{"id":816,"date":"2021-11-10T23:37:22","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T05:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/?p=816"},"modified":"2025-06-03T01:43:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T06:43:06","slug":"how-digital-assistants-are-boosting-o2c-productivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/how-digital-assistants-are-boosting-o2c-productivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing Artificial Intelligence to Life: How Digital Assistants are Boosting O2C Productivity","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Enterprise digital assistants not only provide real-time information to executives, employees and customers; they can take over up to 90% of manual operations in the order-to-cash (O2C) operations, bringing enormous productivity gains through improved accuracy and speed.<\/em><\/p><div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_82_2 counter-flat ez-toc-counter ez-toc-light-blue ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title ez-toc-toggle\" style=\"cursor:pointer\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 eztoc-toggle-hide-by-default' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/how-digital-assistants-are-boosting-o2c-productivity\/#digital-assistants-conversational-agents-of-change\" >Digital Assistants: Conversational Agents of Change<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/how-digital-assistants-are-boosting-o2c-productivity\/#digital-assistant-capabilities\" >Digital Assistant Capabilities<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/how-digital-assistants-are-boosting-o2c-productivity\/#digital-assistants-trained-for-business\" >Digital Assistants Trained for Business<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/how-digital-assistants-are-boosting-o2c-productivity\/#das-eliminate-the-%e2%80%9cwait%e2%80%9d\" >DAs Eliminate the \u201cWait\u201d<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/how-digital-assistants-are-boosting-o2c-productivity\/#case-in-point\" >Case in Point<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/how-digital-assistants-are-boosting-o2c-productivity\/#gia-multifaceted-247\" >Gia: Multifaceted 24\/7<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"digital-assistants-conversational-agents-of-change\"><\/span><strong>Digital Assistants: Conversational Agents of Change<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Companies realize the need to digitize financial operations, and not only for the sake of productivity. Having real-time information on cash position, for example, is extremely valuable when businesses must suddenly adapt to unexpected conditions.<\/p>\n<p>It is an opportune time for <a href=\"\/blog\/global-medical-device-company-achieves-successful-o2c-digital-transformation\/\">digital transformation<\/a> from the standpoint of available technology. The strategic joining of key technologies now enables companies to realize new levels of productivity. Where five years ago, some technologies were untested, today they are proven.<\/p>\n<p>Enterprise cognitive agent technologies, known as intelligent digital assistants, are a good example. Enterprise digital assistants combine artificial intelligence using deep learning networks with natural language processing and integrated enterprise information processing.<\/p>\n<p>These conversational agents sync with data and operational systems to make information searches and operational tasks much more efficient. They can take over 70 to 90 percent of manual operations in, for example, <a href=\"\/blog\/why-accounts-receivable-management-is-moving-to-the-cloud\/\">accounts receivable<\/a> and the order-to-cash (O2C) process, bringing enormous productivity gains through improved accuracy and speed.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"digital-assistant-capabilities\"><\/span><strong>Digital Assistant Capabilities<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/how-digital-assistants-can-improve-cx-on-your-b2b-customer-payments-portal\/\">Digital assistants<\/a> provide real-time information to executives, employees and customers. Digital assistants (DAs) backed by deep learning, semantic engines, intelligent process modeling and other blended AI capabilities represent state of the art.<\/p>\n<p>The value of technology is in its utility, and advanced enterprise DA capabilities are compelling. DAs should not be confused with chatbots with logic trees. An enterprise DA can verbally answer verbal or text queries by executives and authorized staff in real time. Trained in business processes, they communicate information and execute tasks based on communication or programmed instruction enhanced by machine learning. Performance improves over time.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"digital-assistants-trained-for-business\"><\/span><strong>Digital Assistants Trained for Business<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Consumers ask Alexa, &#8220;What is the weather forecast? Find a recipe for baked Alaska, or Who won last night&#8217;s game?&#8221; In business, the questions are: &#8220;Has customer-X paid last month&#8217;s invoice?&#8221; or &#8220;What&#8217;s our DSO in region A?&#8221; A market-leading enterprise DA integrated into ERPs can answer those and more.<\/p>\n<p>Decision-making depends on accurate, timely information. Most <a href=\"\/blog\/10-basics-of-data-analytics-every-modern-finance-leader-must-know\/\">finance leaders must invest time researching and navigating their data<\/a> systems for information or assign the job to staff and wait. The larger and more complex the company and its databases are, the longer the wait. The ability to ask for information from an enterprise digital assistant in plain language and receive that information immediately provides a finance executive a tremendous advantage.