EIPP (e-invoicing) and StartUp World

There’s been some recent discussion at PayStream surrounding EIPP on the receivables side and payment channel issues. The question: Does/will EIPP drive ACH adoption, thus intruding upon middle-tier B2B electronic payments, an arena that credit-card companies have dominated.

ACH payments is a problematic process, and B2B card use mitigates many of these problems - Cards provide instant, although expensive, access to supply chain finance - Card payments are guaranteed by an FI - Cards are always “push” and never “pull” payments, which larger corporations may object to - Cards provide more remitance data - etc. etc. etc.

EIPP offers the opportunity to mitigate the problems with ACH in an efficient matter, but problems remain. The issue of “push” versus “pull” payments, the fact that cash must be available to make the payment. At the same time, many companies are beginning to view EIPP as the killer-app for onboarding ACH and ridding themselves of having to pay fees associated with card-payments. This is particularly important in low-margin industries whose clients would love to use cards because they are small-to-medium sized clients. One particular mentionable of note is that EIPP can solve remitance data problems through meta-data.

So the question that needs to be answered here is - What are the implications for cards and card-issuing FI’s as receivable-centric EIPP models are adopted at an increasing rate? Is there a new B2B card option on the table with a more reasonable fee-structure? Are advantages of cards poorly communicated? Is there more to the story of card FI’s than merely being margin-gobblers are unfair partners? Will this become a larger issue as more card-issuing FI’s jump into the EIPP game?

Thoughts?

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Last week, I learned that Tim Cole, R&D Director of Causeway Technologies and Founder of Tradex has been given the task of growing Tradex into a mainstream e-invoicing hub. During the last year, the responsibility for Tradex changed many hands internally, causing immense confusion. Tim never gave up his involvement, but at the time, his main task was to manage the development centre in India, which was no easy task.

In addition to realignment of resources, some of the existing staff has moved on, creating opportunities for new recruits to join and strengthen the team. Tim is a likeable chap, admired by many (highly regarded by Causeway’s CEO, Phil Brown), and one of the three founders of the Hub Alliance.

During my short tenure at Causeway Technologies, I attempted to introduce web 2.0 to Causeway. Part of this was setting up an internal Wiki and Blog. Whilst the management thought it was a good idea in general, it never had the active support it needed to succeed. Having agreed to blog here sometime back, with his new responsibilities, we saw last week the first blog posting by Tim. Perhaps, this is a dawn of a new era at Causeway. At last!

Tim has a wealth of experience to share. He was an innovator at the time of founding Tradex, and no doubt will re-innovate Tradex to become a prominent hub in the UK and anywhere else Causeway wishes to trade. So, please take a moment of your time to welcome Tim to blogsphere.

Technorati Tags: Tim Cole, Causeway Technologies, Tradex Product Road map, Phil Brown, India, e-invoicing

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Keeping true to my promise, I started a regular e-mail marketing campaign for edocr last Friday. I am yet to start a similar initiative for ebdex. Unfortunately, the SaaS product I used to produce the ezine does not allow me to create an effective pdf for uploading to edocr. I am yet to figure out how to keep a public record of ezines produced for edocr, ebdex and Northern StartUp 2.0.

Reaction to eZine

In the ezine, I identified four case studies, among them was Crossgate, which has achieved significant success on Google rankings due to uploading a single document on e-invoicing to edocr. Having read the ezine, Crossgate responded positively and immediately by uploading a number of other documents related to e-invoicing to capitalise from its prominent position on Google.

Among the recipients of the ezine were US based Ariba; UK based Accountis, United Data and Causeway Technologies; and India based CashTech (a subsidiary of FundTech of US). CashTech responded by setting up a special interest group. Now they need to attract members to the group to kick start and maintain the conversation. Here are the latest documents up loaded by Crossgate:

It is unfair to expect the same level of response from each of the recipients of the ezine. We are all bombarded by ezines and e-mails everyday. You need to strategically and/or tactically decide which ones to follow up and which ones to bin.

