Under the theme “working it wiser”, the second year of the ACT Working Capital conference gathered 150 treasury and finance experts in London on 22 November. Speakers and delegates discussed issues ranging from driving sustainable approaches and working capital management (WCM) to supply chain finance and the use of technology to achieve greater efficiency.
“This conference built well on last year’s event, the wider participation from the attendees in the session
lent itself well to help understand how our peers in industry go about the pro-active management of working capital”.
James Marshall, Head of Treasury, Virgin Media
“A recurring theme during the conference was the use of technology to enable more efficient WCM. The comparison with
Captain Kirk being the Treasurer who has visibility of everything going on, really demonstrates the importance of the task”
Gary Williams, Director, Deputy C.F.O. & General Manager Treasury, Mitsubishi Corporation International (Europe)
Great audience interaction via our conference app and during Q&A and round table sessions was proof of the increasing interest in WCM within treasuries, an area traditionally often neglected.
In an environment where treasurers are now “paying almost as much to hold cash as we used to pay if we went overdrawn”, as one of the conference participants noted poignantly, working capital performance clearly can’t be ignored anymore.
An interesting take-away of the day was the detection of a still weak, yet very welcome, tendency to appoint a dedicated working capital professional within corporate treasury departments. While only a handful of attendees said they had created such positions in their own organisations already, it was generally acknowledged as a key step into the right direction for driving efficiency in working capital management.
Related links
View the photos from the event on our Facebook page here.
View all the Twitter coverage here.
Related webinar
If you still have unanswered questions on working capital management, join us on the follow-up webinar to this conference next week (7 December, 12:30 – 13:15 GMT): “Managing working capital in a rapidly changing environment – challenges and opportunities for 2017”
www.treasurers.org/manageworkingcapital
We will welcome questions throughout the webinar and answer as many as possible during the Q&A at the end. You can also send in your questions in advance: events@treasurers.org.