The management of a supply chain is an activity much more complex than that traditionally associated to the profile of the direction purchases of a great enterprise.

La gestione di una supply chain è un’attività molto più complessa di quella tradizionalmente associata al profilo della direzione acquisti di una grande impresa.

Factoring belongs to a family of financial products that share the presence of a plurality of counterparties within the single transaction and, therefore, present specific problems of representation from the perspectives of accounting records and risk. It is a family that includes most forms of working capital financing, such as confirming, reverse factoring, the use of credit cards in business, and so on. 

Supply Chain Finance as a response to the economic crisis

Much has been said about Supply Chain Finance (SCF) and the benefits this type of financing brings to all parties involved.

The article investigates the evolution of tools to support supply chain finance from the perspective of the paradigm shift resulting from the succession of crises in recent years (pandemic, geopolitical crises, war) and the transition to greater sustainability of economic activities, proposing the basic elements of a new collaborative paradigm for the world of Supply Chain Finance.

The management of a supply chain is a much more complex activity than that traditionally associated with the purchasing management profile of a large company.

We are experiencing a moment of dramatic and sudden reorientation in the definition of supply chains, under the blows of geopolitical tensions, the pandemic and now the open conflict in Ukraine, which has replaced the oldest trade route on the planet, that between Europe and Asia, with a giant black hole combining war and economic conflict. The logic of this redefinition is largely already mapped out: shorter supply chains, so as to reduce logistical vulnerabilities and hopefully also their environmental impact.

Polaris adopts a different approach, where the lead company's initiative is achieved through ways that do not bind the supplier and nevertheless allow him to benefit from the advantages of participating in the supply chain finance programme, usually through the possibility to easily transform his trade credit into cash.

At the last 2021 meeting of the community of the Supply Chain Finance Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, three thematic axes that are also important for the world of supply chain finance were taken stock of