Tagging

Assuming that edocr falls into the “follow up” or “action immediately” category, it is vital you grasp the basics of using edocr to maximise its impact on the websphere. Part of this is tagging. If you do not tag properly, the chances of finding your document by others will be minimised. Always follow the below guidelines (each document with at least 3 tags):

• Your company and other relevant company names mentioned in the document
• Type of document, e.g. press release, white paper, case study, product leaflet
• Subject matter, e.g. e-invoicing, EIPP, SCF, spend management, business continuity

If you are uploading a document on e-invoicing (or another subject), find out the tags used by others on similar documents (e.g. accounts payable automation, finance automation). Avoid adding none relevant tags as this will bring less credibility to your documents over time.

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Latest to join the e-invoicing startups to be funded by Venture Capitalists is TBiConnect run by Simon Fox. Both OB10 and Burns e-Commerce top the VC funding tables for attracting the most cash to date. Among other funded companies include Accountis from North Wales, but they still require a significant funding round to enable an European expansion. For some reason, I do not see Accountis conquering the world similar to OB10, so their best hopes remain within the Europe, capitalising their key customer, DHL. UK companies looking for VC funding include United Data, which is yet to launch its e-invoicing solution. United Data’s Founder and I go back a long way, and I hope Mark Morahan will finally launch his much anticipated e-invoicing hub this year with a realistic business model than the last time (conquer UK before the world!).

I have known Simon Fox of TBiConnect for well over a year, and I am delighted to hear the closing of the first round of £330,000 from regional venture capital fund, South West Ventures. According to GrowthBusinessUK, TBiConnect is an online payment specialist. As far as I know, TBiConnect does not handle payments, let alone on-line payments. Their expertise lies in the exchange of Purchase-to-Payment documents between the sender and the recipient (the buyer and the supplier), and provision of procurement solutions.

TBiConnect has a similar model to Accountis, i.e. enterprise licensed based product. Both companies claim to have the ability to offer a hub based solution. Given that Accountis has been trading for more than five years, and continue to offer licensed based solutions, my advice to TBiConnect is that think strategically when deciding on the license vs. hub based model. Whilst licenses might be financially rewarding today, it may be prudent to set-up a hub now rather than later. Perhaps it is better for me to cover hub vs. licensed model in another post.

According to the story, the fund has committed its maximum initial investment of £330,000. There is also the possibility of raising a further £330,000 from the same fund after six months. South West Ventures has invested £6.9 million in 24 companies (an average of £287,500 per company) with £18.1 million left to invest. The fund is managed by YFM Group, which over the years have become a VC powerhouse operating in many regions of the UK. Doug Stellman of YFM Private Equity recently spoke at the Northern StartUp 2.0 event organised by me at KPMG Manchester.

According to Nick Simmonds, investment manager at YFM Group:

“TBiConnect has developed a proven solution to address the business need problems faced by many organisations handling thousands of financial transactions. We have been particularly impressed with the excellent management team and are delighted to back this exciting solution”.

As part of the funding package, former Amstrad CEO David Rogers has become the Chairman of TBiConnect. According to David Rogers:

“TBiConnect’s customer proposition is compelling. It delivers immediate cost benefits and control to financial systems. We’ve had immediate positive reception and industry recommendations from early customers on the strength of the ease, simplicity and operational benefit they’ve experienced. Investment from the South West Ventures Fund enables TBiConnect to make a forceful entrance for a long-term future in this emerging market.”

According to Simon Fox, CEO of TBiConnect:

“We are delighted to have secured the investment from South West Ventures Fund to support our vigorous growth plans. The business rationale for our service grows ever more powerful as corporates struggle to increase performance in every department, while maintaining stability of operations and IT.”

Just like many other players in the market, TBiConnect is no stranger when targeting the large buyers. TBiConnect targets medium and large organisations that generate over 100,000 transactions a year.

Whilst technologies are available, no UK company has emerged to provide a compelling solution to the SME. Accountis clearly has the technology but lacks a substantial business model to take the market by storm. Version One has early stage of technology, but requires significant development, which somehow I do not see happening under the current ownership structure. If Accountis is serious about the SME, it needs to consider setting up an independent company and provide the software under license to target the SME customer. The current set-up will not work. Why? Their matrices will never allow direct targeting of smaller customers, e.g. revenue per customer will be so low for sales team to get too excited. What this means is that the market is wide open for an innovative startup to penetrate the SME sector by storm. Who will rise to this challenge is not clear. I cannot see OB10 taking a punt at this market, as it’s ambitions are more global. What about Causeway Technologies?

