Success Stories

“We moved from the stone age to Kyriba, which is obviously the premier Treasury Management System in the industry, saving us a ton of time and effort.” Joel Smith,Assistant Director of Finance, Delaware Life...

“We moved from the stone age to Kyriba, which is obviously the premier Treasury Management System in the industry, saving us a ton of time and effort.” Joel Smith,Assistant Director of Finance, Delaware Life Before Kyriba • Legacy TMS provider riddled with many problems• Limited support, heavily manual Kyriba Modules Adopted: • Cash Accounting • Payments • Cash Forecasting • Bank Analysis Positive Business Outcomes: • Reports that used to take 15-20 minutes a day to generate - out of each bank portal - now are instantaneous • Roughly 50 reports per day are now automated, saving multiple analysts hours of work • Hundreds of transactions per day are now auto reconciled “One of the best things about Kyriba is the customer service. Every time I get on the phone, somebody picks up, and immediately we get attention. I can't stress how important that is for us. In treasury, everything is right now. If you have an issue, you need it done in an hour. We can 100% count on Kyriba to be there.” Joel Smith,Assistant Director of Finance, Delaware Life ABOUT DELAWARE LIFE Founded in 2013, Delaware Life Insurance Company is a member of Group One Thousand One, LLC ("Group1001"): a dynamic network of businesses making insurance more useful, logical, and accessible for everyone. As of March 31, 2022, the company had assets of $43.3 billion and liabilities of $41.2 billion (does not include Delaware Life Insurance Company of New York) with more than 320,000 active annuity and life insurance policies.

Clear Need for Better Control over FX Exposures and Fees Wahl Clipper saw the opportunity to expand the value of their Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP investment by integrating with Kyriba to support more complex...

Clear Need for Better Control over FX Exposures and Fees Wahl Clipper saw the opportunity to expand the value of their Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP investment by integrating with Kyriba to support more complex treasury functions. With the guidance and help of RSM US, Wahl implemented Kyriba and 360T’s FX trading solutions to provide critical insight into FX spreads and trades. “Using Kyriba’s BCaaS allowed Wahl to consolidate global cash visibility into a single platform and gain control of regional cash balances previously unavailable. This provided the backbone for implementing Wahl’s physical cash settlement processing for their multilateral netting centers.”Logan Wacker, Director of RSM US “Centralizing FX at HQ has allowed us to get improved spread compression and leverage larger, fewer FX trades. The former decentralized process did not provide cost transparency resulting in additional spread, time, and other costs equating to a very inefficient process.”Director of Treasury and FP&A, Wahl Clipper Multiple Goals Increased Efficiency: Provide structure and automation to lessen time spent on manual tasks, leaving more time for strategic work. Accelerated Netting: Automate multilateral netting to reduce disconnected FX settlement processes and deliver significant visibility gains to management. Robust Controls: Strict roles and responsibilities, segregation of duties, and IT general controls to reduce errors and fraud. Lower Processing Costs: Centralizing the buying/selling of currency globally reduces trade execution price and bank fees and consolidates FX exposure reporting into a single platform. “It’s like going from a horse and carriage to a rocket ship. The key is getting buy-in. We took baby steps, and the more management sees it working, the more they are willing to scale.”Director of Treasury and FP&A, Wahl Clipper   The Solution Multilateral Netting and Treasury Automation With multilateral netting in place, Wahl business units have agreements with other business units that allow for intercompany transactions. Once these transactions are booked and exist within a regional ERP application, that’s when the netting process begins with Kyriba. On a mid-month basis, intercompany payables and receivables are collected from each business unit and matched and settled, and disputes are resolved. It is then reported - exactly what is needed to buy, exactly what is needed to sell, and what the overall currency needs are across the globe for those participants. “The visibility that Kyriba provides senior management at Wahl for making decisions on our global cash position is phenomenal. Each sub updates their cash forecast via Kyriba on a weekly basis. HQ can make timely decisions to accelerate collections, delay disbursements, and better manage cash as a corporate resource.” What’s New at Wahl Clipper Cash Forecasting Fall 2022: Launched a 13 week global rolling cash forecast through Kyriba. The data is made available from Kyriba into PowerBI, which is used by Wahl Headquarters to make strategic decisions on balances, collections and disbursements. About Wahl Clipper A world leader in professional and personal hair clipping products, Wahl does business in 165 countries and operates six manufacturing facilities and 11 sales offices around the world.

“As a health IT company, we go through extreme efforts to be in compliance and protected. Upgrading and maintaining our own SWIFT BIC would be a continuous drain on IT resources, and our executives...

“As a health IT company, we go through extreme efforts to be in compliance and protected. Upgrading and maintaining our own SWIFT BIC would be a continuous drain on IT resources, and our executives quickly approved the Kyriba solution.” Leonard Nick, Assistant Treasurer Out of Compliance and Running Out of Time Cerner’s Treasury built an in-house, custom solution to manage the company’s large data volumes, and they implemented SWIFT Alliance Lite2 to support all bank communications, including prior and current-day bank statements, payroll, and vendor/expense payments. Late in 2021, Cerner Treasury uncovered that their IT infrastructure was out of compliance with SWIFT’s Customer Security Control framework. Financial systems were at risk, with the large M&A deal with Oracle, Cerner Treasury needed a reliable and efficient solution to move global payments. Key Challenges Immediate and urgent need to comply with SWIFT standards and reduce reputational risk and threats of financial impact and loss; costs of maintaining SWIFT AL2 would drain IT resources 410 hours per year on maintenance, token management and the lengthy certificate renewal process $4B Payments bottleneck with a lack of a scalable, payments hub for the extensive network of partner banks Limited capabilities for enhanced bank reporting and accelerated visibility to cash Heavily manual and redundant tasks with more costly operations, creating potential challenges to M&A activities, Day 1 readiness, and the Oracle acquisition closing SolutionMigrate to Kyriba Service Bureau & Transform Treasury’s Role The Cerner SWIFT BIC was migrated to the Kyriba Service Bureau, and the Cerner Treasury team focused on creating a unified Treasury and Finance Liquidity reporting environment with: Faster bank connectivity through Open APIs. A Payments Hub to consolidate and create a consistent and automated file and payment instruction pathway. ERP integration for reporting to and from related systems. SWIFT BIC/Kyriba automation facilitates bank communication via the Service Bureau while having the full BIC functionality option to expand to additional bank transactions, vendor and client real-time secure communication. In this new, fully connected environment, full SWIFT AllianceLite2 use and continuous automation is still available and not sacrificed while data flows from ERP, Payroll, HR and Treasury solutions. All integration points established with Cerner’s ERP are still in place, facilitating the current payment automation and new investment capabilities. Productivity Gains of 930 Hours and ROI Payback in less than 9 Months Positive business outcomes expected from this project: Protected and continued $4B/350k in annual payments value/volume with capacity to grow Protect free cash flows and low operational costs, key to Oracle acquisition 5 year ROI and IRR is 31.9% and 70.3% respectively, payback in less than 9 months 930 IT hours saved annually (410 hours of AL2 maintenance, 520 hours of bank connectivity maintenance) About Oracle Cerner For 40+ years, Cerner, a leading Electronic Health Record platform, worked at the intersection of healthcare and information technology to connect people and systems around the world, using the latest technology to create solutions that let communities and people engage in their own health. In June of 2022, Oracle Corporate acquired Cerner for $28B to further couple technology and healthcare innovation.

