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Despite the sour economy, this has been another exciting year for credit and collection technology enthusiasts. The vendors have continued to come out with new products and new features. Whereas in the past, it was difficult to find a single software solution to address all your credit and collection requirements-or at least a substantial portion of your needs-more and more vendors are now providing software products able to span a large part of the quote-to-cash spectrum. Last year the lines were beginning to blur between what were essentially collection automation products as opposed to credit analysis software tools. Now it has become even more difficult to distinguish clear product groupings. The integration of diverse functional components in order to better manage the entire quote-to-cash process is certainly one of the major industry trends.
Along with the move towards end-to-end process integration has been the continued development of specialized software tools. In so doing, the vendors keep on delivering more new and innovative solutions to an expanding inventory of credit and collection tasks. So not only are we seeing software solutions spanning the length of the quote-to-cash process, they are also addressing more of the individual components that interact along the entire process. For example, instead of just collections and deductions, software is also providing customer self-service capabilities, real-time workload management, and automated credit/debit reconciliation. Instead of being limited to only credit analysis, software is also addressing online application processing, the electronic retrieval of customer financial data, and dynamic portfolio management capabilities.
This overview's Focus
In last year's software overview we focused on how the different types of software enhanced productivity and the underlying dynamics driving the improvements in receivables performance achieved through credit and collection automation. Whether you are performing credit or collection activities, the two key ingredients a software package can provide are the automation of clerical tasks and a dynamic, integrated workflow process. Quite simply, these two things allow you to do more in less time, and do it better.
Time and quality are critical factors in the delivery of goods and services-especially for anyone involved in e-commerce. This applies not only to your company's core products, but also to the execution of credit and collection tasks. Automating credit and collections may...