What a pity! A lost opportunity! Anyone interested in exploring this opportunity more closely?

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Do you think you know?  As I enter my 14th year working to reduce the folly of computers talking to computers via paper, there are still many questions to be answered.  Ah, you may say, don’t I even read my own presentation slides!  Sure, I have answered this question many times and am clear as to why compenies “should” - just less clear as to what would makes a company actually “do it”? 

The two key ingredients are that there is a clear “value proposition” to justify the change and a “critical event” to ensure the change is actually made.  As I see it, the truth is that the value and motivation are both variables in the decision making chain and clearly mean different things to different people.  As a solution provider we look to increase adoption rates by improving our functionality and offering flexible deployment and roll out options.   But, 14 years down the road I still remain firmly wedded to the notion of simplicity.  Most companies accept that eInvoicing, eOrders, etc., is the future for their business.  However, many have yet to take the first step. 

I somehow doubt there is anything close to a single answer, but it would be good to get a consensus as to what tickles the fancy sufficiently to get a business started:  For example, in what order would you rank the following as incentives likely to result in a company taking the plunge … and don’t be swayed by what you thinks the answer “should” be!:

(a) My customers want me to do this.

(b) My suppliers want me to do this.

(c) My competitors are trading electronically.

(d) My company wants to achieve some cost savings.

(e) We have found a simple way to connect our application to the eWorld

(f)  I have found a solution that allows me to maintain my existing processes

(g)  Something else.

 All answers on a “blog” please … perhaps there will be a clear consensus that emerges over time.

 Here’s hoping …. and if we can’t nail the answer, perhaps we could at least share ways this has been attempted. 

Thanks!

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Just now, I googled “e-invoicing”. Below are the results:

Crossgate is at 10th place and this blog is at 9th place. What does this tell you? Crossgate has taken advantage of edocr to have a listing on Google first page for much contended keyword without paying a penny. How much has Microgen, AuthentiDate, Bottomline, Xerox, paypal, gandlake, accountis, AcuInvoice and Insearchofsolutions have paid Google to be on the first page? How much has OB10 and accountis have paid for Search Engine Optimisation? How much has Crossgate paid? Perhaps not a penny. 

So what has Crossgate done to achieve this level of success. They simply uploaded a document to edocr and tagged it appropriately. Here is the visually high impact thumbnail:

What should Crossgate do now?

In order to achieve this level of success, Crossgate needs to continually upload their documents to edocr. Otherwise sustainability of this position will be short lived. We are also receiving significant amount of traffic for keywords e-invoicing and EIPP as well as for other subjects (cannot ignore the cheat sheets!). 

What can you do to achieve the same success?

So if you wish to achieve similar success why not start uploading documents to edocr today? Its free. If you feel it’s too much, why not outsource the uploading, describing and tagging to ebdex (or another service provider), as ebdex is happy to charge for performing this service. 

I assume that you now understand the power of edocr (if not please do tell! I am more than happy to explain). Once you have entered edocr, how do you ensure that your company receives the maximum attention? This is easy. On Home Page, there are two locations where you can have your documents displayed for a small fee plus to advertise on edocr.

Conditions: Days must be used within a month of clearing the funds. You are free to choose the days (based on availability) but must include a Saturday and Sunday. Prices are valid for 1 week from today. Please contact me through manoj@ranaweera.name if you prefer a different service to what is advised above. Please note that edocr reserve the right to change pricing any time.

It’s a market place

Our objective is to earn an income from above services every day. We also believe in the RyanAir and EasyJet model, i.e. all day slots must be filled. We are able to adjust above pricing to suit demand. Do you need any more incentive to take advantage above your competition? 

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I started preparing a detailed analyst report on OB10 in September 07. Unfortunately, very few manhours were spent with the end result being an incomplete report. Perhaps, the best way to achieve the end goal is to break it down to bite sizes, just like any other project. There is a high probability of completing the financial analysis first, given that most hours were spent on analysing OB10’s finances. Let’s hope I can get this out before end of this month. Time to place your bets, gentlemen!

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Since handing over the organising of OpenCoffee Manchester to Paul Robinson and given the success of collaboration during the past events (e.g. founding of edocr), Paul has decided to combine OpenCoffee with Co-Working, an original initiative by Paul. The next event will take place on 22nd January 2008 at MDDA in Manchester. The details of the event can be found here. I have not finalised my plans for 22nd, but hope that I could attend at least the OpenCoffee session.

