金融科技和金融采购4.0外文文献翻译2018-2019

金融科技和金融采购4.0外文翻译2018-2019

英文

Fintech and Procurement Finance 4.0

Bernardo Nicoletti

Abstract

The future of procurement finance is connected to the digital transformation, which in the case of procurement finance is a digital revolution connected with Business 4.0. The correct concept is to consider procurement finance 4.0 as a platform, with several actors—proprietors, providers, producers, and purchasers—with interchangeable roles. Fintech organizations are and will play more and more an important role in this new vision. At the same time, the technological solution which can make all this possible is blockchain, whose characteristics are more and more appreciated around the world. The digital transformation can gain a lot also from artificial intelligence and mobility.

Keywords: Industry 4.0，Procurement 4.0，Procurement finance，Platform，Open banking，Blockchain，Smart contracts，Artificial intelligence，B2B cloud ，Fintech

Introduction

This chapter analyzes the future of procurement finance, in terms of potential organizational and technological developments, and defines it

procurement finance 4.0.

There are essentially two ways to consider procurement finance 4.0. They are strictly connected with the role that procurement should play in an organization. The role could be either of support or primary, according to the definitions introduced by Porter in its value chain model.1If procurement has a support role, it is a function which supports the other primary and secondary functions. On the contrary, if procurement has a primary role, it would be seen as a primary contributor to adding value to the organization.

The two potential roles would be rather different in a procurement 4.0 vision.

In the support role, procurement 4.0 would be essentially a support to an Industry 4.0 initiative. This is an initiative which stresses at the maximum connectivity and automation of all the resources in the organization, be them machines, infrastructure, products, operators, and so on. This is the vision of procurement finance 4.0 included in many pieces of the literature.

The author of this book believes that procurement is essentially a primary function in Porter’s value chain model. Procurement could contribute between 50 and 80 percent of the operating costs. This value-added contribution is among the largest in the functions of an organization. Under this vision, procurement 4.0, and hence procurement

finance 4.0, is substantially different from the one with procurement in a support role. Industry 4.0 is essentially based on interconnection and on automation. Similarly, procurement finance 4.0 should be based on the same principle as a primary function in adding value to the organization rather than only to support an Industry 4.0 initiative.

Procurement 4.0 considers procurement as a platform. A platform is an organization based on enabling value-creating interactions between producers and consumers. A platform is an evolving organization or meta-organization that:

federates and coordinates constitutive agents who can innovate and compete;

creates value by generating and harnessing economies of scope in procurement and/or in demand;

involves a modular solution composed of a core and a periphery.

This vision of procurement 4.0 sees the interconnection based on the model Industry 4.0 and the automation based on a technology which supports interconnection. This technology is blockchain.7 The interconnection among the modules of the platform should be based on cloud computing which allows a cheap, flexible, and effective way to link all the components.

This chapter develops this concept and this model of procurement finance 4.0. Firstly, the development of the organizations is considered

from the different aspects which are strongly impacting on them all over the world.

The following section analyzes the technological developments, on the basis of the organizational developments but also strongly influenced by them.

The combination of these two developments is the base for the future vision of the organizations and of the procurement finance processes.

Procurement Finance 4.0

One of the key paradigms of Industry 4.0 is the use of modern information and communication technology (ICT) integrated with automation. ICT has supported procurement processes since a long time. The concep t of electronic procurement (or “e-procurement”) is well established. The architecture of e-procurement has been defined. Industry 4.0 pushes further the concept of digitization based on the characteristics of the initiative. The integration in this model requires a comprehensive approach combined with process re-engineering.

Industry 4.0 has been compared with previous disruptive innovations: the so-called industrial revolutions. They have in common an initiation not based on a single technology but on the interaction of a number of technologies whose effect created new solutions.

The widespread use of the telecommunication networks (and

especially of the Internet) marked the start of another industrial revolution. The introduction of the Internet of Things and advanced software applications combined with the machine automation into the production environment has introduced the fourth industrial revolution.

This new paradigm shift thanks to the web enables the communication between machines and humans or other machines or products in real time and at a very cheap cost. This allows the use of what is known as “smart products and smart services” as well as the advanced digitization within and among the factories. The smart factory enables to connect potentially all the components involved in the production processes, and even the products itself. It makes possible the application of concepts as adaptability, interconnectivity, efficiency, and ergonomics.

The implementation of these solutions, transforming the factories into “smart factory”, will take a medium/long time. It requires important investments and special education programs. The returns are a substantial improvement of the cost performance of the procurement, saving time, but especially providing flexibility and effectiveness to the organization.

The literature on procurement finance 4.0 is limited. Henke and Schulte (2015), for example, claim that procurement is the interface of vendors and production solutions. In this position, it can be the key driver of the Industry 4.0 development. These authors postulate a number of questions around this statement. Other publications either have a more

technical focus or deal with specific aspects, such as the logistics integration.

