Procurement Intelligence Unit

Atos Origin's move into the supply chain finance (SCF) space presents a real shift in this field. The fact that an established IT provider is committing time and resources to this activity further highlights the potential of such practices in today's post-recession marketplace and could see SCF moving from a peripheral business idea to a commonly adopted practice.

In recent discussions with the PIU, Atos Origin, whose core business revolves around IT services, transactional services, consulting and systems integration, said their move into the supply chain finance space was driven by comments from current clients who were reporting difficulties around managing their working capital position, particularly in light of pressures on payment terms resulting from the financial crisis.

The company's background in transactional services delivery means they already have a robust electronic platform (Atos Worldline) capable of dealing with large amounts of transactional data. Atos's approach is to integrate its payment platform with Oxygen Finance, a niche procurement service provider, to establish a solid supply chain finance technical solution. This solution will present Atos as one of the only players in the supply chain finance space that has the processing power and integrity to support a wide-scale adoption of supply chain finance.

Another exciting differentiator of the Atos proposition when compared to competing offerings from large banks such as HSBC, Santander and Citi, is the fact that the Atos solution will not be limited to a particular financial institution. Companies looking to engage with Atos will be able to choose the institution they bank with, and this will increase the ease with which potential clients can be onboarded.

Through research and dialogue with a number of high-profile organisations interested in SCF, the PIU has identified supplier onboarding as a major hurdle limiting the uptake of a supply chain finance solution - the fact that Atos has a consultancy arm may enable it to negotiate these difficulties more easily than the big banks can, thus fuelling uptake for their particular model of supply chain finance.

Atos has outlined its plans to concentrate its supply chain finance solution in Europe, a stronghold for the company and a region that has seen very limited penetration from supply chain finance to date. However, it seems apparent that with the size and global reach of the customers they currently have in pilot phase, the focus on EMEA will only be a short-term one. 

While the benefits associated with SCF seem real and attainable, and the Atos solution does appear to have removed some of the barriers that have caused organisations to second guess supply chain finance implementation, one question remains - as companies emerge from recession and business activity returns to some form of normality, will the emphasis put on working capital solutions, so prevalent during the recession, remain relevant in the new economic landscape? In short, has the supply chain finance ship sailed?