Whilst I believe this creates a new type of event, my suspicion is that this might end up becoming a development event in the medium term unless the right balance is reached between business and software development. The OpenCoffee component of the day could also be overrun by the Co-Working concept, reducing OpenCoffee to a coffee break. In my opinion, one way to avoid this happening is to preserve the original venue of OpenCoffee, so that Co-Working participants would have to physically move to another venue where businesses could easily interact.

One of the reasons I handed over OpenCoffee to Paul is that I could not unite business and developer community. Paul has vital connectivity and trusted by both communities which meant he is in a better situation to unite the two communities and increase attendance. I hope my reservations will be proven wrong with respect to OpenCoffee becoming a coffee break. I would like to see the original concept of Saul Klein preserved but at the same time more collaboration taking place with real interaction between the two communities.

I hear you say, come on Manoj, give Paul a break! The event has not even taken place. Bit too early to judge! With that thought, let’s make it a successful event overcoming any potential negativity.

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This evening, I will be hosting my 8th event in Manchester. Doug Stellman of YFM Private Equity and Paul Barraclough of Tecmentor will be joined by Stuart Scott-Goldstone of Aaron & Partners, and Pam Holland of Telecity. Let me introduce the two new speakers:

Stuart Scott-Goldstone - Aaron and Partners

Stuart Scott-Goldstone is Head of the Corporate/Commercial Team at Aaron & Partners LLP, a commercial law firm with offices in Manchester and Chester. Stuart specialises in corporate finance transactions and has advised both investors and companies on a large number of early stage and start up investments in the North West, particular those involving regional venture capital funds. Stuart studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge and The College of Law, Chester before training and qualifying as a Solicitor at Laytons, Manchester. He also recently completed an MBA at Manchester Business School.

I first met Stuart whilst undertaking my Executive MBA at Manchester Business School, where he undertook an Entrepreneurship MBA. He is an exceptional individual and fully understand the startup businesses, having been involved with number of startups himself in many different roles.

Pam Holland - Telecity

Pam has a background in HR Management and Organisational Development, with her early experience gained in blue chip companies – BICC, Electrolux, Provident Financial and United Utilities. In 1999 she changed direction and joined start-up data centre & IT hosting business – TeleCity, as their HR Manager during the first Internet boom. Her challenge at TeleCity was to build a strategy to attract and retain the talent pool needed for a rapid pan-European expansion programme to take the company from 25 to 450 employees in under 2 years. Pam is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development and has an Economics degree, MSc. in HR Management and an MBA from Manchester Business School. 

Another product of Manchester Business School (MBS), I met Pam at one of the many networking events organised by MBS. Pam has an interesting story to tell about how Telecity ramped up its operations. I also heard today that Pam will be flying to Africa for 3 to 6 months voluntary work. Make sure you quizz her on the forthcoming journey!

Other Developments

Rebranding

The event series and the web site will be rebranded as “Northern StartUp 2.0″ for the interim period to increase the catchment area. This change came up after a long meeting with North West Development Agency and Sun Microsystems yesterday. Since then this initiative has been approved by our long term partner, KPMG. The definition of North is a blur to say the least. This could well be interpreted as the area above Watford, as one of our partners suggested. But in reality, the plan is to serve the four great cities of Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield. I am not alone in my thinking. Other similar initiatives plan for the future includes dotnorth by my friend, Imran Ali. 

Web Site

The new web site is not quite ready for launch. It will eventually provide almost an one-stop-shop for Digital Start Ups in the North:

1. Events – There would be at least 12 branded events this year. Other event organisers will be invited to add their events to the site
2. Blog – CxO and selected individuals from support organisations will be able to blog
3. News – Aggregate relevant news
4. MarketPlace – Publish needs and offers of registered members
5. Job Board – publish vacancies
6. Directory – of Service providers
7. Northern Stars – Capture the details of upcoming Digital companies in the North.
8. Surgery – Sun Microsystems, KPMG, Business Link, UKTI etc hold surgeries at Daresbury Innovation Centre – registration through the site.

