Download New Company Tackles Big Market with Cloud

New Company Tackles Big Market with
Cloud-based B2B Payment Solution
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Financial services
Customer Profile
NVoicePay is a Portland, Oregon–
based company that provides a
business-to-business payment network
for midsized businesses.
Business Situation
NVoicePay sought a cloud platform
that could provide the right
combination of development tools,
low-cost access to a sophisticated IT
hosting infrastructure, and features
that could integrate web services and
on-premises software and data.
Solution
NVoicePay used the Windows Azure
platform from Microsoft to create AP
Assist, a cloud solution that gives
customers an easy, safe way to receive
vendor invoices and submit payments,
eliminating the need for paper-based
processes.
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Benefits
Flexible, convenient, cost-effective
Provides enterprise-scale platform and
tools
Supports innovation for competitive
advantage
Fosters fast revenue generation
“Building a mission-critical B2B payment network
would have been nearly impossible without the lowcost, pay-as-you-go access of the Windows Azure
platform. We could not have built our network at this
speed and cost without it.”
Karla Friede, Chief Executive Officer, NVoicePay
NVoicePay is a financial services solution provider with a big
business goal—providing an easy-to-use, affordable cloudbased service that can help midsized companies reduce or
eliminate the need for paper processes when dealing with
vendor invoices and associated payments. To create its solution,
NVoicePay turned to the Windows Azure platform. Windows
Azure provides rich development tools and a “pay-as-you-go” IT
infrastructure that helped NVoicePay launch its solution, called
AP Assist. NVoicePay, working with technology partners ADP
and First Data, anticipates it will go from zero dollars at launch
to more than U.S.$250 million in customer transactions moving
through its system within a period of 24 months. NVoicePay is
helping customers save tens of thousands of dollars annually by
streamlining an essential business process.
“We evaluated the
cloud offerings from
Google and Amazon,
but in the end, we
found that Windows
Azure provided the
breadth of features and
services—which were
lacking in the other
platforms—that we
needed to create our
B2B NVoicePay
Payment Network.”
Shaun McAravey, Chief Technology
Officer, NVoicePay
Situation
NVoicePay is a young company with
ambitious plans to tackle a large market
opportunity: Creating a business-tobusiness (B2B) payment network to help
midsized businesses reduce or eliminate
paper-based processes when dealing with
invoices and associated payments.
The issue of manual payment processes is
vexing for the hundreds of thousands of
businesses that struggle to find efficient
ways of handling vendor invoices and
payments. “The problem we are addressing
is simple to understand,” says Karla Friede,
Chief Executive Officer of NVoicePay.
“About 90 percent of B2B invoice payments
are still made by writing a paper check. It’s
an expensive, time-consuming process. For
example, in the automotive business—one
of the industries we are targeting—
dealership costs for writing a single check
average $3 each when labor and materials
are taken into account.”
It’s a familiar challenge to most companies
in the midmarket business segment, which
according to the U.S. Small Business
Administration consists of more than
625,000 firms in the United States. The
invoice payment process typically involves
a number of tedious steps. Invoices arrive
in the mail. An accounts payable employee
opens the mail, takes out the invoices, and
makes sure the goods were actually
received. Following that, the invoices have
to be approved and invoice information is
keyed into the company’s accounting
system. When a company goes to pay its
invoices, most start by loading paper-check
stock into a printer once or twice a month
to batch-process dozens or even hundreds
of checks at a time, which is preferable to
printing checks individually.
For the vendor receiving a payment, the
manual process is similar. Mail is opened,
checks are sorted, and information is put
into the accounting system. At the end of
that process, all checks must be taken to a
bank and deposited. “Both ends of the
process are time consuming, manual, and
prone to human error,” says Friede.
As NVoicePay explored options for creating
an effective B2B payment solution, it
identified a number of criteria as critical to
the solution’s success. The solution had to
be simple to sign up for and use. It needed
to be available on a variety of devices such
as desktop PCs, portable computers, and
smartphones. It also needed “dial-tone
availability” so that it would be there
whenever busy customers with limited staff
resources needed to use it. It had to
provide a robust level of security to protect
financial data. And it needed to handle
intense bursts of traffic.
“We anticipated going through explosive
growth with our transactions, and, as a
result, we identified significant scalability
needs,” says Shaun McAravey, Chief
Technology Officer for NVoicePay. “We
started looking at cloud platforms for the
scalability in storage and in compute
resources to handle anticipated traffic.”
Solution
With the help of Microsoft Gold Certified
Partner SoftSource Consulting, NVoicePay
decided to create its solution, called
NVoicePay AP Assist—the core component
of its NVoicePay Payment Network—on the
Windows Azure platform from Microsoft.
