Since March, the outbreak of coronavirus has put immense pressure on businesses’ cash flow. Consumers shifted their habits towards bulk buying, low-contact commerce, and crowd avoidance, leaving many businesses without the revenue to cover their core costs. For some businesses, the solution was to take out loans using government support or use private lending from their banks. For just over 51,000 businesses in March alone, their doors had to close for good.
Reducer has supported businesses by offering them a route to get their cash balance back on track. By integrating with a business’ Xero or QuickBooks account, the Reducer app is able to pinpoint areas of overspending, source tailored quotes from hundreds of suppliers, and generate a dynamic cost savings report filled with recommended deals. Reducer then handles each deal a business takes, so they can focus their efforts on rebuilding their business.
Prior to Co-founding Reducer, CEO Joe Gallard had enjoyed roles as Financial Director at carwow and Financial Controller at Gousto. Joe is known for his part in bringing the most comprehensive cloud-integrated cost management tool to the UK market.
What has been the traditional Reducer response to financial technology innovations nationally?
Operating in the competitive world of cloud accounting technology, we’re always keeping an eye out for ways we can grow as a company and find novel solutions to our clients’ problems. When we see other companies in the Fintech space creating exciting things, it simply reminds us that we also need to bridge the gap between our clients’ needs and an innovative solution before either someone else does, or their problem becomes incurable.
We’re lucky that the very nature of Reducer is centred around innovation; from entering this market until now, there’s no other company capable of doing what we do. In just a few clicks, our clients have access to a plethora of information, all drawn from their cloud accounts.
How has this changed over the past few years?
While our own attitude hasn’t changed, we’ve certainly seen changes happening around us. In the last few years, there’s been a surge in accountants and their clients migrating to the digital landscape. The benefits of cloud accounting are being fully realised and as a result, more and more products are appearing on the market.
The competition is very healthy, as it’s encouraging apps to think on their feet and reimagine the ways that we can help businesses.
Is there anything that has created a culture of change inside the company?
At the core of each of our hiring processes is a search for individuals who are highly-driven and able to use their initiative. A team that boasts both confidence and autonomy is able to collaborate without fear of being shut down. That’s what makes our conversations so vibrant and full of ideas. We’re constantly finding new ways of doing business and supporting our clients, and the positive environment we’ve created has a direct impact on our output.
What Fintech ideas have been implemented?
At their essence, successful fintechs have created a revolution in the consumer experience, whether that’s by making it easier to open a bank account, buy bitcoin, or invest in startups. Our goal is to bring that wholesale change in experience to the world of business cost-management.
Our product development is targeted at making it as simple as possible for businesses to find, choose and make savings. We’ve already decreased the effort it takes a business to compare prices down to a couple of clicks.
What benefits have these brought?
The innovation of the app (of which much of the credit goes to Co-Founder Stuart Kemp and his talented dev team) eradicates the lengthy process of manually collating each spend area and comparing costs from hundreds of suppliers.
This means on average we find businesses savings of over £2,000 in yearly savings and have saved businesses over £1m.
On top of reducing their business costs, our clients are free to spend their time on growing their business rather than fretting about their bills.
Do you see any other industry challenges on the horizon?
The industry will continue to see the repercussions of the coronavirus lockdown for some time. As businesses look to recover, there’ll be great demand for ways to ease loan repayments and get back into the groove of paying staff following a reliance on the government’s job retention and furlough scheme.
Can these challenges be aided by Fintech?
Fintech certainly can and will play a huge part in helping businesses to recover in these coming months. As businesses and their financial advisors turn their attention to managing cash flow, fintech and its wealth of easy-to-use tools will offer an easier route towards a successful rebuild.
We’ve certainly seen an influx of interest now that businesses and accountants see the urgency in reducing their business costs.
Final thoughts?
The sooner that businesses yet to embrace Fintech do so, the sooner they’ll be kicking themselves for taking so long to transition.
