Davide Salmistraro, Soldo Country Manager for Italyexplains the impact of digital tools on business activities and budget management mechanisms.
– The lack or reduced availability of digital tools negatively impacts the business results of companies; how?
In multiple ways. At least this is what both companies and employees tell us: manual administrative processes have a significant impact on company costs. Research done last year found that Italian businesses lose around €30 billion a year due to inadequate and outdated spending controls and at least 8% of VAT is not refunded due to receipt processing errors ; their limitation is that they offer little visibility on expenses, which exposes them more to the risk of exceeding the budget.
But that’s not all: a new survey we conducted a few weeks ago with Ipsos on a sample of employees of medium and large companies says that inflation and the cost of living lead staff to have less and less liquidity needed to anticipate expenses. With significant data: 52% of workers have accumulated debts on their credit card to cover business costs. And, even more alarmingly, 11% had to ask for loans from relatives or friends. But above all, also in terms of attracting and retaining talent, non-digitization is seen as the black sheep: being able to benefit from flexible, safe and easy tools enhances everyone’s work, allowing them to concentrate only on high value-added tasks, avoiding obsolete and, let’s face it, even unpleasant practices such as requesting refunds that are slow in arriving.
All this also has important consequences for employers: unnecessary bureaucracy and lack of clarity in financial management.
– Digital Transformation, how do you decline this concept? Which business sectors are further along in this process? How do you favor the transformation process of companies (especially those technologically further behind)?
Our focus is the management of spend management. Crucial for us is the ability to trace payments, to associate them with the activities that actually took place, to link them to rules of engagement, from the definition of an expense budget to the definition of the product categories on which it is possible to spend -, to put both the company and the employee to be able to act in serenity knowing that everything is then traced back to the appropriate checks and included in the appropriate financial statements.
Digital tools and spend management
This is how our platform works, which thanks to the payment card system, its ability to integrate with most management software, and the ability to integrate receipts and expense reports, makes everything much simpler and more effective, allowing companies not only to get out of the scheme of asking employees to advance expenses, but also to enter an operating model where efficiency translates into a reduction in management costs and therefore into further savings in both time and money.
– Digitization and respect for compliance, how do you combine this combination?
Soldo has a dual qualification and license to operate as an electronic money institution, both in London and in Dublin, a subsequent move made necessary by the pro-Brexit choice of the Anglo-Saxon world. And I want to emphasize that for the Central Bank of Ireland Soldo it was the third company to obtain the license, after Facebook. Therefore we were born absolutely compliant and certified by two of the main, and most rigorous, international banking institutions, for which the complex legislation and the high standards required make the license accessible only to companies with high-quality business. For us, every step is guided by this virtuous and inseparable path: and therefore those who work with us know they are doing it in full compliance with every rule. Not only that: our platform also works for electronic filing, another huge added value that allows companies to get rid of paper and receipts knowing they are operating in full compliance with the law.
– Despite the strong impact of technology in the business world, companies are very often reluctant to change. In Italy there is a particularly high resistance to change. What considerations can you make about it? What do you find with customers?
It is certainly very true: Italy remains at the rear in Europe in the digital transformation, but the PNRR and the new investments have facilitated the arrival of that revolution that the pandemic had already made necessary. Another very powerful driver has been electronic commerce, a fundamental element of the change of mentality. Its necessary introduction has seen organizations increasingly pressed to fully adopt the concept of digital transformation primarily by using digital payment instruments that could, however, at the same time be traced, verified, reported and accounted for. E-commerce offers many advantages because it allows access to products and services at competitive costs and often immediately available: but above all, as we said, today it is the employees who impose the rules and dictate conditions. Without digitization, remote control and flexibility, there is no longer any appeal for one’s workplace.
– In a rapidly changing field, the false idea of innovation and the continuous downward price war risk frustrating the efforts of those who really choose the path of renewal and modernization. What do you think? What examples can you give us deriving from your experience?
Tools like ours allow you to revolutionize the entire management at a very, very modest cost. Even with the acquisition of a few cards or users, Soldo ensures the optimized management of all spend management. We have very fast implementation times and costs within everyone’s reach. Not to mention the economic advantage that using Soldo represents: it eliminates the cost of transactions and makes the costs associated with exchanging currencies more than accessible.
– Digital transformation and budget management, how to balance the two aspects?
Let’s say that it helps to look at the issue from the point of view of the economic crisis: the return of inflation, the increase in costs for fundamental products such as energy, food, transport clearly demonstrates how fundamental it is for companies to create a more virtuous relationship in budget management and together with employees. Everyone – the company and its people – must be put in a position to work with greater serenity, with tools to improve life, such as remote working, without losing ground in terms of controls and trust and transparency. Soldo is exactly the closure of this circle.