“We were looking for a cloud platform that
would allow us to effectively deliver an
always-on payment solution to our
customers,” says McAravey. “We evaluated
the cloud offerings from Google and
Amazon. But in the end, we found that
Windows Azure provided the breadth of
features and services that we needed to
“In the first vertical
market that we are
targeting, we estimate
that our Windows
Azure–based solution
can save dealerships
between $25,000 and
$250,000 annually,
depending on their
size. That is a
significant cost
reduction for any
midsize business,
particularly in a
difficult economy.”
Karla Friede, Chief Executive Officer,
NVoicePay
create our NVoicePay Payment Network.
Those features were lacking in the other
platforms. Windows Azure provides
scalable storage and compute resources
and a flexible pay-as-you-go business
model. And with Windows Azure
AppFabric, we can integrate with our
clients’ on-premises services, provide
enhanced security to protect financial data,
and implement single sign-on for our
system.”
Adds Friede, “Microsoft has demonstrated
its commitment to the cloud, and based on
that we bet our future on it.”
Partnering with ADP, First Data
NVoicePay worked closely with two
partners on the solution. The first is the
Dealer Services Division of Automatic Data
Processing (ADP), a leading provider of
integrated computing solutions to auto,
truck, motorcycle, marine, recreational,
heavy vehicle, and agricultural vehicle
dealers. NVoicePay successfully integrated
and certified AP Assist with the ADP Dealer
Management System, which provides
automotive dealers with solutions for core
business processes.
NVoicePay also partnered with First Data
Corporation, a global leader in electronic
commerce and payment processing
services for merchants. First Data is
providing essential behind-the-scenes
functions, such as processing the
transactions that are initiated by the
NVoicePay Payment Network.
Using Windows Azure
To build AP Assist, NVoicePay used a
number of Windows Azure components
and related Microsoft products. From the
Windows Azure platform, it used:
Windows Azure AppFabric, which
provides services and a middleware
framework for developing, deploying,
and managing business applications in
the cloud and on premises. NVoicePay is
using the AppFabric Service Bus, which
pushes data to Silverlight clients in real
time, and AppFabric Access Control,
which delivers security features and lets
NVoicePay federate with Active Directory
services at client locations to quickly and
seamlessly authenticate users.
Windows Azure Blob Storage, which
provides an intermediary store-andforward function for in-transit financial
transaction information.
Windows Azure Table Storage, which
provides structured storage that can be
queried and that has tremendous
scalability. VoicePay is using Windows
Azure Table Storage to store payment
status information, client configuration
information, and vendor preferences.
Windows Azure Queue Storage, which
provides reliable, persistent messaging
between services. Windows Azure Queue
Storage is used by NVoicePay to
schedule new vendor submissions and
payment preference changes prior to
processing in the NVoicePay data center.
Microsoft SQL Azure Database, a
highly scalable, fully managed relational
cloud database. NVoicePay is using SQL
Azure Database to cross-index
information stored in Blob Storage and
to provide summary reporting through
the client software. Through the client
software, customers can find out, for
example, when a payment is made.
Project Sydney, which provides
enhanced security for network
connections between on-premises
applications and the Windows Azure–
hosted AP Assist using standard IP
protocols. During a communication
session between the client and the cloud,
Project Sydney initiates a dedicated,
“Windows Azure
allowed us to create
features that provide a
lot of flexibility and
ease of use for our
customers.”
Shaun McAravey, Chief Technology
Officer, NVoicePay
standard TCP/IP virtual network overlay
for the session; all relevant data is placed
logically inside this overlay network.
The Windows Azure VM Role, a feature
that allows NVoicePay to deploy related
legacy applications in the cloud simply
and easily.
In addition, NVoicePay used development
tools and technology that included:
Microsoft Silverlight 4 browser plug-in
technology for the client software, which
allows customers to submit payments or
securely sign up in the cloud using a
secure sockets layer (SSL)–based
connection and an X.509 certificate.
NVoicePay is using Silverlight to deliver
three different types of interfaces, or
“screens,” that can be used depending
on the user location and device. These
include web browsers and “out-ofbrowser” stand-alone PC applications.
NVoicePay also used Silverlight to create
a client application optimized for
Windows Phone 7 devices. The Silverlight
component of AP Assist uses raw
sockets—IP-based endpoints that allow
direct sending and receiving of network
packets—to communicate with
customers’ on-premises accounting
systems, providing a seamless blend of
cloud and on-premises services and
functionality.
Microsoft .NET Framework 4 and the
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
Professional development system,
which provided the tools and a common
software development framework for
creating a cloud-based solution that runs
across multiple client endpoints. The
.NET Framework also supports the
technology used for asymmetric
encryption of data.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, which is
the business software used in the
NVoicePay data center for customer
relationship management (CRM).
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter,
which is the core server operating system
used in the company’s data center.
