BCR Publishing
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Q&A with German Karaivanov | GTreasury Report
22-12-2022 | treasuryXL | GTreasury | LinkedIn |
GTreasury has compiled a market report in conjunction with PNC in order to provide actionable insights for mid-to-large companies with multinational operations and small treasury teams. The report finds that CFOs and Treasurers remain optimistic, and focus on reducing inefficiencies and streamlining operations.
What will be the road ahead for CFOs and Treasurers? treasuryXL wanted to know more and held a Q&A with GTreasury’s VP of Product Management: German Karaivanov. Read below for German’s takeaways and thoughts on the report.
Q&A with German Karaivanov
At a high level, what are the three biggest takeaways corporate treasurers should glean from this report?
The new Pressure Points, Payments & Plans for Automation: The Road Ahead for CFOs and Treasurers survey report—conducted by Topline Strategy and commissioned by GTreasury and PNC Bank—finds corporate treasurers and CFOs are acutely focusing on three transformation goals right now. The first focus is fueling growth: treasurers and CFOs are eager to reduce costs wherever they can, but still need to be able to spur growth by improving risk management practices and getting more granular (and predictive) with their cash visibility, among other initiatives on this front.
Deploying more modernized treasury technology was also reported as essential to navigating market uncertainty—opening the door to more data-backed opportunities that can directly tie into business goals.
Also among the top-line takeaways: treasurers and CFOs are clearly ready to enter a new phase of automation for treasury functions (and across their organization’s broader financial groups). While early automation efforts had more of an ERP focus, respondents signaled that they are increasingly prepared to adopt more mature automation into their systems and apply it strategically to meet modern treasury and finance needs.
What were the demographics of the survey?
The report surveyed 93 finance executives and corporate treasurers from more than 20 industries. Participants represented large and mid-sized enterprises in both the United States and abroad. We purposely wanted to ensure a cross-section sample that wasn’t over-pinned to any one geography or industry.
CFOs and treasurers seemed to have differing opinions in a few areas covered in the report. Was this surprising?
CFOs and treasurers are on the same page in that they’re both pressing to make treasury practices more automated, more accurate, and more efficient. But CFOs in the survey show a clear preference for prioritizing cost efficiency. Corporate treasurers, on the other hand, tend to champion improved treasury functions and operational efficiency—and that proved especially so when it comes to achieving real-time insight into cash positions. There was a clear divide here, but I don’t think it was all that surprising. More CFOs need to understand that they can have it both ways. Adding more treasury functionality, integrations, and automation will make treasury operations more efficient, both with treasury technology budgeting and with the bandwidth it frees up for treasury teams to focus on the most urgent and critical business-growth initiatives.
But even for their differences, both CFOs and treasurers do plan to leverage new banking and treasury systems to achieve their goals. Strategic technology implementations that offer process modernization and automation will reduce costs by eliminating inefficiencies and provide treasurers with optimal tooling—checking boxes for CFOs and treasurers alike.
Technology modernization is certainly a theme of the survey. In what areas do treasurers and CFOs seem especially excited about transformation?
82% of survey respondents reported payment automation as a very or extremely important focus area for their planned software projects. It was clearly the highest automation priority. CFOs and treasurers view payment automation as delivering higher staff productivity, process efficiencies, improved cash visibility, enhanced fraud protection, compliance assurance, and modernized processes aligned with the demands of the digital economy. It seems clear that payment automation will come a long way in 2023. Other high-priority focuses for software modernization projects included accounts receivable, billing, and financial planning and analysis.
I found the results around digital transformation concerning: more than half of survey respondents said they didn’t yet have a formalized digital transformation plan even though there was a clear (and increasing) interest in making technology investments. Organizations either sticking with outdated, legacy systems are increasingly at risk as their competition advances. There’s also the internal experience: it’s easier for CFOs to hire and retain top treasury talent if their organization is using technology that makes treasurers’ jobs smoother and more efficient.
But when it comes to digital transformation, there is good news. Given the current volatile market, organizations that start their digital transformation now will likely be able to realize the benefits of their initiatives particularly quickly.
The report was conducted by a third-party, but backed by GTreasury and PNC Bank—one of the biggest banks in the United States. What is GTreasury’s relationship with PNC Bank?
GTreasury’s partnership with PNC Bank is a strategic alliance, one that enables us to bring a range of cash and FX risk management products to the market as part of PNC’s extensive digital channels and services.
Thank you for reading!
Recording Webinar: How to be headhunted as a treasurer?
21-12-2022 | treasuryXL | Treasurer Search | LinkedIn |
A few weeks back, the webinar together with Treasurer Search ‘How to be headhunted as a treasurer’ took place, in which some key points regarding the current treasury market had been discussed.
