New realities require a new category to recognize firms advancing treasury and cash management solutions.
For the first time in Global Finance magazine’s annual Treasury & Cash Management Awards, we’ve expanded to honor the Best Corporate Implementation in three categories.
Solution providers in this space might talk the talk, but do they walk the walk? When it comes to implementing actual solutions, do they deliver on their promises in terms of helping treasurers gain better visibility over their cash and liquidity, streamline bank-account management and automate manual processes? How easy are the solutions to implement, and to what extent is the provider willing to build a custom solution to address a treasurer’s specific needs?
There was a consistent theme across all of our winners in these categories: Most were looking to reap the benefits of automation and centrally controlled processes to make better investment decisions and support business growth.
In the Best Overall Program category, Fides won for its work with cross-border payments specialist Payoneer, and the range of solutions it provides to help reduce the complexity of multiple bank accounts and providers.
Payoneer works with 50 bank and payment providers, encompassing 500 accounts and more than 150 currencies across more than 200 countries and territories. “A disproportionate number of these are small, non-SWIFT providers with unique formatting challenges that would be daunting to any treasury,” Fides tells Global Finance.
Payoneer’s treasury team works to aggregate account and transaction information into an intuitive user interface. Fides leveraged a host of solutions including electronic file transfer, multibank connectivity and accounts receivable to help Payoneer’s treasury team consolidate account information and aid reconciliation.
In our Best Treasury Management Systems Program implementation category, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) treasury-management solution was the winner. Treasury-software provider FIS’s Integrity SaaS solution enabled Dutch media company Endemol to more quickly move from decentralized treasury operations to a position where the company could more readily optimize its cash and liquidity positions to support its growth and investment initiatives.
FIS’s Managed Bank Connectivity service and SWIFT Service Bureau solutions also helped minimize the complexity of having to manage thousands of bank accounts across 40 different banking providers. FIS’s solutions were chosen as part of the Treasury Continuity Service provided by treasury consultants Zanders. The SaaS treasury-management solution in the Cloud also helped reduce the overall cost of ownership for Endemol.
FIS, which acquired SunGard in 2015, is one of the longest-established providers in the treasury-software space. Not only does it provide solutions to help treasurers better manage their cash, liquidity and investments, but it also helps companies streamline their accounts-receivable processes.
It was in the latter role that it helped Aramark Uniform Services (AUS), a customer-service business across food, facilities and uniforms, streamline its credit and collections processes. AUS wanted to optimize global liquidity to aid growth and investment. It had already achieved some efficiency gains by reducing manual processes and migrating credit and collections into its Shared Service Center.
“Centralization laid the foundation for working their way out of a spreadsheet-driven, manual-task oriented, and generally reactive accounts-receivable process,” says FIS.
AUS built on these gains by implementing FIS’s GETPAID solution. The end result was a reduction in days sales outstanding, with AUS exceeding its cash-collections goal by $7.2 million. Bad debts were reduced by $3.6 million year-on-year, and there was a 66% improvement in productivity. “More time is spent on collecting and less time on administrative work,” says FIS, adding that GETPAID helps collectors more easily see their work queues.
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Best Corporate Implementation |
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Best Overall Program |
Fides for Payoneer |
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Best Treasury Management Systems Program |
FIS/Zanders for Endemol Shine |
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Best Working Capital Management Program |
FIS for Aramark Uniform Services |