Industry 4.0

History

Industry 4.0 can be seen as the convergence of the ICT and automation. The term Industry 4.0 stands for an advanced digitization within organizations, combined with the Web and with future-oriented technologies in the field of smart objects (machines and products). This enables and transforms industrial production systems in the direction of products controlling their own production processes. Besides the focus on digitization and automation, Industry 4.0 is supported by several technological innovations whose combined quantitative effects allows the creation of new products, processes, ways of production, and business models.

Procurement finance 4.0 adds an additional component to the base Industry 4.0: the simplification of the processes and the digitization of the financial flows connected with the operational processes of the organization.

This fourth industrial revolution supports two important developments. On the one hand, there is an application pull that induces a change in the operational model conditions and an application push. The first aspect leads to social, economic, and potentially political

transformations. The most important of them are the following ones: Fast development and innovation cycles.

Customized production and sales. This trend leads to an increasing customization of products. At the limit, it is the “one-unit lot” of production.

Flexibility. Due to the characteristics of the current markets, flexibility is essential in the entire operations of an organization.

Decentralization. The organization structure should be as flat as possible.

Sustainability. There is a push to an economic and ecological efficiency in the production, due to the increase in the prices of the resources as well as a social awareness on ecological issues.

On the other hand, there is a technological push on other solutions, like the mobile phones, 3D printers, web, apps, and so on. In industrial practice, these innovative solutions are not yet widely used. The approaches of these technological innovations are:

More technological support to the physical work as well as the adoption of more automatic solutions. Examples are the autonomous automated guided vehicles (AGV) with their routes programmed or “pulled” by another machine or by the product itself.

New technologies as simulation, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, or virtual reality are driven by the increasing simplification and

digitization of all production and production-supporting tools. There is an increased networking of technological modules. The software allows to collect and analyze the sensor data, read from the tags attached to the products, and hence track products within the factory or even manage and maintain products in the customer premises.

Miniaturized devices with better performance can be installed in a small space. Nanotechnology is becoming more used. This makes possible new fields of application, especially in procurement.

In short, the term Industry 4.0 describes different digitization- and automation-driven transformation in the production systems and consequently in the procurement processes. These developments have technological implications as well as process, organizational, and labor implications.

Industry 4.0 investments are more on the basis of the entire value network. The conclusion is that organizations in all sectors should focus their investments on the optimization of the procurement finance, underlying the importance of the procurement management in this fourth industrial revolution.

Procurement Finance and Platforms

A typical example of a platform in the case of procurement finance is the marketplace lending. Credit is an important franchise of the financial industry. In the last few years, a growing number of fintech

startups have taken a sledgehammer to that pillar.

There are generally three ways financial institutions get into marketplace lending:

·build a proprietary platform in-house;

·form a referral partnership with a marketplace lender; or

·license a marketplace lender’s platform.

The in-house option is normally the most expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to maintain. It offers an integrated control over underwriting and the customer experience. Referral partnerships, whereby financial institutions send potential borrowers to a marketplace lender’s site and eit her purchase the resulting loans or receive referral fees, generate income and quickly fill product gaps. They often come with underwriting and user-experience risks. Platform licensing allows financial institutions to capitalize on white-labeled plug-and-play technology and non-traditional credit criteria. It is not free and the integration requires effort.

Procurement finance platform providers can be classified according to two discriminatory variables: flexibility and inclusiveness. The first variable, flexibility, refers to the range of procurement finance instruments available on the platform and to the platform’s market coverage. The latter is defined in terms of industries addressed. The second variable, inclusiveness, refers to the platform accessibility and its

degree of operating efficiency throughout the life cycle of the financing process (users onboarding and audit, financing provision and follow-up). By mapping the providers, it is possible to acknowledge their relative positioning according to these two discriminatory dimensions.

Open Banking

The platform concept is based on open banking. Open banking can be defined as a collaborative model in which banking data is shared through APIs between two or more unaffiliated parties to deliver enhanced capabilities to the marketplace. The benefits of open banking are substantial: improved customer experience, new revenue streams, and a sustainable service model for traditionally underserved markets.

Strictly connected with open banking, and on the basis of the platform concept, is the use of application programming interfaces (APIs). APIs are a set of functions and procedures that allow the creation of applications for bi-directional data feeds between application and other services. APIs have been leveraged in banking settings for years. Given breakthroughs in advanced analytics and the market traction of several non-bank fintech organizations, APIs are considered as a means to enhance the delivery of financial services also for corporate customers.

For an effective open banking, it is particularly important to standardize the data, the API, and the security.

Open banking has challenges and opportunities in new relevant

regulations such as PSD2 and GDPR. The revised EU Payment Service Directive (PSD2) caters for the possibility of third-party service providers having access to payment accounts held at other payment service providers, the so-called account servicing payment service providers. PSD2 makes a distinction between two types of services: payment initiation services and account information services. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a legal framework that sets guidelines for the collection and processing of personal information of individuals within the European Union (EU).

Value Chain Finance

Value chain finance (or for generalization value network finance) refers to financial products and services that flow to or through any point in a value network. They enable investments that increase actors’ returns and the growth and competitiveness of the chain.