Constantly challenged with new data and reporting requirements to support the business, treasury organizations are turning to modern technologies for greater visibility, accuracy, and speed. By leveraging Kyriba’s API, ICD creates a seamless, end-to-end...

Constantly challenged with new data and reporting requirements to support the business, treasury organizations are turning to modern technologies for greater visibility, accuracy, and speed. By leveraging Kyriba’s API, ICD creates a seamless, end-to-end workflow for clients to gain control over their liquidity management and investment processes. “Ensuring efficiency, security and streamlined workflows have been the cornerstone of ICD’s commitment to our clients. With single sign-on and deep integration with Kyriba, our joint clients limit risk and add efficiencies to their cash and liquidity management processes.” Sebastian Ramos EVP, Global Trading and Products, ICD Key Challenges to Treasury Multiple platforms and logins to manage investments Lack of unified view of cash positions Separate reporting and analysis based on unsynchronized data Operational risks from manual trade and payment processes Manual processes to fix issues “With ICD and Kyriba bringing real-time treasury to the next level, our organization is able to make investment decisions based on up-to-date account data, fund availability and market data. From one platform we can then complete fund transfer to any accounts, creating efficiency like never before.” David Miller Treasurer & SVP, Hunt Companies Real-time Benefits SSO connectivity from Kyriba’s workflow map as part of treasurer’s day to day Enhanced decision making with real time data Automated trade settlement to reduce manual processes Reduced operational and financial risks through process automation Daily automated sweeps to maximize return on surplus cash ICD is treasury’s trusted, independent portal provider of money market funds and other short-term Investments. Its exceptional service and intuitive technology makes it easy for organizations to access and participate in the money markets. To find out more, visit here to learn more about the ICD and Kyriba integration.

Kyriba clients and Liquidity Excellence Award winners tell all, and it is clear: Organizations around the world have experienced a revolutionary transformation with Kyriba, constantly evolving and modernizing treasury processes and systems. And we...

Kyriba clients and Liquidity Excellence Award winners tell all, and it is clear: Organizations around the world have experienced a revolutionary transformation with Kyriba, constantly evolving and modernizing treasury processes and systems. And we are not close to being done.

Adobe is experiencing substantial growth with a goal of creating a world-class treasury organization and to build a platform that would sustain it throughout the next decade. “This was a very open-minded collaboration where...

Adobe is experiencing substantial growth with a goal of creating a world-class treasury organization and to build a platform that would sustain it throughout the next decade. “This was a very open-minded collaboration where we said, ‛let’s not think about what we have been doing for the past 15 years, but let’s think about what is absolutely needed and how can we design it to be the best system.’” Susan ChanDirector of Treasury Operations for Adobe Key Challenges Before Kyriba With no TMS in place, Adobe managed Treasury —$5.5B in cash through 138 bank accounts —through spreadsheets 125 global users manually logging into 10+ banking portals daily Digital and hard token logins created a heavy administrative and security burden Reporting entailed downloads in varied formats and manual customized reporting Treasury Transformation Objectives One-stop shop for all banking activities with a full cash and liquidity view Centralized payments platform fully integrated into ERP (SAP) Scalable solution that is able to absorb new businesses and scope Secure system that provides full audit trails “We embarked on a journey to look for a TMS, and we ended up selecting Kyriba because it met our requirements… and it has a user-friendly UI, as well as a robust product roadmap. Having one, centralized system for everyone—for all the bank accounts especially—is quite a dream.” Susan ChanDirector of Treasury Operations for Adobe Adobe Treasury Wins with Kyriba Positive Business Outcomes 12 Functional Teams at Adobe Engaged Throughout the Project Liquidity Management Retired Accelerate workbook and automated daily management reports Created a consolidated view for 100% visibility into global cash and liquidity Eliminated manual tracking and settlement process of investments and debts Automated Intercompany funding process for time saving and enhanced control 180 bank and investment account balances integrated ICD Integration for money market trades and settlements details SAP integration for daily FX and AP forecasting Payments Achieved payment processing via one system Real-time fraud detection applied to payments processed in Kyriba 5 banks connected for a secure, automated process for ad-hoc payments Ad-hoc wire requests routed from ServiceNow ticketing workflow 300+ payment scenarios globally tested and live 50 SSIs and 116 repetitive payment templates maintained Accounting Reduced risk of errors by replacing most of BOT and wire forms with Kyriba daily GL export Increased number of accounts reconciled through Blackline integration, with bank statement forwarding from Kyriba Centralized and streamlined the process for Treasury transactions accounting entries Month-end accounting entries for investment and debt are auto-generated and sent to SAP Bank Account Management Centralized repository of 24 signers tracked and 8 bank letter templates maintained 4 Banks connected for bank fee statement reporting and proactive fee management FBAR reporting information generated from Kyriba

Giangaddo Prati, CFO and CIO of Barilla, discuses the evolving role of the CFO and Treasury in today's market with Andrea Delvo, Managing Director of Kyriba Italy. Prati shares his views on the unique...

