At Esker, we already felt honored to be named a Challenger in 2022’s first-ever Magic Quadrant™ for Integrated Invoice-to-Cash solutions. Now, we are all the more thrilled to make it into the Leader* quadrant for 2023! This puts us (again) in the unique position of being recognised in both the I2C and P2P Magic Quadrants.
Since we’d like to continue on this path, we’re spending a good amount of time reflecting on what works and what it is that our customers like about us.
So, here’s what we’ve come up with so far:
- Vision: We spend a lot of time and effort understanding the market and which functionalities are actually helpful to all stakeholders involved in a transaction. CFOs are interested in improving DSO and overall I2C process efficiency as well as obtaining accurate reporting and analytics. AR teams need a user-friendly solution that helps them to efficiently collect payments from customers. We tailor our solutions to these needs and work on connecting each step of the I2C process to facilitate decision-making and to improve the overall efficiency and visibility, with the ultimate goal of improving both the customer and the employee experience.
- Ability to execute: We do our utmost to actually deliver on what we promise to do. By developing a comprehensive and scalable I2C solution suite that enables our customers to address the biggest pain points in their processes first, we strive to help them achieve a fast ROI before any additional scale-up projects are tackled. Usually, a scale-up applies to another I2C process or another region. Esker is a global company with at least one local presence on each continent throughout our 15 subsidiaries. This way, we can assist our customers to seamlessly scale no matter where they are in the world. And, since Esker is a pioneer in cloud computing and works with the Agile methodology, we are able to deliver new features and enhancements every two weeks, so our customers benefit from an ongoing product evolution.
- Customer-orientated: It is posted on the walls of our offices all over the world, and we really mean it when we say #AllActionsTowardSatisfaction. We actively seek feedback from users so that we can continually improve our solutions. Programs such as the Esker All Access community (which includes a customer hub, worldwide conferences, awards and a newsletter), a wide variety of user groups and dedicated CX teams keep us up to date with what is happening in the I2C world. We keep a committed focus on the user experience to provide a unified interface across all solutions, which ensures quick onboarding and easy utilisation for AR teams. We are ecstatic that this approach seems to be working: Link to Gartner peer insights.
- AI-powered solutions: We understand the ambivalence many people feel towards artificial intelligence. Which is why we believe that the best AI is a transparent one: the user should always know exactly where AI is involved in the process. And first and foremost, have the user remain in control, not the other way around. A bot with an exotic name might be cute for a while, but Esker’s solutions leverage AI where it is actually adds value to the user: by providing data extraction functionalities, predictive analytics that assist in making more informed decisions, and recommendations that take the guesswork out of the next action. Esker Synergy AI acts like a digital assistant for the AR team by taking over low value, manual tasks such as routing documents and emails to the right recipient or process, extracting data to easily allocate a payment, or computing internal and external data to make the right credit assessment. It also provides AR leaders with analytics and process insights that help them make better business decisions.
- We are Esker: The process of choosing an automation solution is not a simple one, nor is it a decision that is made for the short-term. Esker’s long-standing, worldwide experience and financial stability give our customers confidence that we are resilient and that we will be around for many years to come. As a global vendor for both the source-to-pay and order-to-cash cycles, Esker can accompany global organisations in their journey of automating their entire financial cycle.
And we are by no means resting on our laurels! We are continuing to work on automating more complex processes within the I2C cycle, to provide even more accurate predictions and insights and that keep AR departments connected both internally and externally with the company’s entire ecosystem.
So stay tuned, and contact us to find out more about working with Esker.
Now you’ve read a lot about why we think we’re doing good things. Why don’t you go ahead and read about what Gartner has to say about us. Download the report here [insert your landing page alias]
*According to Gartner, “Leaders demonstrate a market-defining vision of how integrated I2C applications can help CFOs achieve their business objectives of improving cash flow while enabling efficiencies and predictive capabilities within their AR operations. Leaders understand how other vendors’ M&A impacts them and are willing and able to pivot and adapt their strategies. They understand specific customer needs across segments, and their marketing strategies reflect this understanding. They are in the strongest position to influence the market’s growth and direction.
Leaders have the ability to execute their vision through their product strategy and have a higher number of AI use cases deployed throughout their I2C application than non-Leaders. Leaders invest heavily in R&D through hiring, training and development programs, and their approach to product development is deliberate to be differentiating.
Leaders have demonstrated business results in the form of revenue and high customer growth, from both existing and new customers. They have substantial market presence in geographies beyond their home region, and they serve customers across various organisation sizes and industry verticals. Leaders have demonstrated effective use of their partners, such as systems integrators, banks, BPO providers and ERP vendors within their product development, sales, marketing and implementation efforts.
A Leader may not always be the best choice for every customer. A vendor that is not a Leader can sometimes provide superior support and commitment. Other vendors may provide a specialised capability that is essential for some organisations, such as high portal adoption rates.’’
Disclaimer must be included on blog post:
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Integrated Invoice-to-Cash Applications, by Tamara Shipley, Nisha Bhandare, Valeria Di Maso, May 2, 2023.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organisation and should be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Esker.
Maud Berger
Maud’s career at Esker has been fully dedicated to Accounts Receivable. After nearly 15 years as Sales Administrator and Credit Manager, Maud brought her AR experience to the Product Manager role to oversee the development of Esker’s AR solution suite. She works closely with R&D in Lyon, France, and Madison, as well as sales and marketing teams worldwide to ensure revenue and customer satisfaction.