Financial transactions within a value chain are not new. Several emphases distinguish a value chain finance approach. These include improving finance at specific points in the value network to increase the competitiveness of the entire value chain and involving multiple actors and leveraging relationships to lower or mitigate the risks. A value chain approach involves the consideration of the risks and returns of the finance vendor along with the risk and returns of the value network actor demanding finance. Value chain actors themselves, financial institutions,

microfinance institutions, other non-bank or government/regional financial institutions, or a combination of these actors can provide or facilitate financing to a value network. These actors may participate in a value chain financing arrangement for different reasons. These reasons determine the ways in which they are willing to facilitate financing for a value network upgrading investment.

Technological Developments

Blockchain

The model of procurement finance 4.0 is based on the six Cs: cybernetics, communication, controllership, collaboration, connection, and comprehension. There are two additional aspects that are relevant for the procurement finance processes. They are two other Cs: condivision and confidence (trust). An emerging solution could support both of them. It is called blockchain.

The initiatives related to the blockchain jumped in 2017 by 73 percent worldwide. The announcements of new projects jumped 273 percent by companies in large part to be finalized. In the first five months of 2018, global venture capital has invested 1.3 billion dollars in blockchain startups, already exceeding 900 million dollars in 2017. International Data Corporation, a global market intelligence company, estimates that spending on blockchain software is 1.79 billion euros in 2018. It will rise at a compound annual rate of 81 percent, hitting 7.7

billion euros in 2021.

Blockchain as a New Solution

A blockchain solution is an open ledger in which every transaction on the network is recorded and available for all participants to see and verify. It is a kind of a secured dataset. It sits in the cloud and multiple involved parties can access it. It can also be seen as a “digital trust”, in the sense that it is a dataset trusted since it is based on consensus.

From a technical point of view, a blockchain is a database that runs across a global network of independent computers. By providing a shared view, a blockchain solution eliminates the need to transfer information between organizations through such objects as files, messages, web services, emails, spreadsheets, direct network connections, and phone calls. It helps to eliminate differences in data between vendors, buyers, and financial institutions. For example, blockchain solutions are used to handle such things as vendor quality certificates, proof of ownership, vendor quotes, contracts, and purchase orders. It helps organizations quickly resolve delivery discrepancies by retrieving data collected end to end throughout the procure-to-pay process.

Operating Solutions in Procurement Finance

Blockchain can greatly simplify, digitize, and make more agile and secure the procurement finance transactions among organizations and financial institutions. This application aims to make domestic and

cross-border procurement transactions easier especially for SMEs. This is achieved thanks to the capabilities of the distributed ledger solution. It is intended to seamlessly connect the parties involved in a trade transaction (that is, buyer, buyer’s financial institution, vendor, vendor’s financial institution, logistics operators, and other interested parties, such as the customs), online and via mobile devices. This product simplifies procurement finance processes for SMEs by addressing the challenges of managing, tracking, and securing domestic and international trade transactions.

中文

金融科技和金融采购4.0

摘要

金融采购的未来与数字化转型有关，在金融采购方面，数字化转型是与商业4.0相关的数字革命。正确的概念是将采购金融4.0视为一个平台，由多个角色（所有者，提供者，生产者和购买者）互换角色。在这个新愿景中，金融科技组织将越来越重要。同时，使这一切成为可能的技术解决方案是区块链，其特征在世界范围内越来越受到人们的重视。数字化转型也可以从人工智能和移动性中受益匪浅。

关键词：工业4.0，采购4.0，金融采购，平台，开放银行，区块链，智能合约，人工智能，B2B云，金融科技

引言

本章从潜在的组织和技术发展角度分析了金融采购的未来，并定义了金融采购4.0。

基本上有两种方法可以考虑采购融资4.0。它们与采购应在组织中扮演的角色紧密相关。根据Porter在其价值链模型中引入的定义，该角色可以是支持角色，也可以是主要角色。如果采购具有支持角色，则该职能可以支持其他主要和次要职能。相反，如果采购起主要作用，它将被视为为组织增加价值的主要贡献者。

在采购4.0愿景中，这两个潜在角色将有很大不同。

在支持角色中，采购4.0本质上是对工业4.0计划的支持。这是一项计划，强调组织中所有资源（包括机器，基础架构，产品，操作员等）的最大连接性和自动化。这是许多文献中包含的采购融资4.0的愿景。

这本书的作者认为，采购实质上是波特价值链模型的主要功能。采购可能占运营成本的50％至80％。这种增值贡献是组织职能中最大的贡献。在这种远景下，采购4.0以及采购融资4.0与以采购为辅助角色的采购有很大不同。工业4.0本质上是基于互连和自动化的。同样，采购融资4.0应该以与增加组织价值相关的主要功能相同的原则为基础，而不仅仅是支持工业4.0计划。

采购4.0将采购视为平台。平台是一个组织，其基础是实现生产者和消费者之间的创造价值的互动。平台是一个不断发展的组织或元组织，它：

?联合并协调能够创新和竞争的组织机构；