Giangaddo Prati, CFO and CIO of Barilla, discuses the evolving role of the CFO and Treasury in today's market with Andrea Delvo, Managing Director of Kyriba Italy. Prati shares his views on the unique challenges of the food industry during supply chain disruptions, how Barilla is approaching the "new normal," and the factors behind choosing Kyriba to assist in managing their treasury needs. "Certainly the fact that Kyriba is an integrated platform for treasury, finance and service bureau solutions was a main factor driving our choice." Giangaddo PratiCFO and CIO, Barilla

Kelkoo Group, a leading e-commerce company, gained full control of their cash management and forecasting by utilising Kyriba's Active Liquidity Network. Here are some of the challenges Hilary Heah, Treasury Manager, was facing: Having...

Kelkoo Group, a leading e-commerce company, gained full control of their cash management and forecasting by utilising Kyriba's Active Liquidity Network. Here are some of the challenges Hilary Heah, Treasury Manager, was facing: Having to log into different banking portals Extracting and gathering the information manually risking inaccuracies Kyriba's tailored solutions allowed their treasury team to: Log into one platform to get a consolidated view Get better analysis of daily transactions and consolidated statements Get accurate cash forecasting allowing them to make better-informed decisions Watch the video to learn more.

In 2020, Cooke Aquaculture introduced Cooke Bank as a concept for centralizing its global liquidity and FX exposure. Between October 2020 and April 2021, a multi-layered, fully tax and transfer pricing compliant In-house Bank...

In 2020, Cooke Aquaculture introduced Cooke Bank as a concept for centralizing its global liquidity and FX exposure. Between October 2020 and April 2021, a multi-layered, fully tax and transfer pricing compliant In-house Bank (IHB) Solution was configured in Kyriba with a fully automated current-account relationship between treasury and operating units. “The primary goal of the in-house bank model was to internalize as many transactions as possible using the resources available in order to unlock liquidity.” Onaolapo Badejoko Treasury Risk Manager, Cooke Aquaculture Inc. Cooke Aquaculture has a robust growth strategy, including acquisitions and ongoing strategic search for development opportunities. The company’s global operations journey resulted in the need for Cooke to develop a Treasury function that would make cash a corporate resource across the enterprise and unlock liquidity. “Our in-house bank success story has led to a lot of cost savings. In terms of the payment factory rollout where all payments flow into one location, we now have control over when and how to pay, as well as over who gets paid. This has led to economies of scale, payment process efficiency, and full control over liquidity, group-wide.” Onaolapo Badejoko Treasury Risk Manager, Cooke Aquaculture Inc. Key Challenges with Legacy Processes: • Decentralized Cash Management • Decentralized & manual payment processing • Poor access to surplus cash balances • Complex, manual processing of intercompany liabilities • Multi-layered fiscal structure • Decentralized FX Management Objectives of In-house Bank Project • Implement tax compliant, multi-layered in‑house bank structure • Unlock otherwise trapped liquidity • Reduce number of cash management banks and bank accounts • Real-time, multi-currency liquidity management • Reduction in transaction costs / external money flows • Integration with ERP to support payments • Centralization of FX exposure management • Robust management and tax reporting “Cooke’s in-house bank promotes centralization and standardization of payment processes while enhancing controls. Their streamlined payment process reduced costs, improved cash liquidity and visibility, and minimized risk while increasing productivity.” Craig Chapman Senior Manager, Actualize Consulting Key Take-aways for successful in-house bank implementation Timing » Engaged early with internal accounting, tax and legal teams » Sequencing workflow efficiently was critical for Cooke’s successful implementation Standardization » Simple structures from an implementation, adoption and performance standpoint resulted in 100% accurate and automated accounting and reconciliation » Implemented a standardized process across all entities Clarity » Established clear project roles and responsibilities » Set a roadmap, project plan and stuck to deadlines and due dates Integration » ERP integration eliminated excessive manual input » Unlocked 20% of full-time employees in the financial shared service center for more strategiclevel work Successful in-house bank and payment factory implementation delivers multiple benefits In-House Banking • Administration of intercompany (cash) liabilities • Cooke Bank is the liquidity provider of the whole group Payment Factory • Payment process efficiency • Control over WHEN and HOW to pay or get paid Additional Synergies • Cooke Bank becomes the perferred “banking partner” of affiliates • Reduced bank fees   About Cooke Aquaculture Cooke Aquaculture Inc. is a vertically-integrated family company based in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, Canada with salmon farming operations in Atlantic Canada, the United States (Maine and Washington), Chile and Scotland, as well as seabass and seabream farming operations in Spain.

At KyribaLive 2022, David Deranek presented the following business case review that resulted in HCSC’s Technology Transformation and being awarded the 2021 AFP Pinnacle Award Grand Prize. “By elevating all these data proficiencies, treasury...

