The `quick wins` in a business case for electronic document delivery and electronic bill presentation and payment (EBPP) are the very real cost reductions associated with e-mail delivery instead of postal delivery and migrating marketing messages from expensive paper brochures to online (discussed in my previous Industry Insight).
The trick to building a business case for e-billing is the same trick for building a case for anything.
Alison Wright, sales and marketing director, The E-mail Corporation
While these benefits are the most obvious, there are other benefits that should be considered when completing a business case. These benefits, such as reduced debtor`s days, the value of industry leadership, and the risk of non-adoption, may be harder to quantify, but they may push the right button with at least one of your decision-makers.
Most literature on the subject of electronic statement delivery (ESD) implementation will cite a reduction in debtor`s days as a key benefit of EBPP. The basic premise of this is `if you get the bill out earlier, you`ll get paid earlier`.
In the traditional print and post method of billing, if the billing run is done on the last day of the month, then sent to the printer, proofed, printed, collated, manually inserted in envelopes and posted, it will be a couple days before that invoice or statement reaches the recipient.
In the world of e-billing, the process described above can be reduced to a matter of hours. The data file comes into the e-billing system, is processed, creates the e-mails and they are delivered immediately. No printing, no envelopes, no post office and no manual intervention.
E-billing can therefore improve your interest earnings by just getting the bills out earlier.
While some of the literature out there seems a bit undecided on whether EBPP has actually taken off, statistics in the US indicate that it is a rapidly growing industry, with consumer demand expected to triple by 2006 (Forrester Research).
In this stage of its hype cycle, e-billing is seen by customers as a service innovation on the part of a biller, especially locally, where the number of large billers offering e-mail or Web delivery of invoices and statements is still relatively small. When a high profile biller such as a telco, bank or retail outlet launches an e-billing option, people talk about it.
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You may not be first in your industry to implement ESD, but the value of being seen to do this while it is still considered a service innovation should be taken into account. If your organisation is one of the last to implement this in an industry or business sector, the message to your customers is "we`re just catching up".
Again, reading the available literature, there is a definite sense of "those that don`t implement soon, will be left behind". Back when the Internet was just starting to become commercial, the same sense of risk prevailed. Everyone wanted to be connected (although many were not sure why).
This is a different kind of argument for the business case as it considers what the cost will be to the company that delays its EBPP implementation.
There`s the cost to the company`s image to consider. When competitors make a noise in your market about their EBPP implementations, they`re taking ownership of labels such as innovative and service driven. Customers are hearing the organisation`s name coupled with new technology and cost-efficiencies and they are seen to be riding on a good wave.
Companies that launch this service much later than their industry leaders will not be able to own any of these labels, and will have to find an alternative positioning to create hype in the market around their e-billing initiatives.
There`s also the cost of potential customer defections. While the option to receive an electronic bill is unlikely to sway a customer across to your competition on its own, there is likely to be a group of technology appreciators that want this service and if they have had any other swopover tendencies, you will lose them.
It is also likely that a larger group of customers will see that your competitors are providing this as an option, and want to know that they are also with a leader in service innovation. Long lead times for implementation will disappoint these customers.
In the same way, a competitor that has the option of e-billing in their basket of services, may be able to sway a new customer their way instead of yours.
Then there`s the learning curve to consider. As with many technology-related service offerings, those that start the race early have a distinct advantage. While one company delays the implementation of EBPP, the leaders are building up a fortune of learning and expertise in this field. They are refining their customer offering, and fine-tuning their technologies and relationships with service providers.
They are also rolling out the service to other areas of their business, meaning that when the company that has been lagging behind starts their process, they will forever be playing catch up.
The trick to building a business case for e-billing is the same trick for building a case for anything. Assess your decision-makers and ensure that there is a trigger that corresponds to each of their pressure points. Some may be easily quantifiable; some may need a softer, more qualitative approach.
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