Halfway through day one of Basware’s VIP and NextGen customer event in Dublin, Ravit Gutman, Founder & CEO of Extropy Advisors, and Mike Jasper, VP at Extropy Advisors, stepped out of the sessions to compare notes. Each had been hearing the same thing in conversations since the night before: community.
A room the size of a country
Basware started this event four years ago with about 50 people. This year the room was full of logos, and a lot of the people were new faces. Basware put the scale into perspective with one striking number.
“They did the math, and the revenue from the customers in the room was $1.2 trillion,” Mike said. “If that were its own country, it would be one of the top 20 countries in the world by GDP.”
The size isn’t what keeps people coming back, though. “They’re here for updates and feedback from Basware itself,” Mike explained. “But more importantly, they’re here to talk to each other. They want real-life experience from other customers who’ve gone through a similar journey.” Some attendees have been at all four events, and every year they find new conversations and new peers worth meeting.
What finance leaders are looking for
Ravit sees the same pattern with Extropy Advisors’ own clients. They want to build relationships with peers “that they can just pick up the phone and ask, ‘Hey, I have this problem right now. How have you solved this in your own company?'”
She’s also noticing something newer: people are building their own personal brands. Finance and AP professionals increasingly see themselves as ambassadors of change inside their companies. They’re building a legacy and preparing the next generation of leaders.
“Accounts payable used to be a small thing in a back office that no one thinks about,” Ravit said. “Now it’s in the spotlight, getting the recognition we always knew these departments deserved.”
The missing piece in every transformation
Mike talked with attendees who had a peer network during their implementation and with some who didn’t. The difference stood out to him. “The ones who didn’t have that community wished they’d had a group of people in their industry who had gone through this process before. We’ve got great consultants and great software, but they wanted that extra piece to talk through process change, change management and change fatigue.”
Ravit added that part of the value is simply staying calm. “As you’re implementing a new system, there’s a hump you need to get over. It’s much harder before it gets much better.” Knowing that other people are going through the same thing, and that it’s normal, helps leaders let things settle and manage the process around them. That need is the reason Extropy Advisors started its own community.
What sets Transforming Out Loud apart
There are plenty of communities out there, so what makes Transforming Out Loud different? Mike says it’s the breadth. “We’re not looking at one specific technology, or at technology by itself. It’s always the people, process, technology and purpose.” The community is practitioner-led and doesn’t favor any one technology. Its focus is on building people who can guide others through change, upskill their teams and spot new opportunities.
“Technology alone is never going to solve your problem,” Mike said. “Your people alone are going to struggle to solve problems at scale. And you can’t change process without the support of the people and the technology.”
For Ravit, the goal is to develop digital leaders. Teams now have more data and reporting than ever, but they still have to turn it into action, measure the results and communicate them back to leadership. “Now that we have all of this data, or now that we’ve automated, what’s next?” she asked. “That’s what a lot of leaders at these conferences are trying to figure out.”
Benchmarks are a good example. Two manufacturers might look alike on paper while one runs 80% of its spend through POs and the other runs 40%. Mike has even seen one client where one business unit is 90% PO and another is close to zero. “It all comes down to the process you follow and what’s driving it,” he said. That’s why the most useful conversations happen with peers in your industry, on your ERP or running a similar process.
Our takeaway: find your community
Join a networking group, build connections across different areas, and stay involved. If you’re having trouble finding a community of finance professionals, reach out to us. Transforming Out Loud is looking for AP, finance and order-to-cash leaders who want to ask questions and also share their own guidance with others.
“That community is going to help you not just in a project,” Mike said. “It’s also going to help you with your growth and your company’s strategy as you go forward.”
Ready to connect with peers who’ve been where you are? Transforming Out Loud is where AP, AR and finance leaders keep the conversation going year round.