NVoicePay began rolling out its AP Assist
solution in early 2010. The company first
targeted heavy equipment, automotive,
and truck dealerships, which typically have
high volumes of vendor invoices and
payments every month. NVoicePay is
expanding its targets to include
manufacturing and distribution companies.
Benefits
By taking advantage of the Windows Azure
platform, NVoicePay was able to quickly
create and deliver a powerful yet easy-touse B2B payment processing solution for
the midsize business market. NVoicePay
now has a flexible, convenient, affordable
solution to offer its target customers, with
the high level of data security they demand.
NVoicePay also has a rich platform for
future development efforts.
Flexible, Convenient, and Cost-effective
The Windows Azure platform provides
flexibility and cost-effectiveness for
NVoicePay customers—and for the
company itself. “Windows Azure allowed us
to create features that provide a lot of
flexibility and ease of use for our
customers,” says McAravey. “For example,
we designed the different screens so that
AP Assist can be accessed from a variety of
client devices. People are no longer tied to
a PC using a dedicated application.”
McAravey explains that an accounts
payable person can use a Silverlight-based
application on his or her desktop or laptop.
A vendor can quickly sign up or use the AP
Assist service from a web browser. And a
busy—and mobile—manager, such as a
corporate comptroller, can approve
“A lot of midsize
companies have a hard
time monetizing the
benefits of electronic
AP solutions.
NVoicePay does a
great job of helping
clients understand the
value.”
Vinny Breault, Vice President of
Strategic Partnerships, First Data
invoices from his or her Windows Phone
using the Silverlight client application. “AP
Assist offers tremendous convenience that
allows a company to tailor its use of the
solution according to its business needs,”
McAravey says. “And it is always available,
so tasks such as approving invoices can be
completed at any time of the day or night.”
The solution is also very affordable, a
compelling point for customers looking to
cut costs while also streamlining their
businesses processes. “That leads to big
savings for our customers,” says Friede. “In
the first vertical market that we are
targeting, we estimate that our Windows
Azure–based solution can save dealerships
between $25,000 and $250,000 annually,
depending on their size. That’s a significant
cost reduction for any midsize business,
particularly in a difficult economy.”
An early customer—Michael J. DuBois, Vice
President of Finance at Balise Motor Sales
Company in West Springfield,
Massachusetts—says his company has
quickly seen the cost benefits of using AP
Assist. “With the NVoicePay payment
solution, we recovered our upfront cost in
the first month’s use,” Dubois says. “The
cost per payment is less than the postage
needed to mail a check.”
By using Windows Azure, NVoicePay
avoided the high cost and management
overhead of creating a new IT infrastructure
to support AP Assist. “The Windows Azure
business model of paying only for the
computing resources you need has been
key for us as an early-stage company,”
Friede says. “The cost of provisioning and
maintaining our infrastructure would have
been prohibitive otherwise. Building a
mission-critical B2B payment network
would have been nearly impossible without
the low-cost, pay-as-you-go access of the
Windows Azure platform. We could not
have built our network at this speed and
cost without it.”
Effective Security for Sensitive Data
A common concern with customers, and a
key issue evaluated by NVoicePay when
looking at different cloud platforms for AP
Assist, is transactional security. Windows
Azure provided the tools and technology
needed to assure NVoicePay customers
that their data is protected when in
transition and while at rest.
“Our AP Assist solution is all about
payments, so obviously security is very, very
important to us,” says McAravey. “We have
to offer secure access to our services, and
any data we store must be secure.”
The AppFabric Access Control is especially
important in providing authentication and
authorization of users. The ability of Access
Control to federate with the Active
Directory service running on customers’
local Windows Server networks eliminates
the need to set up and maintain separate
user logons. This delivers convenience for
people using AP Assist, provides greater
control for managers at customer sites, and
minimizes potential security breaches that
can stem from multiple logon points.
The store-and-forward architecture used by
NVoicePay also provides an additional layer
of security by preventing outside
applications from directly accessing the
NVoicePay payment processing system.
“With Windows Azure, we were able to
design AP Assist so that payments are
submitted to the cloud and then stored
there until they are forwarded to our
payment processing system,” says
McAravey. “This architecture provides an
effective buffer that protects the
confidential financial information that is
flowing through our system.”
“One of the critical
attributes of the
Windows Azure–based
NVoicePay solution is
its ability to tightly
integrate with our ADP
Dealer Management
System. It’s through
this integration that
our customers are able
to seamlessly and
easily process their
payables in an
electronic manner,
which is more efficient
and less costly than
traditional methods.”
Clifton E. Mason, Vice President of
Product Marketing,
ADP Dealer Services
Rich Platform for Business Growth
With Windows Azure, NVoicePay gained a
rich and powerful platform that made it
possible to launch an ambitious initiative
targeting a very large—and largely
untapped—customer market. It was also
able to attract high-profile, influential
partners.
