Credit Management September 2023

CICM CORPORATE PARTNER
Positive synergy
How AI and RPA can improve the O2C cycle.
AUTHOR – Roshika Perera
WE’VE long known
that technology can
mimic and even
outperform humans
in many tasks,
already replacing a
swathe of jobs in industries ranging from
manufacturing to retail. But does the
same fate await the credit management
profession?
Martyn Brooke, Credit Management
Specialist at Esker, provider of AI driven
business solutions, does not believe so:
“We should not be afraid of robots and
AI,” he says. “They may be able to replace
repetitive, mundane, and non-valueadded
tasks – but there’s nothing wrong
with that.
“It will make people’s jobs more
satisfying, strategic, and interesting.
Some roles within a job will disappear,
but new roles will emerge. And I think we
should embrace these new opportunities.”
Speaking at a webinar hosted by CICM,
Martyn outlines a future in which credit
teams will combine smart technologies
into their processes rather than compete
against them. To make his case, he
presented five ways in which Robotic
Process Automation (RPA) and Artificial
Intelligence (AI), two existing and salient
technologies, are already improving the
Order to Cash (O2C) cycle in the credit
industry.
Document retrieval
RPA, a technology that records tasks
performed by humans on a computer,
and programs itself to then perform these
tasks without human intervention, is a
favourite among credit teams. Capable
of performing repetitive tasks such as
retrieving documents stored on client
portals, RPA solutions can save credit
managers the time and effort of posting
and retrieving invoices, debit notes and
other documents that affect the O2C
process:
“Nowadays, most parties want credit
managers to send and receive documents
via portals instead of directly sending it to
you,” explains Martyn. “Although this isn’t
a particularly difficult task, it can be timeconsuming
when performed manually,
which is why more and more businesses
are automating this process using RPA.
The technology can search for documents
on portals by region, entity, date range
‘‘AI now has the
ability to read
and recognise the
documents that
are coming in,
especially from
regular customers,
and it can learn
what it needs to do
with each type of
document.”
and much more. It will then download
the resulting files into Esker’s solution for
processing.”
The objective of RPA is to serve as an ‘an
additional arm’, enabling credit managers
to outsource tasks that are boring and
require no intellect: “it is a rule-based and
trigger driven technology that doesn’t have
intelligence built into it. It’s repetitive and
robotic.”
Collections boost
If RPA is an additional arm, AI is best
described as ‘a second brain’, having
the ability to mimic human cognitive
functions. Its capacity to provide predictive
data by analysing past behaviour, for
example, has helped credit teams boost
their collections process: “AI can predict
when payments are going to arrive by
analysing invoice status, past payment
behaviour and other data,” he says.
“Based on these payment predictions,
the AI can determine a customer’s risk
level, and suggest priority calls based
on that risk level. It can also create
collections forecasts based on past
customer behaviour, making it easier to
anticipate incoming payments.”
These predictive and prescriptive
capabilities of AI are designed to make the
collections process simpler. But it is one
thing to crunch large numbers very fast
and quite another to be able to strategise
and understand human intent:
“Incorporating AI into the collections
process will provide businesses with
greater visibility of incoming cash and
better forecasts,” says Martyn, “which
allows them to adjust their strategies
accordingly. It is a far more efficient
system than having to do it manually.
And although the AI can analyse and
organise the data without any human
intervention, it is up to the humans to
use the information appropriately and
effectively.”
Easier decisions
AI systems can also facilitate decisionmaking
processes that have hitherto been
the preserve of human intelligence. It can,
for example, suggest credit limits based
on customer behaviour and other internal
and external data:
“AI can offer smart suggestions that can
help you make more informed decisions.
For example, it will bring to your attention
Brave | Curious | Resilient / www.cicm.com / September 2023 / PAGE 42