At KyribaLive 2022, David Deranek presented the following business case review that resulted in HCSC’s Technology Transformation and being awarded the 2021 AFP Pinnacle Award Grand Prize. “By elevating all these data proficiencies, treasury would be better able to make strategic decisions, using data to analyze the effectiveness of financial decision making. This would give treasury a bigger influence in the business enterprise, therefore making our treasury organization a true and dynamic strategic partner to the business.” David Deranek, Director of Treasury, HCSC The Mission: Use Data to Become an Agent of Change In 2018, HCSC’s treasury team embarked on a multi-year project and began operating under a new organizational mandate to provide an elevated level of strategic guidance to the CFO, Treasurer and Board of Directors. Treasury was given the opportunity to become an agent of change and an integral part in running the company’s operations by leading an enterprisewide transformation project: Deliver real-time BI analysis and unlock idle liquidity to better prepare the company to take action when a crisis hits. In order to do this, treasury initiaited a digital transformation project to unlock efficiencies and drive the business to profitability. The objectives were: Increase productivity Become more data-driven Increase business value “We realized every single aspect of the business was swimming in data, so as an organization we began asking “how can we think better with this data and how can we make better decisions as treasury professionals with this data” David Deranek, Director of Treasury, HCSC Become More Data-Driven by Upgrading Skills, Process Efficiencies, and Automation Technology In 2016, Kyriba’s TMS was implemented to centralize treasury functions. This first phase resulted in a more effective and productive treasury, but multiple independent financial platforms outside the TMS still existed, and data was siloed. HCSC knew they needed to unify these platforms to harnass all the data and drive more informed decisions. The Three Year Plan With Treasury’s mission in mind—to deliver strategic financial guidance , improve decision making, and increase agility to respond to new crises — HCSC set into motion a three year plan for data transformation. Year One Engage leadership with their teams and make recommendations for opportunities Maximize use of an in-house developed Treasury Enterprise Analytics & Reporting (TEAR) System Reallocate and repurpose staff resources for new strategic treasury functions Year Two Develop a maturity & capability scorecard Find production, process, and automation efficiencies Turn HCSC’s Treasury function into a true strategic consultancy Year Three Platform Optimization of TMS and interconnectivity to satellite treasury systems Bringing It All Together: Data Unification The Project to drive business intelligence and data-driven decision making was all connected into a home-grown tool called TEAR (Treasury Enterprise & Analytics Reporting) A data warehouse, consolidating data from disparate treasury system platforms API-enabled framework to integrate and unify external data sources Business intelligence & visualization solution, taking existing reporting framework from a system of record to a system of insight A treasury network (internal and external) to support treasury, forecasting, investment, accounting, actuarial, and corporate strategy teams Positive Business Outcomes Reduced VaR by Over 50 Percent in One Year Despite Significant Market Volatility. 97 Percent Real-time Visibility of Group Exposures. Visibility — 100% of enterprise cash, liquidity, financial exposures Investments — Unlocked $9B in investable capital for $40M/$155M in returns (doubling investment income) Forecasting — Reduced Tier 1 idle cash from $4.0B to $25M (90%) Responsiveness — Provided the ability to quickly pivot as Covid pressures required Productivity — Repurposed positions to assignments supporting new strategic functions. Technology did not eliminate jobs but gave people better ones!   The $320M Result Driving increased work satisfaction and career improvement for treasury personnel, Treasury directly added over $320 Million of value to HCSC’s bottom line. ABOUT HCSC HCSC is the 5th largest healthcare insurer in the U.S., operating as Blue Cross Blue Shield in Illinois, Texas, Montana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico in addition to 30+ operating subsidiaries, with 16 million health plan members and 24,000 employees.

“We moved from the stone age to Kyriba, which is obviously the premier Treasury Management System in the industry, saving us a ton of time and effort.” Joel Smith, Assistant Director of Finance, Delaware...

“We moved from the stone age to Kyriba, which is obviously the premier Treasury Management System in the industry, saving us a ton of time and effort.” Joel Smith, Assistant Director of Finance, Delaware Life Before Kyriba • Legacy TMS provider riddled with many problems • Limited support, heavily manual Kyriba Modules Adopted: • Cash Accounting • Payments • Cash Forecasting • Bank Analysis Positive Business Outcomes: • Reports that used to take 15-20 minutes a day to generate - out of each bank portal - now are instantaneous • Roughly 50 reports per day are now automated, saving multiple analysts hours of work • Hundreds of transactions per day are now auto reconciled “One of the best things about Kyriba is the customer service. Every time I get on the phone, somebody picks up, and immediately we get attention. I can't stress how important that is for us. In treasury, everything is right now. If you have an issue, you need it done in an hour. We can 100% count on Kyriba to be there.” Joel Smith Assistant Director of Finance, Delaware Life

Hunt Companies is at the forefront of the Real-Time Payments (RTP) movement. Adopting the technology to lower bank wire fees and reducing the time spent correcting rejected payments has already provided significant gains in...

Hunt Companies is at the forefront of the Real-Time Payments (RTP) movement. Adopting the technology to lower bank wire fees and reducing the time spent correcting rejected payments has already provided significant gains in both hard and soft savings. “I am very happy to be pioneering Real-Time Payments with Hunt Companies, as I want us to be there when it is widely accepted by more banks and not have to play catch up. It benefits every business line across the organization as we can reduce bank fees substantially on payments.” David Miller, Treasurer & Sr. Vice President, Hunt Companies Key Challenges: The volume of payments processed by Hunt Companies monthly resulted in significant bank fees. With wire transfers, often the rejection notification of the payment would come hours – even days – after the payment was shown as complete. Significant time was spent by the department to research and resend failed payments. Real-Time Benefits of Real-Time Payments Reduces bank fees from $6 on average for a wire transfer to less than $1 for RTP, with a potential for much greater savings as more banks are added An impactful number of productivity hours gained per month by Hunt’s finance team no longer needing to research and re-issue failed wire payments In just 3 months, Hunt Companies has seen a 375% increase in number of payments using RTP month-over-month, a number expected to grow exponentially as more banks are added and transaction size limits are increased. While currently less than 10% of Hunt’s payments are made using RTP, transaction size limits were only recently raised to $1M, already making an impact for Hunt. David Miller, Hunt’s Treasurer & Sr. Vice President, is eager to see the transaction limit continue to increase and more banks adopt RTP. The Hunt® trademark is registered to its respective holder and use of the trademark does not imply any affiliation with Kyriba or Real-Time Payments (RTP). To the best of our knowledge, the information contained herein is accurate and reliable; however, we do not assume any liability whatsoever for the accuracy and completeness of the above information and make no warranties which extend beyond the description contained herein. Any information given in this statement does not constitute any warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular use.

“During our implementation, we took the Big Bang approach of replacing our previous TMS, Payment Factory and many home-grown tools all at once. On Day 1 of “Go Live” we were successful in connecting...