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"das-eliminate-the-%e2%80%9cwait%e2%80%9d\"><\/span><strong>DAs Eliminate the \u201cWait\u201d<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Information on billings, receivables, <a href=\"\/blog\/cash-flow-forecasting\/\">cash flow<\/a> or financial metrics is available on-demand. Executives with intelligent digital systems simply have to ask. Likewise, authorized financial operations staff can get immediate answers, even while they are interacting with customers.<\/p>\n<p>Digital assistants go beyond providing information. Their underlying <a href=\"\/blog\/accounting-data-analytics-the-new-normal-for-shared-services\/\">data analytics<\/a>, training and machine learning enable them to forecast, prescribe and perform business process tasks, including customer interactions.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"case-in-point\"><\/span><strong>Case in Point<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Technology leader Emagia introduced its intelligent enterprise digital assistant &#8220;Gia&#8221; three years ago as part of its comprehensive digital order-to-cash system that is enabling customers to attain world-class AR performance as acknowledged by The Hackett Group. Gia uses artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and natural language processing to engage in straightforward and complex user conversations.<\/p>\n<p>Gia answers questions like &#8220;What is our total AR?&#8221; or &#8220;What is the total cash received so far this week?&#8221; Connected to a cloud-based financial data lake, she can answer questions truly enterprise-wide, and support all <a href=\"\/blog\/bad-debt-rising-limit-it-through-ai-powered-o2c-automation\/\">O2C automation<\/a> processes, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Credit<\/li>\n<li>Receivables<\/li>\n<li>Collections<\/li>\n<li>Deduction management<\/li>\n<li>Cash application<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/blog\/how-to-forecast-cash-flow-from-receivables-using-ai-and-ml\/\">Cash flow forecasting<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Customer EIPP portals<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 620px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/themes\/mainblog\/assets\/images\/all-order-to-cash-automation-processes-includes.jpg\" alt=\"All Order-to-Cash Automation Processes includes: Credit Receivables Collections Deduction management Cash application Cash flow forecasting Customer EIPP portals\" \/><\/div>\n<p>For example, in collections, Emagia&#8217;s system automatically sends a reminder letter accompanied by Gia. The customer can ask Gia questions like which invoices are outstanding. Gia can create payment dispute tickets, take payment, or accept a partial payment along with information on the short pay. Gia automatically creates deductions to be routed with all pertinent information for resolution.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"gia-multifaceted-247\"><\/span><strong>Gia: Multifaceted 24\/7<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Gia has similar inquiry capabilities for credit applicants and information gathering capabilities from credit bureaus, government agencies, and more. In <a href=\"\/blog\/supercharging-cash-application-with-automation-analytics-and-ai\/\">cash application<\/a>, GiaDocs automatically gathers information from all types of payment and remittance documents and records and auto-applies it in a virtuous learning cycle that will produce an auto-cash application rate above 90 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Gia facilitates communications between a company and its customers. It is available 24\/7\/365 and, critically, scales with a company\u2019s growth. Companies always face the demands of &#8220;better, faster, cheaper.&#8221; An enterprise digital assistant like Gia helps organizations achieve those objectives.<\/p>\n<p>Digital assistants are part of systems already performing work faster and more accurately. The <a href=\"\/blog\/digital-finance-mastering-revenue-growth-with-data-analytics\/\">digital AI tools can help scale operations in global finance<\/a> departments to reduce costs, improve productivity, speed decision-making, and increase process efficiency to unprecedented levels.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enterprise digital assistants not only provide real-time information to executives, employees and customers; they can take over up to 90% of manual operations in the order-to-cash (O2C) operations, bringing enormous productivity gains through improved accuracy and speed. Digital Assistants: Conversational Agents of Change Companies realize the need to digitize financial operations, and not only for &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/how-digital-assistants-are-boosting-o2c-productivity\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bringing Artificial Intelligence to Life: How Digital Assistants are Boosting O2C Productivity<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":1,"featured_media":3483,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gia-digital-finance-assistant"],"acf":[],"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"link","format":"url"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emagia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}