Invoice Financing for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises on an Online Platform

An Action Design Research using a Transaction Cost Perspective on Platform Theories applied in a Start-up

Master thesis (2015)

Authors

Contributors

G.A. Reuver (mentor)
D.J. Scholten (mentor)
Programme
SEPAM IA (TPM) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2015 Pieper, S.J.
Action Design Research Information System Design Transaction Cost Economy Multi-sided Platforms SME Financing
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Published Date

27-08-2015

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Programme

SEPAM IA

Abstract

Access to financing is a serious concern for many Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in need of cash. Invoice financing ? in which a business sells its accounts receivables ? has not been well adopted, seemingly due to the information intensive transactions that it requires. This paper describes the design of a digital Multi-sided Platform that provides invoice financing to SMEs to overcome this problem. It does this by deriving design guidelines from transaction cost literature and concurrently ‘action designing’ a live prototype. The results of the evaluation of the prototype show that the design is a promising solution for SMEs in need of liquidity, as it is being evaluated positively on the criteria aimed at lowering the transaction cost of invoice financing. More design research is suggested on the impact of a platform setup on transaction cost.