Resilience and working capital: it doesn't have to be a choice
New research from Windesheim's Supply Chain Finance research group shows that supply chain resilience and working capital compete for the same euros — and that alignment between finance and operations is the real key.
At NCN we’ve followed the work of Windesheim University’s Supply Chain Finance research group for years — we know it from the inside and have warm ties with it. That’s how the new article by Christiaan de Goeij and Luca Gelsomino landed on our desk. It touches exactly on what our platform is about every day: the tension between a resilient supply chain and healthy working capital.
The researchers spoke with 29 managers across diverse sectors about two goals that constantly collide in practice: keeping the chain resilient and keeping working capital in order. Their conclusion is sharp — and recognisable.
Resilience and working capital fight over the same euro
They’re often treated as separate worlds: resilience is for purchasing and supply chain, working capital is for finance. But they draw on the same source: your cash. A stock buffer, paying a supplier in advance, stretching a payment term — each is a choice about where your money sits.
The research shows this is rarely a neat optimisation, but a prioritisation problem. And when those choices aren’t aligned, you lose on both sides: purchasing builds inventory while finance pays the same suppliers late. The result is a chain that’s less resilient AND less liquid.
The key isn’t an instrument, it’s alignment
The main finding is almost sobering in its simplicity: the decisive factor is alignment between finance, purchasing and supply chain. Where that alignment is strong, firms combine measures cleverly and keep both liquidity and resilience intact. Where it’s missing, conflicting choices emerge that undermine both goals.
Notably, the financial processes behind that alignment — order-to-cash and purchase-to-pay, i.e. how you get paid and how you pay — are, according to the authors, among the few levers that strengthen both sides at once. Exactly the processes that, at NCN, play out in a single platform.
The easy reflex that weakens the chain
When money is tight, one reflex is obvious: stretch the payment term — especially towards smaller suppliers. The research recorded it bluntly: if the room isn’t there, the supplier simply doesn’t get paid now. On paper that protects your own cash, but you shift the problem to your supplier. And a supplier in a liquidity squeeze is precisely the risk that undermines your resilience.
Stretching the payment term
Paying your supplier earlier
The constructive route the research names
The good part is that the authors make the constructive side concrete. They name financial instruments that resolve the apparent contradiction: reverse factoring and dynamic discounting. One participant describes reverse factoring as “allowing our suppliers to receive payment on their invoices earlier” — suppliers get their money sooner, while the buying party doesn’t tap its own working capital.
And that doesn’t only help the supplier. Paying early also makes you a preferred customer, reduces the risk of supply disruptions and — on the other side of the chain — shortens your own receivables term.
Where NCN comes in
This is exactly the layer we build: the platform where purchasing decisions and finance meet. The instruments the research names are our daily practice — Dynamic Discounting, Reverse Factoring and SmartDSO. Not as a stand-alone financial trick, but as the alignment layer that turns “resilience or working capital” into “both”.
We’ll say it honestly: this is our reading of independent research. The strength is precisely that it doesn’t come from us — it describes the mechanism we see customers use every day.
Resilience and working capital compete for the same euro — and you win on both the moment finance and operations steer the timing of your cash flows together.