“During our implementation, we took the Big Bang approach of replacing our previous TMS, Payment Factory and many home-grown tools all at once. On Day 1 of “Go Live” we were successful in connecting to our banks and making payments in over 20 currencies, with more than 250 users trained in 18 countries.” Scott PaulyTreasury Manager and Implementation Lead, Ingram Micro Inc. Day 1 Implementation Success Bank connections and payments in over 20 currencies Cash Management and Forecasting modules deployed for real time cash positioning and In-House Banking structure FX transactions seamlessly feeding from trading application Loan facilities and investment trading All data feeding upstream to financial reporting applications for enterprisewide visibility 250 users in 18 countries trained and operational at Go-Live for enterprisewide visibility   “Ingram Micro won the Implementation of the Year award for making the FX lifecycle into something that takes minutes per day instead of hours, and for making this highly complex and error prone process into something that runs like clockwork.” Leslie SlaterFounding Principal, 3PO Consulting, LLC

Hear first-hand from Kyriba clients how treasury transformation was realized through Kyriba’s innovation, technology and support. Treasury leaders at Specialized Bicycle Components, HealthCare Services Corporation, Cenveo Worldwide, Koch Industries, and LifeSpace Communities share their...

Hear first-hand from Kyriba clients how treasury transformation was realized through Kyriba’s innovation, technology and support. Treasury leaders at Specialized Bicycle Components, HealthCare Services Corporation, Cenveo Worldwide, Koch Industries, and LifeSpace Communities share their key challenges prior to implementing Kyriba, and highlight positive business results achieved with Kyriba.

Dana Farber Cancer Institute implemented Kyriba after years of operating cash management and accounting in an ad hoc manner: Doing what was necessary but relying on significant manual processes and disparate systems. Behind their...

Dana Farber Cancer Institute implemented Kyriba after years of operating cash management and accounting in an ad hoc manner: Doing what was necessary but relying on significant manual processes and disparate systems. Behind their industry peers in process maturity, Dana Farber worked with Kyriba to quickly change all that. “In all these areas we've grown from all manual based to full automation, providing 100% visibility for strategic decision making. We are looking at realtime and on-demand cash visibility for a strategic cash forecast we can continually fine-tune.” Gerry DiStefano, Director of Treasury, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Key Challenges: Heavy manual, excel-based model resulted in excessive, unstructured and disparate functions in Treasury and Accounting. Limited visibility into cash positioning within their ERP and across the organization, as updates were only done at the end of the month. Strategic decision-making was near impossible without real-time cash positioning and forecasts. Positive Business Outcomes from Kyriba: Fully automated, insight-driven processes resulting in 228 hours per month saved - an 83% productivity improvement across the organization. Kyriba is capturing 98.4% of accounting activities, with 82% of accounting rules mapped. $925K in annual value realized in cash optimization and productivity Value Realization: 228 Hours Per Month Kyriba’s Value Realization Assessment (VRA) enabled Dana Farber Cancer Institute to provide the current state review post Kyriba deployment, resulting in 83% productivity improvement, including but not limited to: Cash Accounting & Reconciliation: 121 hours saved per month (81% improvement), plus 100% productivity improvement on reporting and posting inter-company cash transactions, financial transactions and month-end market valuations Daily Cash Positioning: 58 hours saved per month; 92% improvement Short and Long Term Cash Forecasting: 49 hours saved per month; 82% improvement “It’s nice to be in the strategic performance sector with benefits realized across the organization.” Gerry DiStefano, Director of Treasury, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Annual Hard Savings of $652K Increased interest income by nearly $215,000 annually Improved strategic business investment to $437,500 annually

“I am awed by how much my company is benefiting from Kyriba and how much we have accomplished since going live. Kyriba’s ability to automatically load our BAI files directly from the banks has...

“I am awed by how much my company is benefiting from Kyriba and how much we have accomplished since going live. Kyriba’s ability to automatically load our BAI files directly from the banks has saved countless hours from needing to login to banks each day for balances and transactions. We have a significant number of bank accounts and daily transactions, and the ability to apply budget codes automatically, forecast, and slice and dice the data has truly been a game-changer for treasury.” Stephen Kincaid, Assistant Treasurer and Vice President of Treasury, Walker & Dunlop Walker & Dunlop has extensively leveraged the value of Kyriba as an integral part of their financial framework and vision. Their extensive use of Kyriba dashboards allows them to find critical data very quickly and action those items for better strategic decision-making. 2021 Payments Factory Project 1.5 year large scale project with their loan servicing system Payment formatting, approval workflows, and remittance through Kyriba Day 1 of go-live, successfully processed $3 Billion in funds “We look forward to continuing to automate and enhance our treasury processes with the help of Kyriba and their expanding technology.”

For nearly a century, Baxter has been at the critical intersection of saving and sustaining lives, driven by innovation to transform global healthcare. With global operations in over 35 countries, Baxter put Kyriba to...

For nearly a century, Baxter has been at the critical intersection of saving and sustaining lives, driven by innovation to transform global healthcare. With global operations in over 35 countries, Baxter put Kyriba to work to centralize visibility, develop global standardized cash management processes and centralize payments into one portal globally for tens of thousands of payments each month. “Our implementation of Kyriba has been a key driver in our digital global banking strategy. Digitizing our end-to-end banking environment through the Kyriba platform pushed the project forward and moved the needle.” Elizabeth Ecsy, Director Treasury Operations, Baxter Positive Outcomes with Kyriba 100 banks connected for instant global visibility 9 payment banks sending payments across 150 unique country/currency combinations 4000+ daily cash transactions monitored across 4 regions, uniquely using Kyriba’s cash position worksheets to view transactions categorized by payment and collection type

BASF creates chemisty for a sustainable future. They combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. “With Kyriba, we implemented a tool that helped us achieve visibility into our global currency risk and...

