An Alt-Lending Record, Corporate Treasury Paper-Pushing And The Value of Predictive Analytics

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Crunching numbers isn’t exactly “fun” for everyone. But after the tedious tallying and the monotonous math, data can uncover previously unreachable information.

For businesses, data is entirely changing the game. New research from the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) found that when data management is done correctly, it boosts corporate productivity and reduces operational costs.

“Data management and data governance — often seen as unpopular concepts within businesses — are among key issues being pushed to the fore by the data revolution,” said IMA Vice President of Research and Policy Raef Lawson. But, he added, businesses must begin thinking about data as a key commodity.

[bctt tweet=”Data management and governance are pushed to the fore by the data revolution.”]

With that in mind, PYMNTS presents some of the week’s most prominent data points, arising from floods of data sets and expert analysis that does the heavy data analytics lifting for you.

 

$22,375.85: The dollar amount, based on current foreign exchange rates, that MarketInvoice lent small businesses every minute, according to analysis from City A.M. The publication examined MarketInvoice operations between 9 a.m. and noon last Thursday (Dec. 10) — the platform’s busiest day ever. The figure is equivalent to £14,700. The company finds private investors to provide SMEs with working capital, with outstanding invoices as collateral.

90: The number of days that 12 percent of SMEs in the U.S. and U.K. are waiting to get paid by their corporate buyers, new analysis by Tungsten found. A survey found that 3 percent of businesses are even waiting up to 120 days — not great news for markets that have made efforts to combat late supplier payments in recent months.

80: The percentage by which China’s B2B mobile commerce market will expand year on year by the end of 2015, based on research by Analysys International, based in Beijing. The study added that the space will also hit $3.76 billion this year, fueled by the rise in mobile devices used by procurement professionals. Researchers pointed to the “transparency, convenience and supporting data analysis services” that have helped accelerate the mobile eProcurement space.

76: The percentage of corporate money managers that still manually calculate their daily cash positions, leading to a major lack of real-time visibility, said Reval in its latest analysis. Less than a quarter of those surveyed — money professionals across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, North America and APAC — can calculate their cash position in less than 10 minutes.

62.4: The percentage of small business loan approvals by institutional lenders in November, according to the latest research by Biz2Credit for its monthly Small Business Lending Index. The figure is yet another monthly increase for this demographic of SME financers; big banks saw essentially the same approval rates in November, while small banks and alternative lenders saw their small business loan approval rates decline.

8: The percentage rate of yearly growth for SMEs in the U.K. that use accurate, timely financial data to manage investing. That growth rate, according to new stats from KPMG, is twice as fast as the growth rate for SMEs using data that is nine months old. On average, SMEs surveyed are using financial data that is four months out of date, the study found.

 

There you have it: the top data points of the week. Researchers and industry experts crunched the numbers for you, so you don’t have to. Taking care of data aggregation and analysis will continue to see greater demand in the years ahead, too.

Here’s one last statistic for you: $9.2 billion. That’s the value that the predictive analytics industry is expected to reach by the end of the decade, says MarketsandMarkets research. The market includes risk management, sales management, workforce management and several other subsets, all aimed at collecting data, organizing it, assessing it and drawing conclusions so a business can make an informed, strategic decision about its future. Big Data may be dull, but it’s important — and, apparently, lucrative.