CREDIT MANAGEMENT JULY and August 2022

“If small businesses sitting in their
local communities get paid quickly,
they are much more likely to have the
certainty to invest in those communities.
They are best placed at understanding
local needs, so it’s vital in terms of
levelling up that the importance of those
small suppliers is being recognised.”
effort to crackdown on poor payment
practices, so how is it going so far?
‘Slowly,” she admits with a smile, “but
I’m optimistic. The pandemic made some
organisations realise they could pay faster
and that their small business suppliers in
their supply chain were vitally important
and needed looking after if they didn’t
want to lose them to their rivals. We saw
improvements in certain sectors and that
led others to look at their processes and
improve their own payment performance.”
Liz says that ethics is now playing a key
part in the payment debate: “Conversations
around ethics and the desire of smaller
businesses and freelancers to only work
with ethical companies is having an
impact on the payment landscape,” she
continues. “There is a much-publicised
skills shortage at the moment and that
in itself is driving change – if you want
skilled freelance workers you have to
pay them on time. You wouldn’t not pay
your salaried employees on the day their
money was due so why would you do that
to your freelance staff?
“The conversations are also getting
louder around ESG and whether payment
practices and payment performance
could sit on the Governance agenda and
not simply on the Operational agenda.”
Liz says that in talking to Boards and
Non-Executive Directors, she feels they
are not always asking the right questions:
“They’re saying they don’t ask questions
around payment performance as it’s
an operational issue,” she continues.
“I’m pushing back on that and saying
it’s a strategic issue as it’s about ethics
Brave | Curious | Resilient / www.cicm.com / July & August 2022 / PAGE 18