New research · Good Business Pays
Beyond Fast Payment: Good Business Partnering
The problem boards think they have is late payment. The problem they actually have is supplier friction.
Research by Terry Corby and Liz Barclay. Sponsored by Intuit.
What the research found
Most boards treat supplier payment as an operational or financial matter. Pay on time, and you are behaving well. The evidence from studying the fastest paying companies tells a different story.
Even in the best, fast paying organisations, suppliers can experience friction that undermines trust, increases cost and, in some cases, threatens continuity of supply, even where invoices are ultimately paid on time. That friction rarely comes from a decision to delay payment. It comes from design and accountability failures that sit upstream of payment itself: complex onboarding, unclear ownership, invoices that get stuck between systems, disputes raised late, and escalation routes that exist in theory but not in practice.
The organisations that perform best have not eliminated failure. They have eliminated ambiguity about who acts, when, and how. They treat late payment as a system design flaw to be prevented, not a supplier problem to be chased. In short, they design good outcomes in, rather than relying on good intentions.
"This is not a study of aspiration. It is a study of what works."
The findings are not drawn from surveys or self reported questionnaires. They come from structured interviews with senior executives, CFOs, CPOs, COOs and managing directors, using a consistent methodology. This is a proprietary evidence base that does not exist anywhere else: insight into the operating models of organisations that have proven, year after year, that good payment outcomes are achievable.
What's inside the report
A practical framework boards and executive teams can use to see where they stand and what to change.
The Good Business Partnering Standard
Eight standards across four domains: Financial, Operational, Supplier and Customer, and Culture and Learning.
The Observed Practice Heatmap
Fourteen practice areas mapped from reactive, through developing, to embedded best practice.
What the best do differently
Four themes: design beats intent, ownership beats policy, prevention beats remediation, and proportionality beats power.
Nine questions boards should ask
Governance questions that reveal whether responsibility is clear, risk is visible, and intent turns into action.
The GBP Diagnostic
A structured, evidence based way to assess your own operating model against proven practice.
The Supplier Choice Index and Customer of Choice
Why the best suppliers choose who to work with, and what that means for competitive performance.
Who it's for
This report is written for the people who shape how an organisation behaves under pressure: board members, CFOs, COOs and CPOs who want resilient, well run supply chains; the senior leaders responsible for supplier relationships; and the investors and analysts who increasingly read supplier treatment as a signal of management quality. As the report puts it, how a company treats its suppliers is increasingly recognised as an indicator of how it will treat capital, particularly when conditions are under pressure.
Read the full report
Free to download. No cost, no catch. Just the evidence on what good business partnering looks like in practice.
Download the reportWhere to go next
The report is the starting point. Here is how to put it to work.
The Good Business Partners directory
See how hundreds of organisations report on their supplier payment record, and find your own listing.
Visit the directory →The GBP Diagnostic
Find out where your board sits against the eight standards, and where change will have the greatest impact.
Ask about the diagnostic →Executive round tables
Peer conversations for senior leaders on supplier experience, resilience and payment culture.
Register interest →© Good Business Pays 2026 · Beyond Fast Payment: Good Business Partnering · Research by Terry Corby and Liz Barclay · Sponsored by Intuit