BASF creates chemisty for a sustainable future. They combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. “With Kyriba, we implemented a tool that helped us achieve visibility into our global currency risk and FX position with the touch of a button.” Roland Heisecke, Director Treasury Risk Management, BASF SE   The BASF Challenge BASF’s former FX Management process was based on a regional, decentralized approach to exposure reporting and risk transfer to HQ, making it nearly impossible for treasury to accurately calculate and mitigate FX risk on a global perspective. Identifying the Right Solution Kyriba Risk Management provided BASF with the opportunity to implement a streamlined, automated and universal FX management process across every region. An Automated FX Risk Transfer (ART) tool was also developed to analyze the FX risk positions of BASF’s subsidiaries and automatically generate hedge deals to transfer risk from the entity to HQ. Measuring Success » Significant reduction of manual effort » Increased transparency - daily updated overview of FX risks » Aggregation of FX risks reduced hedging costs  

Technology platform is key to support rapid growth in the PRC The Challenge Statements of more than 130 bank accounts required manual download from excel. The cash account types had to be manually marked...

Technology platform is key to support rapid growth in the PRC The Challenge Statements of more than 130 bank accounts required manual download from excel. The cash account types had to be manually marked on bank transactions details. It took 15 days to convert a cash flow report and the accuracy of the reports varied based on human coding errors. Cash management was fragmented and there was no cash planning with a lack of visibility on the global cash position. "By mastering cash flow trends of each business unit and combining actual business needs, we now have intelligent cash forecasting and variance analysis data to equip the team to maintain stable cash flow." An Shuang Head of Treasury Aihuishou International Co Ltd   The Solution The company determined it needed to invest in its treasury team, improve its processes and implement a modern treasury solution. Initial requirements included the ability to centralise all bank accounts onto a single platform to reduce manual errors, gain time and efficiency, and the ability to improve cash management with real-time visibility of cash positions and balances and support expanding business overseas. Best Practice and Innovation The team required real-time, accurate data reporting for cash forecasting and positioning. Partnering with Kyriba empowered the team with a centralised cash management solution that delivered a daily cash report with regional and group level analyses. ESG is crucial to Aihuishou as it has two main businesses – mobile phone recycling and recycling of recyclable waste of residential life, which have made great contributions to environmental protection in China and around the world. Faced with the challenge from investors of financing ESG programmes with heavy fixed assets investment (CNY1bn), the treasury team solved this problem with lease financing. It reduced the big investment on fixed assets and strengthened their business and financial structure at the same time. Aihuishou has taken giant steps in the PRC with its technology platform partner. Its next step is to connect network payments (eg Alipay, WeChat payments and other third-party payments) to the platform to enable a large amount of transaction funds out of bank accounts into the payments hub to gain more financial control, advanced fraud protection and intelligent management of payments. While bottom line value is clearly a priority for Aihuishou, evidenced by the valuation the market placed on its initial public offering (IPO), the treasury team also prioritises ESG as a function of their treasury culture and ambition to build value across the enterprise. "Kyriba is very happy to congratulate our client, Aihuishou International Company, for being recognised as a best in class treasury solution in the People’s Republic of China. Kyriba is honoured to support Aihuishou’s global treasury operations and help modernise their cash, liquidity and treasury processes. By centralising visibility and optimising liquidity, the Aihuishou team has transformed into a world class treasury and is an example for others to follow, as treasury improves visibility, controls and productivity to unlock liquidity and drive business value across their organisations. Congratulations to the entire Aihuishou treasury team on your success.” Bob Stark Global Head of Market Strategy Kyriba   200+ domestic and overseas bank accounts centralised and managed on the platform, enabling real-time visibility into daily cash positions and balances. 400% improvement in cash flow reporting time from 15 to three days. Stabilised cash flow from intelligent cash forecasting and analyses that generated multiple ‘what if’ cash flow scenarios. Secured six months of cash stability with reliable cash positioning – gained valuable recognition from investors and capital markets. A fair, transparent, and secure supply chain finance (SCF) system has been established to support the enterprise’s vast e-business. CNY1bn reduction of fixed assets through a financial leasing method to support the enterprise’s light internet business.  

“Kyriba provided a great tool that allowed us to delever nearly 30% just by knowing where our cash was, where it was needed, and getting it there in the most efficient manner, eliminating needless...

“Kyriba provided a great tool that allowed us to delever nearly 30% just by knowing where our cash was, where it was needed, and getting it there in the most efficient manner, eliminating needless borrowing. We are a very satisfied client. We utilize Kyriba every day. Kyriba is one of the easiest and most robust applications I have ever used.” Morty Mandel, Director of Finance Operating in over 25 countries, Bray International found themselves in spreadsheet chaos, with limited visibility into global cash positions, resulting in inefficient processes and needless borrowing. With Kyriba, they saw immediate deleverage results and value realization in global visibility and standardized forecasting, with significant gains in productivity. Before Kyriba Decentralized processes using multiple Excel spreadsheets Limited cash visibility resulting in needless borrowing. Non-standard cash forecasting Cumbersome and loss of confidentiality in payments Positive Outcomes with Kyriba Global and centralized visibility into cash positions Standardized cash forecasting Better utilization of cash to service debt Drastically reduced error rate Robust security and confidentiality Improved GL Reconciliation speed and accuracy Modules Implemented Cash Management Cash Forecasting Cash Accounting Financial Transactions Payments GL Reconciliation What’s Next Payment Factory FX Risk Management » 97% productivity gains in reconciliation processes » 30% deleverage even through Covid

“Where we have already seen a significant time-savings has been the payments module. In just a few months, having all the feeds into the system from various banks and ERPs, and automatically creating reports...

“Where we have already seen a significant time-savings has been the payments module. In just a few months, having all the feeds into the system from various banks and ERPs, and automatically creating reports and payments from those reports has shown incredible value to our organization. It has been night and day from where we were before.” Christopher Lynn, Cash Analyst   As Lifespace looks to grow their number of communities nationwide, while maintaining best practices and efficiencies in Treasury, Kyriba has been able to adapt to their scale and size, tailoring the modules to accommodate budget while creating value. Before Kyriba Excel-based Daily Funding Multiple reports from multiple different sources Main Drivers to Kyriba Instant visibility into cash positioning Automation of payments process Adaptability to the smaller enterprise Modules Implemented Payments Cash Accounting What’s Next Cash Forecasting Debt & Investment Automated Reconciliation

How one of America’s largest privately held companies put Kyriba technology to work to centralize Treasury functions and achieve strategic level maturity. In 2018, Koch Industries worked with Kyriba’s Value Engineering team to perform...

