Enabling UK SME's to manage their supply chains in a remote world via Lightyear's cloud automation and collaboration platform

使英国中小企业能够通过 Lightyear 的云自动化和协作平台在远程世界中管理其供应链

• 批准号: 88420
• 金额: $ 12.15万
• 依托单位: THE LIGHTYEAR CORPORATION LTD
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=88420
• 关键词: Enabling; UK; SME; manage; their

The procurement process for most larger SME businesses requires checks and balances to ensure Purchase Orders (POs) are approved and within budget, all of which is reliant upon collaboration and communication between internal approvers.A PO is typically created on paper or on a digital system, and then approved either physically (with a stamp), or via telephone or email audit trail. The approval, exception handling and collaboration is handled outside of the software generating the PO. Once invoices are received, they need manually matched against the PO before being paid.There are a number of challenges with this process, particularly with remote-working requirements during Covid.The primary challenge is physical access to systems and documents. For SMEs that are using paper based POs, they can no longer share physical documents. For SMEs that are already using PO software (such as the market leader, Sage) these are typically old legacy solutions sitting on a desktop or office server. Most of the UK's existing PO systems are desktop/server-based that either require physical access to the desktop or to be within the SME's Protected Network (VPN) due to security requirements. These systems are therefore inaccessible from staff's remote homes.Our project will build upon Lightyear's existing market leading Accounts Payable platform. Lightyear's award winning platform is already used by more than 3,000 businesses globally, and is saving them up to 80% of their costs (and time) by automating data-extraction and removing all traces of paper from the Accounts Payable process.The project will research, design and build a cloud-accessible PO collaboration platform, accessible from any Browser or Mobile Device. The PO platform will include Lightyear's existing security framework built on the Amazon Web Services technology stack and will comply with ISO27001 security standards. This will allow us to scale the project to businesses of all sizes and meet any security concerns.Lightyear's PO platform will enable SMEs and mid-tier businesses to create digital orders, and set up internal approval workflows which will seamlessly send POs to the relevant internal approvers, before sending the PO to the supplier. The supplier will then acknowledge receipt of the order via a hyperlink in the PO, and also allow the supplier to dynamically add notes/responses to the PO itself. The platform will allow total collaboration between all internal users and their suppliers, and provide a full digital audit history of the notes, interactions and approval milestones. Finally, lightyear will automatically match Invoices to Purchase Orders providing the full end to end procurement solution.The technology will be available from anywhere, and enable businesses to enhance collaboration between their teams whilst working remotely or in the office.The Global economy is facing unimaginable costs and challenges in their supply chain management. The Lightyear Purchase Order platform will be the global leader in accessible, affordable cloud based procurement software.The technology platform will be designed and built in Lightyear's Belfast Headquarters and will be made available globally.

大多数大型中小企业的采购流程需要制衡，以确保采购订单 (PO) 获得批准并在预算范围内，所有这些都依赖于内部批准者之间的协作和沟通。采购订单通常在纸质或数字系统上创建，然后以物理方式（盖章）或通过电话或电子邮件审核跟踪进行批准。批准、异常处理和协作在生成 PO 的软件外部进行处理。收到发票后，需要在付款前手动与采购订单进行匹配。此过程存在许多挑战，特别是在新冠疫情期间的远程工作要求。主要挑战是对系统和文档的物理访问。对于使用纸质采购订单的中小企业来说，他们无法再共享纸质文档。对于已经使用 PO 软件的中小企业（例如市场领导者 Sage），这些通常是位于桌面或办公服务器上的旧解决方案。英国现有的大多数 PO 系统都是基于桌面/服务器的，出于安全要求，要么需要对桌面进行物理访问，要么位于中小企业的受保护网络 (VPN) 内。因此，员工在偏远的家中无法访问这些系统。我们的项目将建立在 Lightyear 现有的市场领先的应付账款平台之上。 Lightyear 的获奖平台已被全球 3,000 多家企业使用，通过自动提取数据并消除应付账款流程中的所有纸质痕迹，为他们节省了高达 80% 的成本（和时间）。该项目将研究、设计和构建一个可通过任何浏览器或移动设备访问的云可访问 PO 协作平台。 PO 平台将包括 Lightyear 基于 Amazon Web Services 技术堆栈构建的现有安全框架，并将符合 ISO27001 安全标准。这将使我们能够将该项目扩展到各种规模的企业，并满足任何安全问题。Lightyear 的 PO 平台将使中小企业和中型企业能够创建数字订单，并建立内部审批工作流程，在将 PO 发送给供应商之前，将 PO 无缝发送给相关的内部审批者。然后，供应商将通过 PO 中的超链接确认收到订单，并且还允许供应商动态向 PO 本身添加注释/回复。该平台将允许所有内部用户及其供应商之间进行全面协作，并提供注释、交互和审批里程碑的完整数字审计历史记录。最后，lightyear 将自动将发票与采购订单匹配，提供完整的端到端采购解决方案。该技术可以在任何地方使用，并使企业能够在远程或在办公室工作时增强团队之间的协作。全球经济在供应链管理方面面临着难以想象的成本和挑战。 Lightyear采购订单平台将成为全球领先的可访问、经济实惠的基于云的采购软件。该技术平台将在Lightyear贝尔法斯特总部设计和建造，并将在全球范围内提供。