Notes Clifton E. Mason, Vice President of
Product Marketing for ADP Dealer Services:
“One of the critical attributes of the
Windows Azure–based NVoicePay solution
is its ability to tightly integrate with our
ADP Dealer Management System. It’s
through this integration that our customers
can seamlessly and easily process their
payables in an electronic manner, which is
more efficient and less costly than
traditional methods.”
Says Vinny Breault, Vice President of
Strategic Partnerships at First Data: “The
NVoicePay solution is really user friendly
and intelligent. An accounts payable person
can quickly grasp how to use the software
and not have to worry about a drain on
resources for integrating with current
processes or systems. A lot of midsize
companies have a hard time monetizing
the benefits of electronic AP solutions.
NVoicePay does a great job of helping
clients understand the value.”
Friede says these benefits are made
possible by Windows Azure and its cloudbased services, which is opening up a vast
business opportunity for NVoicePay. “We’re
addressing the $2.5 billion opportunity of
moving invoice payments from paper
checks to electronic networks for midsize
companies,” Friede says.
Fast Revenue Generation
NVoicePay is already experiencing the
benefits of deploying its solution on
Windows Azure, with customer traffic levels
expanding exponentially. In the first quarter
of 2010, when AP Assist was launched, the
company had no funds flowing through the
network. However, company managers
expect that they’ll see more than $50
million flowing through AP Assist by the
end of 2010, and more than $250 million in
traffic on the network by the end of next
year. Those numbers are based on existing
customers and do not include future
customers expected to sign up for the
service.
“The Windows Azure platform enabled us
to get into the market in 12 months and to
deliver a mission-critical, enterprise-class
payment network for the midsize business
market,” Friede says. “In less than 24
months, we will have gone from zero
dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars
moving through our network. This is a
tribute to the effectiveness of cloud
computing and the richness and power of
the Windows Azure platform, which helped
make our solution possible.”
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft
products and services, call the
Microsoft Sales Information Center at
(800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the
Microsoft Canada Information Centre
at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the
United States and Canada who are deaf
or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft
text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at
(800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United
States and Canada, please contact your
local Microsoft subsidiary. To access
information using the web, go to
www.microsoft.com
For more information about
NVoicePay, call (877) 626-6332 or visit
the website at: www.nvoicepay.com
To view the video documentation of
NVoicePay and other success stories
visit the Microsoft Success Web site at:
www.microsoft.com/business/success/
See how other companies successfully
implemented money and time saving
solutions in their business using the
Windows Azure platform. View an
additional case study here.
Additional Resources
To learn more about the Windows
Azure platform, visit the website at:
www.windowsazure.com
Related White Paper: Security Best
Practices for Developing on the
Windows Azure Platform
Microsoft Cloud Services
Microsoft offers a complete set of cloudbased solutions to meet business needs,
including solutions for advertising,
communications (email, meetings),
collaboration (document storage, sharing,
and workflow), business applications
(customer resource management, business
productivity), data storage and
management, and infrastructure services.
In addition, customers can take advantage
of an entire ecosystem of solution
providers and Microsoft partners.
For more information about Microsoft
Cloud Services, go to:
www.microsoft.com/cloud
Windows Azure Platform
The Windows Azure platform provides an
excellent foundation for expanding online
product and service offerings. The main
components include:
To learn more, visit:
www.microsoft.com/windowsazure
Windows Azure. Windows Azure is the
development, service hosting, and service
management environment for the Windows
Azure platform. Windows Azure provides
Software and Services
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Microsoft Cloud Services
Windows Azure Platform
− AppFabric Access Control
− AppFabric Service Bus
− Microsoft Project Sydney
− Microsoft SQL Azure Database
− Windows Azure Blob Storage
− Windows Azure Table Storage
− Windows Azure Queue Storage
− Windows Azure VM Role
developers with on-demand compute and
storage to host, scale, and manage web
.
applications on the Internet through
Microsoft data centers.
Microsoft SQL Azure. Microsoft SQL Azure
offers the first cloud-based relational and
self-managed database service built on
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 technologies.
Windows Azure AppFabric. With
Windows Azure AppFabric, developers can
build and manage applications more easily
both on-premises and in the cloud.
− AppFabric Service Bus connects services
and applications across network
boundaries to help developers build
distributed applications.
− AppFabric Access Control provides
federated, claims-based access control for
REST web services.
Windows Azure Marketplace
DataMarket. Developers and information
workers can use the new service
DataMarket to easily discover, purchase,
and manage premium data subscriptions in
the Windows Azure platform.
Microsoft Visual Studio
− Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
Profession Edition
 Microsoft Dynamics
− Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
− Windows Server 2008 Datacenter
 Technologies
− Microsoft .NET Framework 4
− Microsoft Silverlight 4
− Windows Communication Foundation
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