Organizing and Utilizing P2P Data From Chaos to Control

In November, SSON hosted the 2024 AP Automation Digital Summit, which featured exceptional presentations. We were fortunate to hear from industry experts who provided valuable insights into the evolving landscape of AP Automation. In our session, ‘Organizing and Utilizing P2P Data From Chaos to Control,’ speakers Adam Hermann, Nokia, Daniel Chapman, Warner Music Group, and Kelly Hicks, Airbase, shared their expert perspectives on the best practices for effective organization and utilization of P2P data.

How Do We Ensure Proper Master Data Integrity?

Maintaining the integrity of your master data is crucial in keeping your P2P data organized and in control. Kelly Hicks, Global Controller Airbase, described staying on top of this process as “garbage in, garbage out”. To avoid unnecessary data manipulation, implementing good data governance controls and ensuring consistent maintenance are integral in upholding a high standard of data quality across the company. Adam Hermann, GBS Source to Pay Head Nokia, agreed with this point, emphasizing that we need to ensure businesses have the right tooling to enable their data to become a “singular source of truth.” Daniel Chapman, Senior Director Transformation P2P Warner Music Group, jumped in on this point stating, “Data is like having a classic car.” Without maintenance, it can easily become worthless. As there are a plethora of data-sources that contribute to P2P data, data maintenance must be structured and ongoing. Although this task may be tedious, it is also a crucial step in "futureproofing" and maintaining the integrity of your master data for long-term benefit.

How Do You Shift the Ownership of Maintaining the Supplier VMD to Suppliers?

Shifting the responsibility of maintaining Supplier Vendor Master Data (VMD) to suppliers requires implementing a structured process that enables them to manage and update their data, while still allowing your organization to maintain oversight and control. Hermann offered that ownership should be placed one part on the supplier itself and the rest on clear owners. Ultimately, master data can be “maintained by the supplier itself,” which is a win-win for the company and supplier, helping to keep data clean and organized. Making these conditions part of the contract itself between the business and supplier can create a structure around data governance responsibilities. 

How Artificial Intelligence is Influencing The Data Process

Hicks highlighted the continued ability of technology to automate a lot of the manual tedious processes that employees and users are doing to maintain data. Freeing up time by allowing technology to take on manual, repetitive tasks can free up room for companies to pour time into more exciting ventures that can assist business growth. Such as how to apply the data and make decisions from it, rather than predominantly maintenance. Human oversight and validation are still roped into this process. Chapman suggested that while systems are offering slicker processes in data maintenance, a degree of human intervention will always be needed to filter out any error.

If you would like to find out more about this topic, please see the discussion above from our speakers on-demand.  If you would like to see more great insights from SSON, join our next online event, the Autonomous Finance Virtual Summit.