The World of EIPP/e-invoicing, edocr, Northern StartUp 2.0 and me

Many of you know that I am a keen advocate of Sun Microsystems’ Sun StartUp Essentials Programme. I am fortunate to work with Stewart Townsend (a brilliant easy-to-get-alone individual) from the beginning of the programme, and continue to do so with sharing ideas and initiatives. Stewart has geared the initiative to become a true friend to digital startups in the UK. He has filled the gap that other competitors (HP, Microsoft, etc) have not seen. Initiatives he supports or supported include Northern StartUp 2.0, Mashup Events, Webmission08 and Digital Mission.

No company is too small for Sun. Stewart engages with any company by understanding their pain and then providing or recommending solutions to ease the pain and set the company forward for growth. It is not always about selling hardware or services. The engagement model has started to work well for Sun. And Stewart’s commitment to programme is well recognised externally as well as within the company when Sun recently presented him with an award for commitment.

Here is a snap shot of recent discussion on Sun’s startup blog

OpenSolaris Vending Machine

Free Hosting for Facebook and Open Social Applications

Sun and Joyent have teamed up to bring free hosting for Facebook and Open Social Applications.

Thanks to Stewart, Sun Microsystems now has a permanent office at Daresbury Science and Innovation Centre. Stewart, keep up the good work. The community needs true champions such as you to make a change.

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Jelle de Bruin, co-founder of AppAppeal informed me of this excellent video they have created on UK’s hottest 30 web companies. Glad to see edocr among them plus number of webmission08 companies.

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Please read page 6 and 7 of:

The headline is “leaders of the region’s £16 billion digital and creative industries are intensifying their efforts to establish the North West as one of the world’s most innovative production centre’s for digital entertainment and new media”.

As part of the initiative to grow regional output by £1bn from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by 2015, the North West Development Agency (NWDA) is in the process of establishing a number of Media Enterprise Centres (MECs) where production companies, broadcasters, small digital companies and universities can collaborate. Phase 1 includes opening of the MediaCityUK in Salford Quays and Liverpool Innovation Park later this year.

The article further states that the sector currently generates 16% of Gross Value Added (GVA) and 10.6% of the workforce. Clearly, some outstanding figures, and NWDA and others are to be congratulated for their vision and execution. Article also states that the creative industries cover 18 market segments from advertising and design to television and publishing. At the heart of this is £300 million a year GVA from computer games industry.

However, the article does not extend to mention any internet based companies such as our own Northern Stars. Does this mean that the NWDA do not see the potential upside that Northern Stars could create? Just imagine the birth of Bebo, Skype, YouTube and Last.FM in the North West. Companies such as those cannot be ignored. Problem is that at present, none of the Northern Stars have attracted significant opportunities to warrant the attention of NWDA. The number of startups has not reach the critical mass. At present, there are a small number of companies. The most successful digital product based businesses to emerge out of the region are Freeserve, Plus.net and recently moneysupermarket.com, all of which were setup during the dot.com era.

Instead of complaining, I believe it is our duty to create the next wave of giants. In this process, Northern StartUp 2.0 continues to serve those companies that are taking the initiative. And in this process, it is vital to understand the needs of Northern Stars beyond the need for capital injections. What help would you be needing?

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An issue that I have not successfully resolved is the dividing line between the North and South of United Kingdom, from the perception of Northern StartUp 2.0. The services provided by Northern Startup 2.0 is for the digital startups in the North of England. At present it excludes Midlands and South Wales due to the perception that companies in these regions may well be aligning themselves with the South instead of the North.

Danny Dorling of the Sheffield University argues that drawing a line is near impossible. You can read his article here.

Click on the image for a detailed map

So the questions are:

1. Should we treat startup companies which are located above the line but below North West, Yorkshire and Humberside as Northern Companies?
2. Secondly, do they want to be treated as Northerners?

Appreciate hearing your thoughts on this subject.

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I am happy to report that we had the best Northern StartUp 2.0 event ever on the 15th of July at KPMG Manchester. In case you missed it, here is a teaser:

At the core of Northern StartUp 2.0 is the Northern Digital Entrepreneurs, that is people like me (Founder of edocr), Anish Kapoor (Founder of Yuuguu) and other Northern Stars. The purpose is to serve their needs, mostly in the areas of:

1. Capital injection
2. Exposure
3. Reduce loneliness - You are never alone in your journey to hit that massive Vision

We address Item 1 above by bringing Venture Capitalists. Here is a list of VCs we have entertained:

1. Liverpool Ventures/Merseyside Special Investment Fund/Liverpool Seed Fund - North West (Liverpool)
2. Enterprise Ventures/Rising Stars - North West (Preston, Manchester) & Yorkshire and Humberside
3. YFM Private Equity - North West (Manchester) and UK
4. Advent Ventures - South East (London)
5. DFJ Esprit - South East (London)
6. Seedcamp - South East (London) and Europe
7. MTI Firms - North West (Manchester) and World

We now need to expand above by exposing Business Angels and Debit Financiers to Northern Stars.

