How automating revenue management can help your global growth drive succeed
If you’re looking to expand offshore, the billing platform you use can be make or break.
Is setting up shop outside Australia on the agenda for your organisation this year? If you answered in the affirmative, congratulations and the very best of luck.
When you have a great product or service offering that’s going gangbusters here at home, taking it global can be an unparalleled opportunity to scale at speed.
And for many local enterprises, it’s the only way. While Australia may be the greatest place in the world to live, ours is a relatively small economy and many markets are saturated. That can make achieving and sustaining significant growth domestically a difficult proposition.
Go further afield and it’s a very different story. In the Asia Pacific region alone, there can be enormous opportunities for smart operators to tap into sizeable markets at differing stages of maturity.
Unpacking the payments puzzle
But adapting your monetisation model and go-to-market strategies to secure mind and market share in new territories is only half the challenge of going international – and it’s arguably the easier half.
In order to make your foreign foray a success, you’ll need to adapt to the regulatory and compliance regimes you encounter in other jurisdictions too.
Doing so is far from simple and there are pitfalls aplenty for the unprepared, particularly if your finance and billing department is operating in manual mode.
For starters, payment and invoicing requirements vary enormously from nation to nation. In a growing number of countries, e-invoicing – the digital exchange of an invoice between seller and buyer – is mandatory for public sector procurement and strongly encouraged in the private sphere too.
The schemas for debit and the credit card payment gateways in popular use are likely to be different from our own. So are the authorisation rates for payments and the commonly employed approaches to dunning and debt collection.
Goods and services tax may be a minefield and the local revenue collection agency’s tolerance for errors minimal, even (or especially!) from new market entrants that are still finding their feet.
And then there’s the issue of foreign exchange. Billing in a local currency and accounting for it in your own may be a complex exercise and getting it wrong can have an adverse effect on your balance sheet and profitability.
In short, there’s lots that can go wrong and the ramifications can be immense if it does.
Significant issues with billing and revenue management may force you to delay the introduction of new products and services. They can impede your journey to viability and profitability in new territories and, in a worst-case scenario, could scupper your chances of success entirely.
Combatting the complexity
Without the right platform and processes in place, managing and mitigating these complexities and risks is likely to be a time-consuming exercise for your finance and accounting team.
That’s why it pays to invest in market-leading revenue management technology before you commence your offshore expansion drive.
We’re talking here about an automated cloud-based solution that offers flexible quote-to-cash lifecycle support.
Ideally, you’ll choose one which can be easily configured to accommodate the language, invoicing and taxation requirements, currency exchange, and compliance regime of every jurisdiction in which your offering will be sold or consumed.
Select a platform that connects seamlessly with your CRM system and incorporates a sophisticated data analytics function, and you’ll be able to monitor and manage your international customer base too.
There’ll also be the opportunity to extract actionable insights that allow you to evolve and optimise your offering to meet the unique demands of all the different markets in which your organisation has a presence.
Setting your organisation up for global success
Going global can be an extraordinarily rewarding move for your enterprise, provided you have technology and processes in place that enable you to deliver an outstanding customer experience in your new markets, whilst complying with local regulatory requirements.
Implemented smartly, that’s just what a cloud-based revenue management platform can do. If making a sustainable success of offshore expansion is your ultimate aim, it’s foundation technology that will help you achieve it faster.
Carl Warwick, regional sales director Asia Pacific and Japan, BillingPlatform.
