Energy Supply Chain Management

Powering through the energy supply chain

At a time when energy companies are rapidly modernising their infrastructure and investing in new, more sustainable resources, energy companies must also modernise the way they manage their supply chains to help better adapt to change in a rapidly evolving market

New markets

The energy sector is undergoing quite a stepped change with the advent of green energy to achieve greater renewability and further sustainability. Green energy is virtually leading to the creation of new, spontaneous supply chains as its use becomes more widespread. This means building new systems and processes around them become imperative.

Complex buying

The energy supply chain contains complex buying requirements as many purchases involve complicated physical assets, from semiconductors to heavy goods, and are highly specialised. This can mean long delivery times and complex regulations to navigate. The reliance on complex items shapes the distribution of risk along the supply chain.

Maintenance and service

The energy sector, once infrastructure has been purchased, needs to be maintained and repaired to ensure optimal efficiency and continued operations. This means purchases of goods, services and consultancy, as well as legal requirements to ensure that maintenance processes and systems are controlled and auditable to ensure conformation to standards.

Remote infrastructure

Due to the nature of the energy market much of the infrastructure harnessed in the production and distribution of energy is remote meaning supply chain delays will delay maintenance which may be critical. It also means higher costs when not managed correctly.

Solutions for the energy industry

EDI

Using B2BE’s EDI network, energy companies can adapt to advances in renewable energy, de-regulation, increased competition, optimising operational efficiency and electronic relationships. B2BE’s EDI network will streamline your processes and allow you to connect more easily with customers and suppliers. B2BE’s EDI solution allows you to send and receive documents in any format electronically so integration is made easy. Solutions can also manage on-boarding of customers and suppliers to speed-up your electronic trading.

Accounts Payable

With B2BE’s accounts payable automation solutions, energy and utility procurement businesses will see improved productivity, efficiency, and accuracy. B2BE’s three-way matching solution will allow energy companies to take advantage of a fully outsourced invoice matching system designed to improve match rates, automate processes, and increase invoice throughput. Similarly, expense invoices without purchase orders or goods receipt can be work flowed for GL coding and approval, ensuring no invoices are lost and payments are correct and occur on time.

Document Distribution

B2BE offers an intelligent document distribution solution that will allow energy companies, according to your needs, to route and send all business documents electronically. Using B2BE’s online portal and using multiple routing channels, energy companies can easily manage how their trading partners receive their documents, making progressive changes to eventually digitise all invoice documents.

E-Invoicing

Using B2BE’s e-invoicing solutions, organisations in the energy industry can improve its processes, increase its throughput, and allow accounts payable and accounts receivable teams to focus on adding value.

Whether as a buyer you need a way to receive all your suppliers invoices electronically or as a supplier you want to distribute 100% of your invoices electronically, B2BE has the solution to get you there. B2BE’s e-invoicing solutions are also designed to plug and play with B2BE’s accounts payable and accounts receivable solutions.

Web Portal

Ensure your supply chain has full visibility of the moving parts. Giving buyers and suppliers access to data parsed electronically means the right functions within your business have access to, own and manage their requirements. Similarly, the Web Portal also give energy buyers and suppliers access to several workflows and tools to help Procure to Pay and Order to Cash supply chain processes.

Helping your energy supply chain thrive

Enhanced efficiency

B2BE’s solutions are designed to increase efficiency, as well as output and throughput. At a time of new challenges and increased complexities, partly due to new energy sources in the energy sector, having a partner that can help you get the most out of your business is a crucial step.

Increased sustainability

For a sector making changes to match energy efficiency and carbon output targets, digitising and automating document processes within the energy supply network is a necessary step to meet these standards. By reducing paper documents, your company will become more sustainable.

Streamlined operations

Since energy companies rely on multiple suppliers and wholesalers, processers and manufacturers, it’s important to be able to track supply chain partners on one coherent platform. Using B2BE’s visibility tools means you can track all the moving parts of your supply network, visible to whatever parts of your business you decide.

Risk mitigation

The reliance of energy companies on potentially volatile factors, such as availability of materials and functionality of machinery, highlight the importance of effective supply chains and risk mitigation. B2BE can help implement strategies to manage all risks along the supply chain based on continued risk to reduce vulnerability and ensuring standards are met and your electronic supply chain operates optimally.