Trésorier magazine - n°78 - 2ème trimestre 2012 - (Page 40)

CORPORATE FINANCE New Ways to Manage Treasury The financial crisis revealed shortcomings in many treasury groups. Now executives are striving to fill those gaps in areas such as cash management and risk management. CFOs and treasurers are seeking solutions that combine a new category of integrated treasury and risk management (TRM) technology with expert advice in order to optimize their treasury operations and as a basis for strategic decision making. GAINING BETTER VISIBILITY Financial executives want a means to better visualize the entire treasury function in a comprehensive manner. A holistic view of their cash positions, cash forecasts and risks will lead to smoother operations and greater efficiency. Ultimately, this will give their organizations the information needed to make the right strategic decisions. Many financial executives bemoan the fact that they lack complete visibility into all cash flows on a global basis.They also point to the lack of a central repository to view business risks across asset classes. In fact, too many treasury groups continue to rely on error-prone spreadsheets and are missing out on the advantages of straight-through processing. Despite the continued prevalence of spreadsheets, advanced software has certainly been an important enabler for treasurers over the past decade. But financial executives are looking for the next generation of solutions. They need software to be much more interconnected than it is today, leading to a demand for horizontal, integrated treasury and risk management (TRM) software. Treasurers in particular want an enterprise-wide solution that brings together various treasury workstation and risk management applications to give them a full view of their entire organization in order to meet all the demands placed on them. The market is trending toward such a system; one that can handle cash management, risk management, hedge accounting and compliance. always use the latest iteration of the software. Another clear advantage, as mentioned above, is the efficiency gains of an integrated solution. By streamlining workflow and outsourcing support with SaaS-based software, treasurers can potentially save even more time. Those time savings can give treasurers more opportunity to be analytical and strategic. Previously, 80 percent of treasury time could be spent on manual processing, with the remaining 20 percent available for analysis and strategy. SaaS-based solutions can reverse this, to enable 80 percent of staff time to be devoted to analysis and strategy of issues such as liquidity positions, funding, risk management and compliance. In addition, by creating efficiencies, these systems enable treasurers to spend more time optimizing their resources and working with experts to plan and execute over the long term. IS SAAS THE ANSWER? Today’s financial executives have a better understanding of Software-asa-Service (SaaS) than they did just a few years ago. Most treasurers and CFOs see the benefits of adopting a SaaS-based solution. They see cost savings; they see the advantages of outsourcing support; and they can 40

Table des matières de la publication Trésorier magazine - n°78 - 2ème trimestre 2012

SOMMAIRE
EDITORIAL - 2012, l’année des réglementations?
6 FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
INTERVIEW - Mr. Ulf Bacher & Mr.Thomas Gerke
FOCUS
FORUM OF ADVERTISERS
CORPORATE FINANCE
TREASURERS’ ASSOCIATIONS
NEWS

Trésorier magazine - n°78 - 2ème trimestre 2012