Strengthening the order-to-cash process with AI in the TMT industry

Talking points

• Complex business models in the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) industry can make the order-to-cash (OTC) process more challenging to manage.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) in finance has the potential to revolutionize OTC by offering predictive intelligence and strengthening compliance measures.
• By applying leading AI capabilities, TMT organizations can elevate controls, reduce risks, and unlock new value across their enterprises.

For TMT organizations, AI adoption is more than just a strategic priority. As the sector most responsible for building and deploying AI, TMT must now manage the technology as an existential competitive pressure. Known for innovation, the sector faces rising expectations, both as early adopters of cutting-edge technology and as the industry largely responsible for creating and investing in AI itself.

When it comes to AI integration in the industry, OTC stands out as a process ripe for transformation. As the core conduit for revenue generation, OTC links sales, customer experience, and financial operations. It must rapidly adapt to increasing transaction volumes, evolving business models, and the growing complexity of subscription agreements, all while relying on resilient controls and adaptable technology.

The OTC process is data-intensive, high volume, and complex—three qualities that make it a strong candidate for AI transformation. Read on to learn the ways GenAI and agentic AI can strengthen your OTC processes and set the stage for a lasting finance transformation.

What is the order-to-cash process in the TMT industry?

The OTC process encompasses the full journey of a customer transaction, from order placement to payment collection. Whether an online publisher is managing pay-per-article access or a streaming service is handling monthly subscriptions, the OTC process is essential to keep TMT businesses running smoothly.

Across the industry, the OTC process must navigate fast-paced product innovation, complex subscription agreements, usage-based billing models, and hyper-growth challenges. Each stage is supported by multiple interconnected systems working in concert throughout the revenue cycle.

Given TMT’s strong revenue orientation, the OTC process carries significant operational and financial weight. It spans a wide range of activities and stakeholders, from initial order management through final cash receipt. The complexity of those interconnected systems can make it difficult to maintain the accurate, reliable data that underpins operational efficiency, sound financial reporting, and compliance with the regulatory and audit requirements that govern the industry.

The OTC process in TMT: Tomorrow’s business models meet today’s systems

The TMT industry finds itself at an OTC crossroads, where advanced business models intersect with outdated systems. Modern revenue strategies, such as subscriptions, bundled offerings, and multiparty agreements, often depend on fragmented, manual processes and siloed data. For accounting teams, this landscape makes it difficult to access the complete, accurate information needed for smooth, cross-functional operations.

Why is this issue particularly acute in TMT? In the industry, three pressures that rarely converge with the same intensity elsewhere intersect:

• The complexity of revenue models that span multiple parties, geographies, and billing structures
• The velocity of an industry defined by rapid product innovation and frequent process changes
• The weight of high transaction volumes that expose gaps in manual or inconsistent control design

When these pressures combine with manual, inconsistent, or outdated control design, the consequences can be palpable. They can imply financial impacts, such as revenue leakage, reconciliation delays, and higher cost-to-serve, as well as security issues, including exposure of customer data, potential fraud, and reputational harm.

Compounding the risk is the pace of the industry itself, which is characterized by rapid product launches, frequent contract changes, and transaction volumes that outstrip the capacity of manual oversight to keep up. 

The future of order-to-cash in the TMT industry

Given the pressures on TMT organizations and the unique market forces they face, AI is poised to transform OTC controls across the industry.

GenAI applications excel at extracting data from unstructured sources, such as remittance details from payment emails, boosting invoice-matching rates well beyond what traditional rule-based approaches typically achieve. Agentic AI goes further via autonomous “digital workers,” such as a supervisor agent that coordinates specialized agents for extraction, matching, discrepancy detection, and documentation, escalating to humans only when needed.

Predictive analytics adds an early-warning layer to OTC processes by detecting anomalies and creating forecasts, based on models trained on historical cash application results, customer payment behavior, dispute/deduction patterns, and contract/usage signals. These tools can forecast noteworthy customer moments such as expected pay date, late-payment risk, potential dispute, short-pay likelihood, or suspicious adjustments. This enables finance teams to take actions downstream, including dynamic collections segmentation, prioritized worklist creation, or proactive outreach.

AI tools also offer the possibility of more comprehensive transformations, from intelligent workflows that spot anomalies and handle exceptions automatically to processes that incorporate continuous monitoring and dynamic segregation of duties. Through preventive controls and targeted workflows, these systems can launch actions such as prioritizing collector outreach, focusing effort on certain accounts, and routing potential leakage or exceptions for timely review before financial impact.

What role can Deloitte play?

Deloitte can deliver tested, human-led, AI-powered solutions, turning bold ideas into practical, trusted solutions. Deloitte’s AI-enabled offerings, combined with extensive industry, domain, and regulatory experience, can transform financial complexity into strategic clarity. Our approach is grounded in quality, integrity, and transparency.

For more information, read our companion blog on GenAI OTC cases, explore our Enterprise AI Navigator tool or get in touch with one of our practitioners.

The services described herein are illustrative in nature and are intended to demonstrate our experience and capabilities in these areas; however, due to independence restrictions that may apply to audit clients (including affiliates) of Deloitte & Touche LLP, we may be unable to provide certain services based on individual facts and circumstances.

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