In the latest of a series of ACTME technology driven breakfast seminars more than 65 treasurers, consultants and systems vendors (including from our sponsor, Kyriba) enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast at the Four Seasons Jumeirah before getting down to some serious work; a pity, as the gardens and pools are seriously tempting!
The session was centred on two key themes – the continuing importance to every business and organisation of cash and cash flow and demonstrating the real value of treasury management systems in addressing the management of those flows.
The real debate which certainly energised the audience was about how corporates can drive real value from purposeful cash management. Treasurers should be asking themselves (and be expected to demonstrate) how they can deliver more effective and efficient cash management. But the work doesn’t end there! Treasurers have to go on and integrate cash management into their supply chain, their financial requirements and ensure the whole of their organisation understands how critical cash remains!
Operational value is a great place to start of course so implementing ‘early-stage’ treasury – automating payments and bank recs, supporting procurement and sales processes – will lead to more sophisticated activity, such as looking at capital requirements and strategic business support.
A contentious area of discussion was the ongoing issue of ERP v TMS. The case was made by numerous treasurers in the audience (and one of two CFOs, including a speaker, Frederic Marret, Webcor) that the two serve different masters and where treasurers add value – in helping businesses and organisations grow and prosper through analysis, forecasting – is a step beyond ERP systems. Well, that’s for treasurers and their CFOs/FDs to argue over but our audience was clear!
The pace of change in treasury tech is rapid. Treasurers by nature are a cautious bunch. Indeed our recent Contemporary Treasurer survey highlighted that most are late adopters of systems. One advance that will offer benefit to all treasurers is the delivery of cloud based systems that allow smaller organisations to access the power of tech without the added expenses of internal hardware, IT procurement and so on. Although security remains an issue, cloud systems at least allow for shared defences.
All in all an excellent briefing keeping everyone on their toes!