Sponsorship/Partner Opportunities:

Having partnered with two blue chips (KPMG and Sun Microsystems), further partnership/sponsorship opportunities are available for:

1. A firm of Solicitors
2. A bank or financial institution
3. A software company
4. A firm of Management Consultancy

Advertising Opportunities

Available advertising opportunities include:

1. Advertise on e-mails to our growing database. Maximum of four e-mails per month.
2. Banner advert on web site.
3. Directory of service providers on web site - Free for first 25 to sign up - what are you waiting for?

At present, I have received 35 registrations through the web site and e-mails. If you have not made any arrangements to attend so far, why not drop me a text message on 07769734491 to confirm your attendance. Please make sure your text message includes your full name and company. 

References:

1. NW StartUp 2.0 Business on 17th Jan 08 at KPMG

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Without a doubt, Bruno is the master of e-invoicing in Europe if not the world. His e-invoicing Quarterly is a much anticipated update of the e-invoicing market. Whilst I have hoped to do something similar for the UK market, I must admit, I am less organised than Bruno. However, I plan to put my e-mail marketing solution from iContact into full swing this year. If you are interested in e-invoicing and have not subscribed to Bruno’s e-invoicing Quarterly, I suggest you do that right away. Here is a review of what Bruno has written.

1. European Market Outlook 2008

The e-invoicing market continues to remain fragmented and small but with potential to be a significant market. Unfortunately, not much has changed since the early 2000’s except for the increasing number of vendors entering the market place, as reported by Bruno. This is obviously a positive side of a maturing market and has led to minor improvements in the overall market share. However, the optimistic predictions of analysts continued to be missed, year after year. We are still addressing the fundamental problem of replacing paper based solutions with electronic systems. We also seems to have forgotten that our key competitor is none other than paper.

Whilst much has been spoken of supply chain finance and the second p (payment) of EIPP, none of these solutions are going to achieve traction until the fundamental problems are sorted out including the significant barriers faced in implementations. This is not to say that the best-in-class companies, as regularly reported by Aberdeen Group, are not enjoying the benefits of e-invoicing. All I am highlighting is that current deployments are a drop in the ocean, when compared to the potential market size, and significant drive from vendors, consultants and governments are needed if this market segment is to be taken seriously. Lack of profits within the service provider organisations continues to dampen the spirit of the enthusiasm.

Niche players such as OB10 has worked tirelessly to promote e-invoicing globally whilst companies such as Ariba has entered the market as part of its product diversification strategy. The scanning and OCR providers, EDI houses and accounts payable specialists all admit that EIPP is the way forward. Many of these companies I have spoken to remain convinced that EIPP is yet to arrive. I do not think they are been ignorant. If a company does not change to satisfy changing market conditions, the survival of the company will be short lived. Their stand is simply based on customer requirements, i.e. none of their customers are asking for EIPP or e-invoicing. So something is missing from the market place. I put this simply down to lack of awareness which can only be addressed by EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION.

Lately, many financial organisations have taken a vested interest in purchase-to-payment or e-invoicing document exchange. Most of the global leading banks are either offering services through partners or currently in discussion with partners to offer these services. At the same time, there are commercial lending organisations such as invoice discounters and factors taking an interest in the segment. This has also created an environment where traditional vendors for the financial sector is taking a closer look at EIPP, e.g. FundTech. Forrester has claimed this is the year for consolidation. No doubt there will be one or two major transactions, but it is more likely 2009 will be the year for consolidation.

What all of above means is that the e-invoicing or EIPP market should start to make progress this year. More work is needed to encourage service providers to collaborate with each other. I would like to see much more activity at Hub Alliance and other initiatives this year. The problem with Hub Alliance is that there is no budget to drive the “alliance” forward. In addition, the members’ aspirations are limited by their own personal needs, rather than offering a “alliance” for everyone interested in e-invoicing. Whilst I remain pessimistic about the market segment, I am hoping that I will be proven wrong this year.

2. European ExPP Summit

Many thanks to Bruno for organising an exceptional event. Also thanks for the X’mas present, which shows what a gentleman Bruno is! I look forward to participating in this years event. However, my personal feelings for the last year’s event was that it missed a trick. As I continue to say EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION, I felt that the last year’s event was very much organised for the vendor community and not for the potential users. I cannot remember meeting a single person who was looking to purchase a solution. This is also down to the marketing of the event. As an admirer of Bruno, My blog is freely available for any promotion activities of ExPP. This year I can also offer edocr free of charge. A real possibility exists where all ExPP documentation could be hosted by edocr including special interest groups for discussion of various topics prior to and after the event, so that this year’s event become a collaborative event instead of a traditional event. Anyone else got any more bright ideas?

