Do we really need extra B2B standards for e-invoicing?

Purchasinginsight.com stated that B2B standards are a waste of time, a waste of energy, intellectual capacity and money. That they have no place in the business world in 21st century. And that standards are being developed as an important tool to allow businesses to leverage their investment in technology in spite of the wide variation in IT platforms that existed.

Because a new standard (like ISO 20022) is an addition to the current set of standards, standardisation interestingly enough leads to further fragmentation. Therefore, standardisation makes –in this case- e-invoicing more heterogeneous, with a possible negative impact on full scale e-invoicing adoption.

That raises a compelling question. Don’t we already have enough standards for e-invoicing? Shouldn’t we be looking for the real barriers to prevent full scale e-invoicing adoption?