The Mantra This Week in B2B: Integrate, Automate and Secure

Today’s B2B businesses want digital solutions to deliver efficiency without compromising on security.

While that may be a tall order, modern solutions aimed at everything from smarter cash flow tools to fraud-busting artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly delivering it.

It’s now a digital-first world, and B2B players are doubling down on automation and analytics to keep operations smooth.

That’s why the top B2B themes PYMNTS tracked this week reflect a broader movement toward digital-first, data-driven and integrated solutions that prioritize efficiency, resilience and security across financial services and business operations.

Ultimately, the path forward for B2B businesses of all sizes is clear: integrate, automate and secure — ensuring resilience and growth in an increasingly complex landscape.

The push to offer capital and liquidity solutions specifically tailored for SMBs has intensified.

Human capital management software solutions provider Paychex has introduced a working capital offering. Paychex Funding Solutions, announced Tuesday (Nov. 12), is designed to provide small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with fast access to capital as needed.

A PYMNTS Intelligence report, “How Data Sharing Boosts Credit Solutions for SMBs,” reveals when businesses agree to share their data, they not only receive more tailored credit options, but also borrow more and experience higher satisfaction from the lending process.

Mastercard on Tuesday introduced a new platform designed to help financial and service providers offer their small business customers a way to consolidate the digital tools they use to run and grow their businesses. The Mastercard Biz360 platform provides a “one-stop shop” that allows business owners to access new features while also integrating their existing digital tools, the company said.

And the most recent quarterly earnings season spotlighted a particular breed of SMB innovation: cross-border payments. PYMNTS covered how a number of providers highlighted the momentum for their own fortunes as they help SMBs simplify and improve their global, commercial efforts and as they pay vendors and suppliers while navigating international markets and supply chains.

Treasury and payment experts are seeing a new paradigm for corporate growth, one where embedded finance and automation tools can streamline operations and enable faster entry into new markets.

In the second edition of “The Growth Corporates Working Capital Index,” a Visa-commissioned PYMNTS Intelligence report, 1,297 CFOs and treasurers across 23 countries and five industry sectors told us that access to digital-first solutions pave the way for future growth.

DebtBook, which makes cloud-based software solutions for governments and nonprofits, on Wednesday (Nov. 13)  debuted its Cash Management solution, a tool designed for cash managers, treasurers and finance teams to help manage cash flow and liquidity.

Businesses are faced with what should be an easy decision: creating better value for the organization, speeding time to new markets and creating new business models. AWS Global Head of Institutional Payments Nilesh Dusane and FIS General Manager of Enterprise Payments Rijuta Jain told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster that treasury services are key to realizing these strategic goals, as the surging tide of digital payments demands they find new operating efficiencies while controlling costs.

We’re evolving into a platform economy, where integrated solutions made available to banks and businesses — through the joint efforts of AWS and FIS — can centralize data and harness it into actionable insights, Jain told Webster.

Businesses are looking to streamline payments by embedding them directly into their existing platforms, Boost Payment Solutions Chief Revenue Officer Seth Goodman wrote in a new PYMNTS eBook, “The New Value Equation: 11 Financial Services Leaders Share Their Vision for 2025.”

And as businesses continue to embrace automation, the accounts payable (AP) function is also emerging as a new frontier for efficiency and cash flow management.

“The main AP pain points are typically invoice ingestion, payment approval, the release of payments and specifically the release of payments around managing working capital and cash flow,” Steve Tackett, executive vice president of operations at Priority, told PYMNTS.

Innovation within B2B has reached a new level, as evidenced by advances in AI and blockchain solutions. B2B payments platform ConnexPay has received a U.S. patent for its invention that manages incoming customer payments in real time and generates corresponding outgoing supplier payments on demand, the company said Wednesday.

Payment financing network Huma Finance launched its protocol on Solana. The expansion to this blockchain network expands Huma’s ability to provide instant liquidity solutions for global businesses and meet the demand for affordable, accessible and secure on-chain payment financing, PYMNTS reported Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Alibaba unveiled an AI-powered search engine designed to help small businesses in Europe and the Americas source supplies. Dubbed “Accio,” the search engine finds wholesale products in response to businesses’ text or image prompts.

As businesses adopt these advanced, automated solutions, the importance of cybersecurity cannot be overlooked.

A cybersecurity issue led to outages this month across swatches of grocery giant Ahold Delhaize’s 2,000 U.S. stores, leading to some pharmacy and eCommerce systems being pulled offline. The outage underscores a question that lingers over nearly every sector in today’s digital economy: Are companies prepared for evolving cyber threats?

One answer may be the rise of the chief information security officer (CISO) as a role central to protecting financial transactions and mitigating payments risk when integrating or developing digital payments innovations, as well as turning to AI solutions.

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