This Week in B2B: Capturing Real-Time Intelligence’s Competitive Edge

B2B operations frequently require a greater level of sophistication than their B2C counterparts. Payments, especially, are typically larger and more complex transactions and must mesh with monolithic, already-existing systems.

That’s what makes the whole concept of digitization and the payoff that comes along with it so appealing to the space. What business wouldn’t want to not just improve productivity, but also enable better cash flow management and unlock a more granular handle on working capital?

Ultimately, as PYMNTS has heard repeatedly from experts and insiders in the B2B space, any B2B payments initiative should be measured against how it delivers across providing cost reduction, increasing fraud prevention, optimizing working capital management and enabling greater transparency and control over payment workflows.

That’s why PYMNTS keeps an ear to the ground, listening for all the latest initiatives. The top B2B innovation themes we heard this week were around the buy, build or partner decisions shaping today’s landscape; the widening gap between digital innovation’s benefits and the limitations of traditional solutions; and the competitive edge that real-time insights give B2B firms.

Read also: Trading in Paper for Technology Tops This Week in B2B

Buy, Build or Partner Is Defining the Future of B2B

With so much opportunity to capture in the B2B space, the marketplace rarely stands still. Increasingly, it is being shaped by the decisions upstarts and legacy juggernauts alike are making around the business decision of whether to buy, build or partner when it comes to B2B innovation.

On the partnership front, payments processor Thredd helped LianLian Global launch a virtual card program for Asia-Pacific (APAC) region customers in industries such as eCommerce, travel and international B2B trade, the two companies said Thursday (Aug. 8).

CredibleX and Fracxn announced Monday (Aug. 5) they partnered to provide small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with access to a variety of financing solutions.

Raken expanded the capabilities of its field management solutions for the construction industry by adding an integration with the Sage Intacct cloud accounting, payroll and human resources solution. The integration, announced Monday, automatically syncs project data, including completed time entries, and helps contractors shorten the time it takes to process payroll, reduce the number of payroll errors and improve job costing.

Elsewhere, Citi and International Finance Corp., a global development institution and member of the World Bank Group, partnered Monday on a $2 billion sustainable supply chain finance program focused on emerging markets. The first project under the umbrella of this agreement is a $500 million facility in Mexico.

On the buy side of things this week in B2B, Payoneer, a small-business-focused FinTech, acquired Singapore-based payroll/HR platform Skuad for $61 million Wednesday (Aug. 7). The deal is designed to bolster Payoneer’s efforts to serve as a “business-grade financial stack” for SMBs that operate on an international scale.

Flywire acquired Invoiced, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that enables B2B finance teams to automate the order-to-cash process, Tuesday (Aug. 6). The Invoiced platform helps automate accounts receivable processes by managing invoices, communicating with payers and reconciling payments to the user’s enterprise resource planning system.

Meanwhile, on the build front, Cartona said Monday that it raised $8.1 million in a Series A extension fundraise to continue growing the product rollout, verticals and offerings of its B2B platform for businesses in Egypt and, in the future, other markets in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Revolut Business expanded the availability of its “borderless financial super app for businesses” to Singapore Tuesday and is looking to add other markets.

Still, in our interconnected and digital world, it is becoming increasingly clear that the cost of a single vendor’s downtime on B2B partners can be catastrophic.

Embracing Innovative Solutions Across B2B Payments

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Building Better B2B Relationships Through Payments Innovation” found that 8 in 10 executives have lost business due to payments errors. That’s a large part of why automation, virtual cards and digital payments are increasingly being recognized as vital components of modern B2B transactions.

The emergence of embedded finance alone has supercharged the digital transformation of B2B payments and commerce, and PYMNTS dug into how integrating financial services directly into the B2B experience is enabling next-generation service offerings.

We also covered how global businesses need instant insight into their finances. Traditional treasury operations, which often rely on end-of-day processes and batch data, are ill-suited to meet the demands of a digital, real-time financial world.

As Galileo Financial Technologies Chief Product Officer David Feuer told PYMNTS, same-day, faster wire transfers are set to help transform a broad line of business use cases with real-time notifications.

“While FedNow brings this real-time API nature” to transactions, “it’s still at the end of the day using Fedwire, which is terrific because as we build this wires functionality on top of Fedwire, we can add FedNow as an iterative feature set on top of it and not have to completely rebuild our connectivity to the Fed,” he said.

Using Artificial Intelligence

As Settle CEO Alek Koenig told PYMNTS about the digital transformation of the consumer packaged goods space in an interview posted Thursday, “It is incredibly difficult for CPG businesses to plan. And one of our jobs here should be to give them the tools to be able to plan better and make smarter decisions.”

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Impact of Payment Options on Business Growth: How Secure Payments and AI Integration Drive Efficiency and Reduce Uncertainty” found that using artificial intelligence in payment processes reduces uncertainty. Among firms using AI for at least half of their accounts payable processes, 86% reported the payment methods at their disposal enable business growth. Conversely, firms with minimal AI use or experience are less likely to see their payment options have a positive impact on business growth.

The marketplace is already responding in turn. Wendy’s Quality Supply Chain Co-op (QSCC), a purchasing cooperative that services more than 6,400 Wendy’s restaurants in the United States and Canada, teamed with Palantir Technologies Wednesday to accelerate its digital transformation and adoption of AI.

Via the partnership, Palantir, a provider of AI systems, will help QSCC develop an integrated supply chain network; implement AI-driven, automated workflows; and build a connected ecosystem of suppliers, distributors and restaurants.

Elsewhere, SaaS platform Wix said Monday it began offering its customers access to Google’s Gemini for Workspace AI tool.

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