By Mary Driscoll, senior researcher at APQC and a regular blog contributor to www.proformative.com
APQC is conducting research on why big companies are squeezing their small suppliers by paying invoices later and later. Based on early interviews conducted by APQC with small- and mid-sized company CFOs, this makes no sense. “They’re doing it because they can get away with it,” lamented one
Many of the S&P 500 companies are sitting on mountains of spare cash—but they’re extending payment dates to non-strategic suppliers out to 80, 120, or even 160 days. Why do this when the small fry are still struggling to overcome years of constrained access to working capital financing? What is the