In our joint webinar , these and other topics were covered by recruitment consultants Pieter de Kiewit and Haia Aaraj. The webinar is free to watch.
Interview | 8 questions for Dinesh Kumar, Treasury Strategy Consultant
20-12-2022 | treasuryXL | Dinesh Kumar | LinkedIn |
Meet our newest expert for the treasuryXL community, Dinesh Kumar.
Dinesh is specializing in architecting and leading large scale treasury technology transformations helping clients embrace the power of technology. He supports group wide treasury projects in the further development of a broad range of methods and processes in the related treasury IT systems, e.g., improvement of cashflow planning, FX management and treasury reporting.
He involves in designing overall organizational strategy in the field of treasury technology application services, including evaluating new processes, models, pricing, and tools and related competitive offerings delivered treasury Service providers.
Dinesh has successfully led large treasury transformations projects utilizing SAP S/4 HANA across US, Australia, and Middle East region.
We asked Dinesh 8 questions, let’s go!
INTERVIEW
1. How did your treasury journey start?
After finishing my studies in Finance, I started working on stock and option trading platforms at a stock broker firm. I learned the basic concepts of stocks and options. I also built up experience at the front office, middle office, and back office. During my time at this stock broker firm I received a lot of exposure working on trading platforms.
After 2 years, I got a chance to work on a SAP treasury implementation for a giant telecom company. I worked on Money Markets, Derivatives, Forex and Cash Management. Since then I am working on Treasury transformation projects for various clients in various countries.
2. What do you like about working in Treasury?
I love the diversity of challenges. You are dealing with the financial heart of the company and need to make sure that the right amount of blood reaches every cell. I was more into technology so turning treasury operations into systems was always challenging. I worked for many international clients, I had the opportunity to learn how different companies from different sectors and industries adapt their treasury operations and cash management as per various country regulations.
3. What is your Treasury Expertise and what expertise gives you a boost of energy?
I have been working in various roles on different Treasury projects, from interim roles to system implementations. My core treasury expertise areas are the selection and implementation of Treasury Technology (i.e., SAP, Payment Hubs, SWIFT, integration with Trading Platforms), Treasury Analytics and Insight, Technology Integration and Optimization, and Application Managed Services.
4. What has been your best experience in your treasury career until today?
For me, it’s working with different geographies, different people and cultural diversity that I personally feel is the greatest experience so far.
5. What’s the most important lesson that you’ve learned as a treasurer?
“Sound treasury management begins with a robust treasury policy”.
6. How have you seen the role of Corporate Treasury evolve over the years?
Treasurers play a unique role in managing a large portion of the balance sheet. In addition to the detailed understanding of the organization in which they operate, they are closest to macro-economic developments, particularly financial markets, and can offer valuable insights to support corporate strategy.
Increasingly over the last 10-15 years treasurers have been asked to play a bigger role, as a strategic partner to the board, advising on how best to build the business line with funds available. Treasurers, certainly in the larger companies, are now much more visible in the board room, recognized for the skills and knowledge they can bring to the table.
7. What developments do you expect in corporate treasury in the near and further future?
More and more treasurers are getting involved in ESG initiatives. Not only financing them but also embedding them into treasury processes and spearheading departmental sustainability projects. When discussing ESG in corporate treasury, green financing is often mentioned as one of the main instruments to support ESG goals.
I sense that treasurers generally are now exploring options other than multiple spreadsheets, excel data, and month-end accounting and reporting much more than they used before Covid. They are devoting more time and energy to enterprise digitalization and process automation. This is enhancing their ability to support the business round the clock from the office or virtually.
With the help of technologies like AI, we can make fact-based decisions much more rapidly in terms of resources available. Such advances are helping us to analyze M&A opportunities more critically, and explore funding, forecasting, and hedging options more forensically, even helping predict and shape our responses to supply chain disruptions.
Technology is allowing us to think and act differently, in a good way, and as treasurers, we have to seize it.
8. Is there anything that you would like to share with our treasury followers that they must know from you?
Finance and in particular treasury operations today are very dynamic and open to many uncertainties. And all the signs are that the current turbulence will continue for some time yet, perhaps worsen considerably.
In such a climate treasurers need a highly dynamic approach to fulfilling both their core and strategic responsibilities. They need to anticipate and react quickly to fast-moving developments.
They should not be afraid to act decisively, even though it may not be possible to do so based on having a clear direction and end-point certainty – inaction can also cause considerable damage.
Want to connect with Dinesh? Click here
Thanks for reading!
Kendra Keydeniers
Director Community & Partners, treasuryXL