How one of America’s largest privately held companies put Kyriba technology to work to centralize Treasury functions and achieve strategic level maturity. In 2018, Koch Industries worked with Kyriba’s Value Engineering team to perform a process maturity assessment for their treasury and finance functions. What they uncovered was a definitive need for a TMS to assist in realigning and improving internal processes. Key Challenges Lack of real-time visibility across their global banking landscape. Excessive labor intensity and process disparity in cash management and payment workflows. Ad-hoc bank account management due to sheer volume of banks worldwide. Journey to Digital Transformation While Koch was structured to operate in an Excel environment, their needs had outgrown the limited tools and capabilities Excel offered. Post implementation of Kyriba, Koch Treasury was able to: Achieve 90% on-demand cash visibility into global cash balances, standardizing systematic workflows. Become a better partner for finance and increased collaboration across the organization with centralized information and reporting. Establish themselves as a strategic operation, with best practices in place for operational efficiencies. “Kyriba has enabled us to achieve 90% on-demand cash visibility which meets our needs for daily liquidity management. Having insight as to where cash is and what our balances are globally and in real time, is a HUGE benefit from Kyriba. We never came close to the level of accuracy and efficiency we have now.” Mark Waggoner, Assistant Treasurer at Koch Industries   Value Realization: Global Cash Visibility Prior to Kyriba, Koch’s entities operated independently when it came to cash management. When they made the strategic decision to bring all cash and bank management under one platform, they achieved full confidence in their daily cash positioning worldwide. They were also able to centralize treasury operations into one, global treasury team. “We now have a centralized tool that everyone uses globally to standardize how we manage cash and that has created efficiencies in our operating model.” Chris Mitchell, Treasury Director at Koch Industries   Modernizing Payment Processes The project wasn’t to simply push all payments to Kyriba. It was a true exercise in modernizing the entire Koch infrastructure while still controlling costs. Kyriba’s payment libraries and standardized workflows improved: Connectivity as a Service through bank formatting and management. Payment visibility through a payments hub. Multiple ERPs connected for seamless workflows. Financial security through better system access controls. “Our payment processes were pretty antiquated before this project. We saw the opportunity with Kyriba to bring those up to more modern standards. It gives us a good platform moving forward to continue to modernize our payment platforms.” Mark Waggoner, Assistant Treasurer at Koch Industries  

Enterprise Liquidity Management results in $490K value in less than 3 months Cenveo needed a way to improve visibility into overall liquidity and provide management on-demand insights into the performance of their strategic liquidity...

Enterprise Liquidity Management results in $490K value in less than 3 months Cenveo needed a way to improve visibility into overall liquidity and provide management on-demand insights into the performance of their strategic liquidity objectives. Their digital transformation in Enterprise Liquidity Management through Kyriba saw immediate, impactful results. Key Challenges Executive leadership needed reliable, real-time, actionable liquidity insights and on-demand scenario analysis. Disparate, labor intensive, and inconsistent treasury processes consumed 729 hours/month across a small team. Excessive labor intensity and process disparity in Cash Management, Cash Forecasting and Payment Workflows required more than seven hours a day to manage. Journey to Digital Transformation Consulting firm Clearsulting executed a wholistic evaluation of people, systems, and processes, highlighting the need for liquidity management software. Once the requirements were understood, Clearsulting helped improve the invoice approval and payment process, optimized cash forecasting and cash accounting processes, and led the implementation of Cenveo's Kyriba solutions. Cenveo leveraged Kyriba Value Engineering’s Collaborative Value Assessment (CVA) to help evaluate what to change, why change it, and why now. “Kyriba’s Enterprise Liquidity Management platform achieved the CFO’s objective or reliable timely liquidity insights and enabled my team’s transformation from tactical to strategic business partner.” Benjamin Seal, VP Treasury   Value Realization: 657 Hours Per Month The Value Realization Assessment (VRA) enabled Cenveo to provide the current state review post Kyriba deployment, resulting in 90% productivity improvement, including but not limited to: Cash Management: 100% real-time liquidity visibility, 95 hours per month productivity gain. Cash Forecasting: 43% liquidity forecast accuracy improvement, 113 hours per month productivity gain. Liquidity Payment Optimization: Increases in data integrity and workflow controls ensured no loss of discounts, 137 hours per month productivity gain. “The most critical step in our solution evaluation process included leveraging Kyriba’s Value Engineering service that helped us document what we need, why we need it, and why now is the time to execute.” Benjamin Seal, VP Treasury   Cenveo & Kyriba: Strategic Business Partnership Supply Chain Financing: Evaluating upside potential of $17.7M in cash flow benefit. Business Interruption Claims: Beginning the process of filing for an estimated $1M benefit.

Swile set its sights on becoming a global player in employee engagement using a fully virtual solution. To achieve this goal, Swile offers a single smartcard to access all employee benefits (meal vouchers, gift...