3. Accelya

Thanks for the story Bruno. I must admit, ADP Clearing was not a company I tracked before. As I understood from the story, Chequers Capital has acquired ADP Clearing and has renamed the company as Accelya.  Accelya specialises in invoices, travel reservations, airline tickets, payment instructions and credit card collections, and consider themselves as a leading Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service. This classification put them immediately in competition with large BPO providers and less in competition with niche players such as OB10. With annual revenues of $70 million and over 8 million e-invoicing transactions, further review is necessary to understand their business model and product offering. Level of e-invoicing transactions seems to be low compared to the revenues, suggesting deployment of a less optimum model than the niche players. The web site has a modern feel but significantly lack in information to undertake a quick review. Looks like they have not found out about edocr yet.

4. Partnership between Basware and Crossgate

Ah! This is a story I knew about and planned to cover, but never got the chance. Crossgate is a user of edocr, but Basware has not yet taken the advantage of edocr. Would you believe, I am yet to do an e-mail marketing campaign on edocr to e-invoicing (EIPP) service providers or to anyone else for that matter. All documents related to e-invoicing on edocr can be found from here. I am not going to cover the story now, other than to say that the inter-operator connection allows over 74,000 companies to be reached.

What is uncertain from this press release is that whether this number takes into consideration of companies connected to Burns e-Commerce, Causeway’s Tradex, Asite, Certipost and Laison, who are all members of the hub alliance. Whilst I was providing advisory services to Causeway Technologies in 2007, one of the channel partners I introduced was looking to achieve the same result. Under current arrangements, this company do not qualify to be a Hub Alliance member, as they do not operate a hub.

But if discussions are successful and if they became a partner of Causeway’s Tradex, then they could indirectly exchange purchase-to-payment documents electronically with companies that are connected with any of the Hub Alliance members.

The importance of this realisation is that Hub Alliance should be at the centre of e-invoicing debate and not at the side. You do not need to be a member of the alliance, but simply need to be a partner of one of the members to benefit from the upside. Whilst this sounds all too easy, significant efforts are required to make this successful. I strongly believe its time that Hub Alliance members appoint an independent person to promote and administer the interests of all those concerned. Let’s hope 2008 is the year this happens.

5. Swisscom IT Services with international e-invoicing campaign

Once again, not a story I tracked. Interesting to note is that my friends at TrustWeaver is working with Swisscom to make this transition a success. Trustweaver has significant expertise in the legal requirements of different countries so that their expertise can be leveraged in order to ensure compliance during the launch of services a

cross 20 European companies in the first stage followed by another 20 countries in Europe and the world. Certainly, an ambitious project, and the market needs more of these initiatives to win market share from paper.

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Copyright for this post remains with Bruno. My review of this posting will follow shortly

E-Invoicing Quarterly 2008-1
January 2008

In This Issue

1.    European Market Outlook 2008
2.    About E-Invoicing Quarterly and the European EXPP Summit
3.    ADP Clearing becomes ACCELYA
4.    BasWare to partner with e-invoicing operator crossgate
5.    Swisscom IT Services - E-Invoicing goes international

+++++++++++++++

1.  European Market Outlook 2008

The broad range of services offered by a growing number of providers – now numbering some 260 – plus increasing market demand, will drive E-Invoicing market development in Europe. In addition, various government initiatives in countries like Sweden and Spain will accelerate this positive trend. These countries will be the ones with the strongest growth rates in 2008,  accompanied by Belgium, France, Poland and Portugal.

The processed B2B volume is expected to reach 610 million E-Invoices this year (corresponding with 4.1% of all European B2B invoices). B2C volume is estimated to rise to 330 millions (2.2% penetration).

Provider landscape:
In 2007 I detected, on average, 8 new service providers a month. This trend is still unbroken, as the market potential continues to be huge. New players are expected this year, especially in the financial service industry. Although the vast majority remain focussed on local markets, an increasing number of providers are expanding their geographical reach. While some are expected to focus on market niches, others will choose to connect their networks to those of competitors or will go international by themselves.

