The difference engine

I’m not the first person to have pointed out that the one of the main things organizations have in common is difference. It’s such an obvious observation: they differ not just in the context of size, sector, and geography, but in terms of leadership, market position, infrastructure, financial position, strategy, and too many other criteria to name here.

If that’s the case – if every organization is unique – how can a service provider such as Capgemini offer a universal business model?

One size doesn’t fit all

The short answer is: we don’t. One size doesn’t fit all. But what we do offer is a common platform – a single foundation on which all organizations can build digital frameworks that match their highly individual circumstances and goals, in all their infinite variety.

We call this foundation Digital Global Enterprise Model (D-GEM). It’s an AI-based, digital business transformation platform encompassing best-in-class solutions, modules, and features that accelerate and streamline the transformation of business processes, to deliver what we call the Frictionless Enterprise.

As you might expect from its name, the Frictionless Enterprise aims to remove all the lumps and bumps that impede interactions between people and processes in an organization. It connects them seamlessly, intelligently, and as and when needed. It dynamically adapts to each organization’s requirements.

At Capgemini, we have applied the Frictionless Enterprise principle to enhance cohesion across our entire suite of products and services. It embraces our offering in human resources, in supply chain management, in customer operations – and also in finance.

Frictionless Finance ­– local value…

Frictionless Finance delivers next-generation, AI-augmented order-to-cash (O2C), purchase-to-pay (P2P), record-to-analyze (R2A), and analytics. It enables organizations to respond rapidly to their own unique and changing requirements, and to achieve their specific business outcomes in a value-focused way.

The D-GEM platform on which Frictionless Finance is built reflects the specific circumstances of each client organization – because, as I noted just now, one size doesn’t fit all. Each of the following solutions is adapted to circumstances:

• AI.Receivables – an integrated, frictionless O2C platform that helps collect more cash by implementing a data automation layer, AI autonomous processing, machine learning, and customer self-service functionality to create a simplified customer experience
• AI.Payables – an integrated frictionless P2P platform that augments payables with virtual analysts, spend analytics, vendor self-service, and an AI service desk that delivers improved working capital
• AI.Controllership – an integrated, frictionless R2A platform with embedded AI controls, AI journal entry, virtual controller, and AI accounting insights that delivers a seamless, continuous close.

What counts as finance function value? Typically, we’ve seen up to 25% improvement in forecast accuracy, up to 25% sales growth in digital revenue streams, and up to 40% improvement in days sales outstanding.

… delivering enterprise-wide value

But such improvements are operational and localized. The real value lies in achieving benefits that are felt beyond the finance function, and by the enterprise as a whole. For example, a smart, seamless approach can significantly boost an organization’s working capital position, its cash flow, and its approach to sustainability. They can make a truly substantial difference. It’s no wonder such changes are now generally described as digital transformation.

These value transformations are delivered via the digital engineering framework that underpins D-GEM, including:

• Digital Twin – a virtuous circle of business mining, modeling, simulation, and improvement that analyzes process friction to deliver continuous improvement to finance processes
• Finance Intelligence – out of the box insights, analytics, and reporting that provides real-time visibility and transparency into process effectiveness, trends, forecasts, and predictions
• AI.GRC – a comprehensive portfolio of cloud-based, AI-enabled controls that represent the first line of defense to reduce enterprise risk.

Our ability to tailor D-GEM to circumstances, and to achieve these enterprise-level value benefits, is facilitated by a suite of industry-specific global process models we’ve developed. Each such model can accelerate the transformation – but it’s not prescriptive. Once again, it’s molded to fit each organization’s needs. With everything working together, seamlessly and intelligently, it’s much easier to gauge opportunities and risks, and to make strategic decisions that deliver further enterprise-wide value.

Onward, onward

I said at the outset that difference was one universal characteristic. But there’s another: it’s continuity. Few organizations, if any, ever want to call time. They all strive towards a future. They all have somewhere they want to be. And with D-GEM, we can help them get there – each in their own unique way.

To learn more about how Capgemini’s Frictionless Finance can transform your finance function to drive tangible, frictionless outcomes, enhanced efficiency, and top-line growth, contact: lee.beardmore@capgemini.com

Lee Beardmore has spent over two decades advising clients on the best strategies for technology adoption. More recently, he has been leading AI-driven business transformation for Capgemini’s Business Services. Lee is a computer scientist by education, a technologist at heart, and has a wealth of cross-industry experience.