to perform critical tasks in real time, without delays.
In P2P:
- Users have access to a supplier portal to enhance supplier/buyer collaboration and supply chain performance
- Esker Anywhere™ mobile app allows users to track the status of purchase requisitions & expense reports
- Approve, hold or send invoices back to the previous approver
- Monitor KPIs from a customisable dashboard.
Our industrial landscape has changed out of all recognition since LS Lowry’s day. Our mindsets need to do likewise.