+++++++++++++++

2.  About E-Invoicing Quarterly and the European EXPP Summit

330 delegates from 28 countries came together at last year’s European EXPP Summit in London. The success of this event has established the European EXPP Summit as Europe’s leading event dealing with E-Invoicing & EBPP.

The next European EXPP Summit will take place on September 29 & 30, 2008 in Frankfurt/Germany. As a result of feedback from several service providers, we have decided to once again offer a 1 day “E-Invoicing operators Forum” on October 1st.

Based on the response in the last two years, I expect the exhibition to be booked out again. Please download the exhibitor brochure 2008 and book soon: http://www.expp-summit.com/downloads/expose_08.pdf

Your colleagues and business partners might also be interested in what this quarterly newsletter has to say. Please forward it to them or register
their names now: http://www.expp-summit.com/subscribenow.htm

+++++++++++++++

3.  ADP Clearing becomes ACCELYA

We have been informed that the investment fund Chequers Capital has replaced Automatic Data Processing (ADP) as the owner of ADP Clearing. Under the name of ACCELYA, they are devoting all of their energy to their core business and to satisfying their customers’ expectations. ACCELYA is a very active E-Invoicing provider with eight subsidiaries spread over three continents.

+++++++++++++++

4.  BasWare to partner with E-Invoicing operator crossgate BasWare Einvoices is expanding its partner network in Europe by connecting to crossgate, a specialist for B2B-Integration and Cross Automation. Over 74 000 companies can be reached through the new inter-operator connection.

+++++++++++++++

5.  Swisscom IT Services - E-Invoicing goes international

With the launch of “E-Invoicing International” customers of Swisscom IT Services will be able to rely totally on electronic methods for international billing from the end of January 2008. The existing E- Invoicing Service of Swisscom IT Services will be extended to include more than 20 European coun-tries in the first step – with another 20 countries (in Europe and worldwide) to be added in the course of the following year.

+++++++++++++++

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This year, I plan to reach out to my readership, clients and prospects through e-mail marketing campaigns. This presents an opportunity for you to advertise on e-mail marketing material that I plan to generate. If you are interested, please do get in touch through here. In addition, here is a list of advertising opportunities, which I have direct control of (web sites and e-mails):

1. NW StartUp 2.0 - the new site will be launched in Jan 2008.
• e-mail marketing campaigns - advert on footer or left hand side bar
• web site - home page
• web site - advertise under service provider directory
2. ebdex
• e-mail marketing campaigns on EIPP (e-invoicing)
• web site - home page
• web site - advertise under service provider directory
3. edocr
• Home page
• Each tag page
• Special pages
• e-mail marketing campaigns
• Document promotion on home page
• Document promotion for each tag
• Document promotion for special pages
4. Blog
• Home page right hand bar
• Advertise under service provider directory
• e-mail marketing campaigns
5. Other URLs
• Advertising opportunities (need further thought)

Rates are fully negotiable. Why not get in touch for a chat?

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The first NW StartUp 2.0 event of 2008 will be held at KPMG Manchester on 17th January 2008 covering the subject of software startup business funding. Once again, I had to make last minute arrangements as my keynote speaker can no longer attend the event due to imminent launch of his new startup, GoSecure. In addition, few other speakers I had in mind confirmed unavailability.

Event planning is never too easy, just like any other business, you have to rely on others. Whilst I am awaiting for confirmation of potentially two more speakers, let me introduce confirmed speakers without further ado:

Speaker 1 - Paul Barraclough Tecmentor

Paul has experience of over 50 technology start-ups. His role these days is usually as Chairman, often acting as an interim manager in the early phase before dedicated commercial managers are brought on line. His main role is directing the technologists and their technology to commercial goals. He maintains a distance from the technology but often contribute to IPR creation and have been named as a co-inventor on a number of patents filed by many of the companies he has mentored. In many occasions, he has remained a director through to trade sale and listing and beyond.

Career history:

1994 to To date: Tecmentor Limited - Director
1990 – 2006: Worknorth - The VC arm of Manchester Airport Group - Managing Director
1980 – 1989: 3i and / 3i Investee Companies - Investment Controller / Director

For a full profile, please visit LinkedIn.