Item 2 is addressed through providing a platform for short pitches, and on-line (private messaging) and face-to-face events.

We have also started to campaign to both Regional Development Agencies and the Central Government. So, do let us know what specific help you require.

On 15th, we had great line up of panelists from New York, London and Manchester. See event page for more details

I would also like to make a request. Please check the website before writing that e-mail. Check the FAQs on footer. Your time and my time are both precious.

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I have been running Northern StartUp 2.0 events to promote digital entrepreneurship in the North of UK since October 2006 at the suggestion of TechCrunchUK Editor at the time, Sam Sethi. I am happy to announce that for the first time, the event on 15th July at KPMG Manchester has been oversubscribed. We will also be welcoming our first US Venture Capitalist and will entertain  another prominent London VC (had Paul Fisher and Reshma Sohoni before). This event has also attracted a total of 10 Venture Capitalists (yes, I know, quite unheard of!). At this rate, it is hard to avoid not bumping into a VC (5 to 1).

Unfortunately, Carl Allen cannot be with us, but Hugh Osborn will be there to address any issues on valuation techniques. The theme is valuing your digital startup. If you have not registered but plan to attend, please register now. As the event is oversubscribed, we will only allow those who have registered. To register, create an account at http://www.nwstartup20.co.uk, login and click the link at bottom of event page.

We will also entertain Simon Grice from Mashup Events for the third time. He is also running an excellent event in London on the 17th on enterprise 2.0 which I will be attending. We will also be running an event on enterprise 2.0 later this year and seek speakers as well as demo companies. We are also planning an event on Government 2.0 with Tom Watson, the Cabinet Office Minister who supported Webmission08 (did you know that www.edocr.com was the only Northern Company that was selected?). Just waiting for Tom to commit to a date.

Are you using your website to promote your company, products and services? If so, there is another service which could equally be helpful in marketing your company. Why not take a look at www.edocr.com? Upload your marketing collateral and start generating leads today. It costs nothing but the uploading time. More services will be introduced in the near future. Do get in touch, if you have a query.

If you are running a digital product based startup and based in the North of England, make sure your company is recognised as a Northern Star. You can also blog on the site to promote your digital startup. Private messaging is also possible.

Special thanks to support from Sun Microsystems StartUp Essential Programme. Plus KPMG, who supported us from Day 1. Not to forget eOffice where some of our events are held. Thank you.

Have a great weekend and look forward to meeting you soon.

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Crain’s Manchester Business is the only weekly business publication available in Manchester. Crain’s approached Northern StartUp 2.0 prior to launch to understand the ecosystem for digital product based companies. As a result the Northern StartUp 2.0 was featured on the very first issue published on the 17th December 2007.

In case you did not know, our Northern Star, edocr hosts all issues of Crain’s Manchester Business. In fact, you cannot access Crain’s from anywhere else in pdf or flash document format. If you wish to tune to Crain’s:

- Setup a RSS feed

So here is this weeks, issue:

Crain’s continue to cover stories on digital companies, both product based and none product based (digital media). In this issue:

- ANS Group captures more publicity through use of Smart Cars - Great opportunity for Cisco to be seen with a Northern Plus Market listed company. Read the story on Page 2.
- Topskips.com - This is the first time I came across this company, clearly not a startup based on revenues. Definitely worth getting to know Mark Attwood. Anyone care to invite him to a Northern StartUp 2.0 event, as I do not know him YET?
- Page 23 lists our next event on the 15th

Enjoy Crain’s. It’s free at edocr.

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Founders, Rhys Jones and others, and new owners of Accountis, FundTech must be so thrilled to finally be able to announce the deal with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). Accountis has been working on this deal for many years, which I came to know at least over 18 months ago, but was requested not to blog about it at the time.  The relationship between Accountis and RBS thrived when Accountis decided to use RBS Trust Assured to authenticate the identity of its userbase during e-invoicing transactions.

Two key reasons that further attracted FundTech to Accountis other than the team and technology are their flagship customer DHL and the deal with RBS. This is a deal that Accountis had to complete. Whilst I have no direct information, I assume this was also part of the earn-outs built into the sale of Accountis. This would have put significant pressure on Rhys to get the deal completed as quickly as possible. The technology platform also required considerable amount of work to meet the strict requirements of RBS. All that hard work is finally bearing fruit. Well done guys!

