Rohit Gupta is the CEO and co-founder of Auditoria.AI, a pioneer in AI-driven automation solutions for corporate finance teams.
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The pandemic has been the single most significant business disruptor in decades.
Enterprises scrambled as long-established business processes were rendered obsolete seemingly overnight. Social distancing rules were enacted, and offices closed, forcing employees into remote work. To adapt, organizations deployed digital technologies in unprecedented numbers and at historic speeds. Companies accelerated the digitization of their customer exchanges, supply-chain interactions and internal operations by three to four years. As a result, their deployments of digital products accelerated by an incredible seven years.
The ripple effects from this dramatic transformation continue to reverberate within organizations. As a result, the payments landscape is finally experiencing some long-overdue changes. Business-to-business (B2B) payment processes were in dire need of an upgrade, and the pandemic only served as a magnifier.
B2B Payments Need A Facelift
Traditionally, corporations have been cautious about changing their payment systems, citing both privacy and security concerns along with a general lack of demand. Many organizations still rely on physical payment methods in the form of paper checks. There are alternatives to paper payments that coexist with checks, including Automated Clearing House (ACH), wires and cards, but these options have their own issues, as you’ll see below.
With the advent of this virtual world, B2B organizations are being forced to address outdated payment systems that no longer work in this digital age. Enterprises now demand more payment options and faster processing from their payment systems. Convenience has become essential. Modern B2B payments need to function similarly to consumer transactions: instantaneous, easy and frictionless. Significant advancements in online security and privacy, as they relate to e-commerce and e-payments, are helping to alleviate many of the concerns that businesses felt in the