Digitization and automation are rapidly becoming the norm in finance departments. Many corporate automation projects are initiated by the CFO or Financial Manager. Despite this, finance departments still often work with Word and Excel files, or by manually connecting data from different systems. This not only applies to smaller organisations, but large companies too. Time for an overhaul of the myriad of separate tools, systems and files. But where to begin?

The rapid development of computers and robots will radically transform the employment market. This offers opportunities, including for entrepreneurs, says Randstad’s Marjolein ten Hoonte. “It’s about imagination and how you translate that to your own company.”

The Randstad Group head office in Diemen, the Netherlands, is a classic example of ‘the new way of working’. Visitors no longer have to wait for employees to come and collect them with an access pass. The entire ground floor is accessible to everyone. Just like the employees and clients of the company, visitors can go there to meet, work, drink coffee and eat lunch. This is a logical consequence of technologisation, says Marjolein ten Hoonte, labour market and CSR director at the company. “Although your location might not be relevant any more for your job, working people still want to meet each other.”

Your business produces vast amounts of communication every day. Colleagues communicate informally via email, WhatsApp, Slack and numerous other platforms. It’s quick and easy, but is it smart? What happens to all the information being bounced back and forth via these channels?

Digitisation is rapidly changing the world. On the one hand, it’s making life easier. On the other hand, all this data carries its own risks, and in particular in the area of privacy. That makes it an important issue for the European Union, which is the reason behind the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), legislation which affects countless medium-sized companies.

If you’re not big, fast or strong, you have to be smart. This is the underlying moral of almost every story we read to our children. This article is the modern adult version of those stories: if you're not high-tech (yet), you have to be smart.

With the next product update (417/262 in January 2019) Exact will cease supporting a number of integration solutions.

For an international company, choosing the right IT systems isn’t easy. There are various factors to consider, and the complexity and impact these systems have on your organisation mean that the decision shouldn’t be rushed. This is something to bear in mind.

Many organisations miss the opportunity to make major savings on their procurement, says Edward Burgers, Head of Global Procurement at Exact. “Companies which structure their Purchase to Pay processes (P2P) can add a few percent to their profit. And if you invest your savings into a good procurement team, you’ll earn double.”

We’re all familiar with the classic scenario: ask HR and finance to compile a list of staff members and you’ll undoubtedly get two versions which don’t match. Whereas finance talks about FTEs and expenses, HR is all about headcount and people, meaning we can end up getting lost in translation. But isn’t it time we started combining forces more often?

Many traders have either already made ‘the step to online’, or are in the process of doing so. Many think of setting up a webshop when starting out in e-commerce or digital trade. Rightly so, but a webshop is only the beginning.