So here is the press release:

Accountis Ltd, a Fundtech company and provider of secure financial document exchange and payment systems, has announced a multi-year agreement with The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to provide the bank with an RBS branded e-invoicing solution and service. The partnership deal enables RBS to provide a VAT compliant e-invoicing service to their corporate customers with the prospect of additional invoice based financing services from the bank.

Corporates currently have very little overall visibility of the Financial Supply Chain. The Accountis e-invoicing service provides detailed status information, such as proof of delivery, acceptance, query and approval status for all documents involved in a business transaction from Purchase Order to Invoice. Invoice receipt and discrepancy resolution are often the most costly elements of this process. The service provides real time dispute management that enables our customers to optimise the speed with which exceptions are resolved.

The use of the bank e-invoicing service within the Accounts Receivables department provides corporates with the possibility of improved operational efficiencies and, more importantly, with quicker payments, reduced ‘days sales outstanding’ and reduced working capital requirements. It also facilitates the bank provision of invoice-based financing services. The use of the bank e-invoicing service within the Accounts Payables department provides corporates with the opportunity to implement efficient early payment discounting schemes, thereby reducing spend. It also provides detailed and fine-grained visibility on order book and enables further bank trade finance services.

Overall, e-invoicing provides corporate clients with significant benefits and provides RBS with a powerful addition to their suite of corporate services. Ian Watkinson, Head of E-Invoicing for RBS, explains;

“For our customers we see e-invoicing as a fast-track to saving time and money. In addition to eliminating paper and automating manual processes, users of the service will quickly benefit from real-time document management, faster settlements and better working capital optimisation.”

“AT RBS, we see e-invoicing as a strategic addition to our existing product portfolio. By offering additional transaction services such as e-invoice delivery, we will gain greater visibility of our customer’s end-to-end, financial supply chain transactions. This will help us to improve our understanding of their business and strengthen our long-term relationship. It also places us in a better position to offer additional services such as supplier finance provisions and other innovative finance arrangements.”

Peter Radcliffe, Executive Chairman, Accountis, said: “The e-invoicing marketplace is growing substantially and customers are demanding a simple but flexible service they can trust. We are delighted that RBS has recognised this need and has chosen to partner with Accountis to offer a best-in-class service to their customers. This partnership places both Accountis and RBS is an excellent position to fully embrace this growing opportunity.”

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What valuation would you assign to an EIPP provider? Should this be based on past performance, future potential or a combination of both? If so, was Accountis sold too cheaply to fundtech? Who held the upper hand during negotiations? Or was the shareholders of Accountis too keen to sell and move on? Have they moved on? Will they earn the earn out? Why has they not achieve traction, as most of us expected over the last few years? Was it a handicap been based in the North Wales? Was return on cash burn really a good performance indicator? Where will the next major client come from? How is the DHL roll out performing? What is happening in Germany? What is happening at close to home?

Technorati Tags: Accountis

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Congratulations to Jamie Gunn and the team from OB10, and their client Kelloggs for winning the "Shared Service Centre Organisation of the Year’ award in Barcelona at the IQPC Shared Services Week.

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IQPC is organising a seminar next week from 16th to 18th in Brussels and 18th to 20th in London. Strapline is "one agenda two locations". As usual, attendees are expected to pay a hefty price from GBP899 to 2099 plus VAT depending on the time of booking and extent of attendance. Whilst I appreciate that the organisers must make a profit, the hefty price excludes the participation by smaller businesses.

Click here to access the event page. Here is an extract from the event home page:

With new legislation like SEPA, speeding up European payments and a noticeable global credit crunch, the need to transform your siloed AP and Procurement processes is now business critical. Innovative companies are driving forward the need to view the P2P process holistically and strengthen the financial supply chain.

IQPC’s European Purchase-to-Pay Week 2008 will provide you with both the practical ‘how-to’ knowledge you’ll need to further refine your P2P process and the strategy to improve your financial supply chain. If your aim is to eliminate your exceptions list, drive compliancy and collaboration into your processes, improve performance, gain control over your supplier relationships and work towards a truly paperless environment, this event has it all.

Collect the tools and knowledge you need to go back to your company and apply key learnings on both a strategic and tactical level, ensure your P2P function becomes a value adding tool!

