A more competitive Europe - drilling down

1. More competitive enterprises. How? Drilling down selectively:

1.1. Better products, selling, procurement and service processes – mostly (but not only)  a question of digitalization

1.1.1.        Accepting e-invoices from suppliers save their and own costs and 300g CO2 every time – makes for a better customer

1.1.2.        Sending e-invoices (ideally with global standard) saves some 20€ per invoice for the receiver (especially when posting codes are included) – makes for a more competitive supplier

1.2. Better productivity – cutting administrative costs in half by 2015

1.2.1.        DG Enterprise 25% cutting-red-tape initiative (enhanced clinically clear language in regulation and rule books)

1.2.2.        Migration to e-invoicing and payment automation

1.2.3.        Automation of VAT-reporting and payments (real time enabled by e-invoicing)

1.2.4.        Automated cash flow estimates (real time part enabled by e-invoicing)

1.2.5.        Migration to cash-based accounting for enterprises in the sub2m€ category – enabling automated accounting by tying e-invoice to debits and credits in the electronic bank statement

1.2.6.        Automated e-invoice financing (including reverse factoring)

1.2.7.        Automated tax returns, financial, statistical, environmental and HR-reporting - using generic unified reporting codes and XBLR

1.2.8.        Deploy global standards in cloud services to lower IT-costs and increase competition

1.3. Lower risks (cost of risk and risk mitigation estimated to 4% of turnover)

1.3.1.        Migrate to e-invoicing >

1.3.2.        Cut invoice receivables by increasing invoicing frequency (motivated by lower handling cost) – lowers credit, currency and finance-availability risks

1.3.3.        Cut fraud and VAT-reporting risks by using trusted service provider networks

1.3.4.        Use Bank Payment Obligations

1.4. Lower financing costs and better return on liquidity

1.4.1.        E-invoicing speeds up payments and lowers financing needs

1.4.2.        E-invoicing enabled Real Time accounting and cash flow estimates fine tune financing needs and enable better return on liquidity

1.4.3.        Reverse factoring can lower credit margins

1.4.4.        BPO enables risk taking by the party that knows the enterprise best

2.       More competitive public sectors. How?

2.1. Lower administrative burden by 25% (DG enterprise red tape initiative)

2.2. Accept and send only structured electronic invoices – supporting interoperable global standards (ISO20022 family)

2.3. Adopt unified reporting codes for all tax, statistics, financing, sustainability and HR-reporting

2.4. Outsource and privatize routines – free up resources for guiding and supervising

3.  More of a Single Market. How?

Examples from digitalization area:

3.1. Implement VAT-directive for simplified and equal treatment of e-invoices

3.2. Use global standards family (ISO20022) for e-procurement, e-invoicing, SEPA-payments, payment references, account statements, finance requests, reverse factoring, e-id and VAT-reporting

3.3. Automate and harmonize VAT-reporting and collection (split payment model)

3.4. Harmonize VAT-exemptions and tax rates generally  

3.5. Harmonize patenting

3.6. Use federated model for strong e-id (reuse e-bank codes) with ISO20022 e-id message standard

4.  A mobile, educated, flexible, and motivated workforce. How?

Examples from digitalization area:

4.1. Liberate workforce by automating administration

4.2. Automate sales processes

5.       Better rule of law. How?

Examples from digitalization area:

5.1. Migrate to e-invoicing

5.2. Automate VAT-reporting and payments

5.3. Regulate away cash for business transactions

6.       Lower CO2 emissions. How?

Examples from digitalization area:

6.1.  E-invoicing and digitalized business processes

6.2.  Business-process integrated sustainability-reporting

6.3. High carbon tax

The above is viewed from the digitalizing business process angle – please feel free to fill in missing ones – also from other areas.