I have known Paul for a while and I sought his counsel with respect to £250k debt finance for ebdex during back-end of 2006. If you are looking for a Tech Mentor (Chairman for your startup), I cannot recommend anyone better than Paul! So take the opportunity to meet a real gem of the North West!

Speaker 2 - Doug Stellman - YFM Private Equity

Doug has worked in venture capital since 1993, working on investments ranging from start-up technology businesses through to general development capital investments. Prior to this he worked for Price Waterhouse on IT and systems. He is also a Chartered Accountant with a Bioscience background.

For a full profile, please visit LinkedIn

I met Doug during fund raising campaigns for ebdex. He has invested into many startups in the North West, some of these companies are tenants of Daresbury Innovation Centre, where ebdex and edocr are based. If you are looking for start-up funding, I encourage you to speak to him.

Please click here to visit the event site and register for the event.

Technorati Tags: NWStartUp20, NW StartUp 2.0, Doug Stellman, Tecmentor, Paul Barraclough, YFM Private Equity, LinkedIn, Worknorth, Airport Ventures, 3i, GoSecure, Billa Bhandari

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Let me start the first blog post of 2008 by wishing all my Readers a happy and prosperous New Year. I see 2008 as the year of recovery, consolidation and growth. I would like to take a moment of your time to share some of the activities I will be involved in. Without further ado:

1. Turnaround of ebdex

Inspired by the significant market opportunity presented by e-invoicing (EIPP) due to lack of market penetration by then incumbents, I founded ebdex in Q4 04 to focus on developing a web based secure and scalable electronic document exchange to allow purchase-to-pay documents to be exchanged seamlessly between organisations, both large and small. Due to number of significant issues faced by ebdex during 2006, I terminated our business plan of launching a purchase-to-payment EIPP hub, and in 2007, re-positioned the company as a niche management consultancy advising both vendors and users of technology, in addition to providing e-invoicing (EIPP) and supply chain finance market analysis, as well as social-media consultancy in use of web and enterprise 2.0 technologies.

Key Focus: EIPP (e-invoicing) and Supply Chain Finance, and Social Media

Greatest wish: Like minded individual or two joins the company

2. Birth of edocr

edocr was founded in Apr 2007 to address a pain I was suffering from. These being: reduce Internet search time for documents on e-invoicing and related subjects and find an effective platform for publishing analyst reports on e-invoicing. At the first OpenCoffee Manchester event hosted by me in March 2007, I started speaking to Rhys Jones, CEO of Accountis (one of ebdex’s competitors before re-positioning) about setting up a business to solve my pain. Within a month or so, I found two other team members of long association, Mike Carter and Chris Haslam of Ixis, and the edocr was born. My long-term pal, Stuart Scott-Goldstone (now with Aarron and Partners) joined later to provide legal counsel. In Sept, we released Public Alpha. Reception to date has been positive, and we are now in the process of bringing value added fee paying functionality.

Key Focus: Enterprise market.

Greatest wish: Funding and talent secured.

3. Helping Northern Stars Shine

I have been running events to promote software startups in Manchester (UK) since Nov 06 under the brands of NW StartUp 2.0 and Mashup Manchester. Having run 6 events over the last 13 months, it is time to make this series of events more regular, popular and professional. The plan for 2008 is to host 12 events split evenly in to Business (StartUp Business Funding), Technology and DEMO. First event takes place on the 17th Jan at KPMG Manchester. In addition, we will soon be launching a new web site to promote these and other related events as well as promote software startups in the North.

Key Focus: Software Startups

Greatest wish: Sponsorship and Administrative Assistance secured.

4. Blogging Year Round

I am a strong believer that 21st century companies need to use the best available tools if they are to continually grow their companies as well as grow the market in which they compete. I see blogging as a vital tool which can help best-in-class companies extend their competitiveness further from the laggards. I will continue to speak of my favourite subjects with the hope of extending and broadening the readership. However, the delivery might be through number of blogs instead of through here as I own number of other URLs including EIPPWorld.com

Key Focus: EIPP (e-invoicing) and Supply Chain Finance, and Social Media
Greatest wish: Recognised as one of the key niche business blogs.

5. Seeking Opportunities

In addition to above four areas, I am available for external opportunities, perhaps not as the driver or innovator, but providing mentoring, consulting or other services as the opportunity dictates. My professional profile will continue to be maintained on LinkedIn.

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