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If you wish to register for above seminar conducted by JP Morgan Chase on 19th June 2008, please click here. Here is the synopsis of the seminar:

Traditional purchasing card programs have focused on low-dollar purchases with limited approval requirements and transactions initiated by suppliers. Today, next generation card settlement programs are available to replace paper check settlement for accounts payable spend. These card-based settlement solutions lay the foundation for transforming your entire payables process with far-reaching operational and discount savings.
In this free online seminar, James Tucker, JPMorgan Xign vice president and product director, will explain how you can:

• increase rebates by converting mid- to high-dollar paper check payments with a card-based settlement solution
• automate and streamline your entire payables process from PO delivery to invoice approval to payment
• capture significant early payment discounts with five times the savings potential of invoice automation alone

This online seminar will also discuss how you can leverage the tens of thousands of suppliers already transacting in the JPMorgan Business Settlement Network to achieve rapid results and value.

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Following changes will be effective from today:

1. Northern StartUp 2.0 Blog - Startups including events - Others are welcome to contribute, do let me know if you wish to blog about your startup, the Northern ecosystem, or lack of it.
2. edocr.com - the progress of edocr
3. Manoj Ranaweera.com - EIPP and other points of interest without extensively covering events and edocr

Lately, this blog has covered more events than anything else. And it’s focus has become blurred and may no longer stand as a specialist blog. There is no synergy between startups and EIPP unless its EIPP startups. So, it makes sense to revert to the original intentions of the blog. I look forward to your continuing engagement.

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Since the beginning of this year, I spoke to number of EIPP/e-invoicing StartUps in various stages of development. Most of them were in very early stages and had the wisdom to meet me before putting their plans into action. One of them has withdrawn their ambitions following the meet up. In this case, the individual was very optimistic, but clearly lacked a plan. The initiative was driven by a sales person, who saw a clear opportunity in the market place, but lacked the gravitas to pull-together the startup team, even though he has confidence of bringing large customers to the table as well as initial seedcorn funding.

In another case, the team is already involved in an associated product offering and has identified exceptional talent in few new recruits, whose talent could be diverted to produce an EIPP product. Some of this team knows my background and the pain I went through in gettting ebdex Document Exchange to the market. Like everyone else I meet, they also believe exchanging data between accounts and ERP systems is easy. Whilst my experience differs from this level of optimism, I always wish that someone will prove me wrong not in too distant future. But they did the right thing by approaching me for guidance (just like lawyers the initial meeting is free, in this case two meetings).

I also had the pleasure to meet an individual who thought they could also crack the EIPP conundrum. But their thought process was limited to one side of the equation, but they clearly had ideas which could make a difference. More than anything they identified their lack of business experience but exceptional knowledge of accounts and ERP systems. These individuals are about bringing an innovative product to market (they are technologists), and the team I mentioned second is about doing the same, but doing it right (they are business people). I found this difference extremely refreshing. Having run Northern StartUp events for the last 24 months or so, I am beginning to understand motivators and strengths behind startups.

In another case, a startup I have discussed in this blog before has admitted failure. This is a sad day for the industry, but I must admit, I did not think they will pull through due to history, wrong business model, etc. The founder has asked me to not blog about the subject but has given me a detail information about the business.

Above clearly shows that there are plenty of people out there willing to take a risk at entering this market. Most do not know the level of laws and regulations they need to adhere to, the complexities of reading and writing from accounts and ERP systems, the diverse personal agendas of human beings that we call customers, the lengthy supplier or customer enrollment processes, etc. The opportunity is as significant as ever. It can be done, but you should seek out much help as possible before embarking on setting up an EIPP startup.

On this regard, please do engage with me as I can show how to avoid early mistakes, as well as help you find talent to complete your team.

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At last, we have a functioning blog at Northern StartUp 2.0 (NS20). Recently, I have been speaking a lot about developing an ecosystem for digital product based companies in the North, and especially in the North West. I see Northern StartUp 2.0 taking a significant role in taking this initiative forward with our ever growing community and the community from Daresbury Innovation Centre where I am based at. Lot more to say about this subject later.

Going forward, this NS20 will provide following functionality:

1. The event programme - ideally once a month except for the month of August, in Manchester and Liverpool
2. Directory of service providers that are keen to work with the NS20 community
3. Northern Stars - our way of tracking the progress of digital product based companies in the North. Let me know if your company is not listed but meets the criteria
4. Job Board - free to publish at present. Upload job advert to edocr first and inform the URL.
5. Surgeries - 3 held so far with forthcoming surgery in July with VC from East Coast (to be confirmed)
6. Blog - opportunity for the community to share their thoughts, not just for me. Let me know if you wish to talk about your company or Northern ecosystem or lack of it.

So, it’s time for you to update your profile and get your company listed as either a Northern Star (free) or as a Service Provider (payable). I also encourage you to purchase annual membership at £250 per annum, which provides a significant saving over the year. Please note that annual membership excludes special events such as Digital Futures, but includes listings on Service Provider Directory and access to all NS20 events held in Manchester and Liverpool.

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