RE: Tepid?!27 Sep 2015 12:26
My view is that Tungsten Early Payment will struggle and is unlikely to contribute materially to revenues - in many ways Tungsten have actually shot themselves in the foot as the whole e invoice process significantly benefits suppliers through cost and processing efficiencies which all result in earlier payment anyway at no additional cost to the supplier - so why pay for early payment?
Given that the uptake to date for TEP is minimal then I can only assume that the majority of suppliers are already enjoying speedier payment and security as a result of trading on the Tungsten network and do not see any value in giving up some of their invoice value to get even speedier payment. Additionally as suppliers can obtain a transparent, realtime overview of monies outstanding this info could be used to provide comfort to their own bank if required.
I'm not saying there is zero need for TEP but I do not see it as being integral - Tungsten only benefits buyers with significant volumes and these types of organisations, particularly those with strong governance typically refrain from purchasing any critical volume with small scale suppliers for fear that the buyer represents their primary source of revenue which if pulled could hugely detrimental to the supplier. It is not uncommon for large corporate/government buyers to continually credit check their suppliers as part of their ongoing governance process.
The success of Tungsten is wholly dependant on getting buyers and suppliers transacting together with each party benefiting from the time and cost efficiencies - I believe that Tungsten should initially focus on revenues from buyers through licensing, analytics and sharing of cost savings.
TEP should be the icing on the cake rather than Tungstens core business