How the new mode of working is creating opportunities in B2B billing

In 2022, enterprises are faced with huge business change, accelerated digitalization, and new modes of working. Laura Broers looks at how these changes are affecting the requirements for B2B billing.

One of the biggest changes in the business market is the new hybrid working model. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Americans spent 5% of their working lives at home, which had increased to 60% by spring 2020. More recently, economists José Maria Barrero, Nick Bloom and Steven Davis found that the average employee wanted to work from home nearly half the time; while the average employer favoured employees working one day a week from home. The precise balance between office and homeworking is likely to vary by business, country and individual employee, but what seems certain is that working from home, for at least part of the week, is here to stay. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, remote work is ‘the new signing bonus’.

At the same time as shifting to a new working model, employers are also challenged with enhancing the employee experience (EX). In a recent article – ‘The future of the workplace: Embracing change and fostering connectivity’ – McKinsey argued that the relationship between employees and employers has irrevocably changed. It says businesses now need to take steps to help employees balance productivity, well-being, and a sense of connection. The question is: how can CSPs assist with this?

How B2B billing is impacted by changes in the workplace

CSPs have an opportunity to help businesses enhance employee productivity in the new hybrid work model, as well as improve the experience they deliver to their employees. A critical element of both is reducing the time required to manage onerous tasks such as costs and bills.

Businesses have adopted different policies on paying for the cost of workers connecting and collaborating from home. Some simply provide a budget to employees each month to cover any costs; others prefer to install and pay for a separate business line or supply a business mobile, reclaiming home usage from employees; and some allow their employees to use their home broadband or phone for work purposes, requiring the employee to claim back the cost.

Whatever the model chosen, providing the capability for homeworkers or SoHo customers to easily assign costs between home use and business use  (so-called 'split billling') is critical to the EX of B2B billing. Having to sit down and go through paper bills line by line is a task that neither employees or accounts staff relish. It negatively impacts on EX and makes processing bills slower and more expensive. Speeding this process therefore has the potential to boost EX, reduce the time it takes for the CSP to get paid, and free up employee time to do something more productive.

It should be noted that business customers will expect that pricing is adjusted to reflect any volume deals they might have with the CSP. This requires CSPs to understand which ‘business group’ an individual or household is attached to and therefore which discount applies (rather than charging them a standard consumer charge). The good news is that if CSPs can get this right, they have an opportunity to expand their B2C customer base by targetting the home use of individual employees.

The changing relationship with IT

Even before Covid-19, there was a trend towards decentralizing ICT spend and allowing employees to have more control over a personal ICT budget. With employees making more purchasing decisions, this has led to a new role for the IT department as not just a prescriber of ICT but as a trusted advisor to individual business users.

Service providers can assist with this by providing IT with insights into how individuals are consuming ICT services, prompting them with ways in which they can enhance the productivity or EX of their workers. Likewise, the advent of more flexible workforces and project-based working means that IT needs to have the capability to turn off central services to contractors or ex-employees more readily and terminate automatic billing for homeworking charges. Being able to easily connect and manage the workforce more dynamically, and have that reflected accurately in their bills, is another capability that both IT and accounts departments will value going forward.

Reducing churn in the B2B customer base

The model of service provision chosen by a business customer is also important  for how CSPs manage their relationship with them. Previously, they simply had to ensure the IT department was happy with the service provided, because they were the main buyer. Centralized buying meant that dissatisfaction had to reach a critical mass before an enterprise would churn, with plenty of opportunity for the CSP to address any issues with the account. In future, however, CSPs will have to manage and understand the experience provided to individual business users who are each responsible for a small part of the enterprise spend. These individuals are likely to be more willing to churn and take with them a chunk of the enterprise’s spend along with a household account, but are less likely to alert the CSP to this. This presents the prospect of a CSP’s enterprise account crumbling from beneath, as individual users silently churn.

Reducing the possibility of future churn requires CSPs to make it easier for individuals to manage their accounts and payments, as well as understand the experience of individual business users in far more diverse locations. But making the relationship ‘stickier’ means taking a more proactive stance and suggesting how workers could benefit from additional services or more appropriate packages. This might mean suggesting an upgrade  for a homeworker where their broadband line speed is too low, or helping them identify and solve WiFi blackspots within their home.

This is where the bill can come into its own as a communications tool rather than just an invoice - highlighting useful hints & tips and making valuable suggestions that address real customer pain points. Instead of being an onerous and frustrating document, the bill is transformed into a valuable and engaging communication packed full of insight and advice. 

Amid all the change in the B2B market, what’s certain is that CSPs have a unique opportunity to help their enterprise customers manage new modes of hybrid working. Key to this is easing the overhead of managing charges for both the enterprise and individual employees, while also making proactive suggestions to ensure homeworkers are on the most appropriate packages to provide a good EX, optimize productivity and deliver the cost profile expected by enterprises. 

Interested in learning more about B2B billing experience? Get in touch with one of our consultants to learn more about how to benefit your business customers!