Swile set its sights on becoming a global player in employee engagement using a fully virtual solution. To achieve this goal, Swile offers a single smartcard to access all employee benefits (meal vouchers, gift vouchers and coming soon, a sustainable mobility voucher) using an app to measure, manage, and impact employee engagement. In less than three years, Swile has acquired 13,000 corporate customers of all sizes and more than 400,000 cardholders, i.e., more than 10% of the entire market, based on its DNA — focusing on the human and social aspects. A business that uses Swile Swile's treasury management model is unique. Swile holds cash for third parties. Doing so requires segregating cash into accounts and categorizing it so that the treasury team can monitor and manage it accurately. “Controlling cash is key for all businesses, but this is even truer for a business that holds money for third parties. We must be able to control and categorize flows so we can accurately determine what does and doesn't belong to us. Using the Kyriba Cash and Payment modules, we categorize flows accurately,” says Frédéric Chabrol, Swile’s VP Finance. "Kyriba's disruptive story mirrors ours. We have the same DNA. I really appreciated the customized support we received when we were evaluating Kyriba and then the implementation support from Absys Cyborg’s treasury management consultants. This project has a lot of human aspects and that was incredible." Frédéric Chabrol, Swile’s VP Finance   The CNTR, the French meal vouchers agency, audits Swile monthly. To comply with regulations, Swile must be able to accurately explain cash flow. If volumes grow by leaps and bounds, specialized technical expertise is required to provide insight into those changes. “In a way, we are a medium-sized business, but we specialize in the issues of large businesses,” explains Romain Giraudeau, Swile’s Cash Manager. In 2019, Swile’s CFO embarked on a process to pick a treasury management solution to keep up with the company’s hypergrowth and manage its cash: “We wanted to bring on board a sufficiently robust solution to manage our growth outside of France and be able to pinpoint the company’s treasury in a centralized manner. Uploading bank statements is one thing, but managing payments is crucial, especially in Brazil, the largest meal voucher market globally," Chabrol points out. Alongside the project, the CFO decided to hire a Cash Manager. “I’ve been using the Kyriba solution since its inception. I practically learned treasury management using it, starting with my internship and until now. When I first started at Swile, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were using this solution. It has clearly passed the test of time. When you pick Kyriba, you can't go wrong,” Giraudeau tells us. "The various solutions offered by mainstream banks did not meet the company’s challenges. By contrast, the Kyriba solution met my expectations but could prove too costly. I was lucky that Kyriba understood our needs and approached us in the right way with a proposal that allowed us to use the solution." Frédéric Chabrol, Swile’s VP Finance   A choice that meets Swile's technological and HR ambitions Swile settled on Kyriba’s treasury management solution due to its ability to handle the company’s complex transactions. The treasury teams at Kyriba and Absys Cyborg instilled Swile with confidence because both offered hands-on approaches. “Kyriba's disruptive story mirrors ours. We have the same DNA. I really appreciated the customized support we received when we were evaluating Kyriba and then the implementation support from Absys Cyborg’s treasury management consultants. This project has a lot of human aspects and that was incredible,” Chabrol confides. The Swile project began in the first quarter of 2020. Although Kyriba is often mistakenly thought of as a solution for large businesses only, Swile understood that its solution must address the company’s ambitions. It had to enable the CFO to manage Swile’s hyper growth and follow the roadmap drawn up by senior management. For Chabrol, “The various solutions offered by mainstream banks did not rise up to meet the company’s challenges. By contrast, the Kyriba solution met my expectations but could prove too costly. I was lucky that Kyriba understood our needs and approached us in the right way with a proposal that allowed us to use the solution.” The CFO also had to factor in a heavily regulated environment in which internal controls and protections against fraud and money laundering are ever present. “By just clicking on a button, you can view cash flow, track flows and comply with regulations. Everything is simpler when you have great visibility,” Chabrol adds. “Our core business is controlling our cash and cash burn. The treasury solution is a core building block and by automating it from end to end, we can achieve total financial control.” The SaaS model (Software-as-a-Service) also played a major role by providing real, instant advantages when the project went live in April 2020. According to Giraudeau: “These days working with SaaS is the obvious choice and security is not really an issue. First, I trust Kyriba to manage security in its entirety. Further, how confidential can figures on a bank statement be? It is instant availability that is crucial. I was very happy during the Covid-19 health emergency to be able to log in remotely and access all the data.” Boosting the HR link across the globe Swile's CFO was closely involved in the treasury management project from the selection process up to implementation: “All CFOs should follow this process and make it fit in with a company’s strategy. The solution is simple enough to log in to check a company’s health daily,” Giraudeau asserts. Swile has implemented effective and efficient processes to take full advantage of the solution. But more than anything, the solution has the ability to reinvent itself, depending on current trends and the company’s strategy: “After France, we focused on Brazil, the industry’s leading market. Currently, we are focusing on Mexico and on Europe overall,” Chabrol affirms. Eventually, Swile would like to set up localized treasury to work across various time zones, manage regulations, and market specificities while continuing to conduct centralized management from headquarters. Chabrol concludes: “In the end, the first international connectivity project was implemented in a country in which bank regulation and communication are not as straightforward as in Europe. We had to be pioneers and stay as up to date as possible. “As we expand into other countries, Swile is going to enhance the solution’s features to keep up with the company’s ambitions. This involves setting up a Shared Services center and a Payment Factory. At the same time, the CFO would like to improve the dashboard to be increasingly connected and automated and adopt emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence for forecasting.” ABOUT SWILE Swile is a fintech started up in February 2018 by Loïc Soubeyrand. It has already raised €115 million since inception. Swile offers a single smartcard to access all employee benefits (meal vouchers, gift vouchers, etc.) with an app to measure, manage, and impact employee engagement daily. The company has a workforce of 400, 13,000 corporate customers, and 400,000 users.

What were Mantrac’s objectives? Mantrac Group’s treasury structure was highly complex and dependent on manual processes. Visibility over cash was limited, particularly as the group was using almost 100 banks, with over 700 bank...

What were Mantrac’s objectives? Mantrac Group’s treasury structure was highly complex and dependent on manual processes. Visibility over cash was limited, particularly as the group was using almost 100 banks, with over 700 bank accounts across 13 countries. The lack of visibility meant cash was not always held in the most suitable accounts, creating inefficiencies when paying down debt. And the use of almost 50 e-banking systems resulted in control risks, as well as operational challenges. To tackle these challenges, Group Treasurer Roshun Tulkens, shortly after he joined the Group, embarked on a six-month exercise to interview and research potential providers, while consolidating the company’s bank relationships. While multiple banks were still needed in complex markets like Egypt, Nigeria and Iraq, the team was able to reduce its banking relationships to less than 20 banks and 300 bank accounts – resulting in an impressive $1.6m cost saving via bank fee reductions. "We wanted to be able to sleep better at night by having the controls in place to mitigate potential fraud." Roshun TulkensGroup Treasurer, Mantrac Group Why did Mantrac choose Kyriba?Tulkens looked at eight different systems to find the best fit for Mantrac’s needs. One consideration was the need for a system that could provide the right support in challenging markets. “A lot of TMSs are focused on Europe and North America,” says Tulkens. “We wanted a provider that could help us in complicated markets like Africa, Iraq and Russia – and we also wanted a system that was strong on payments.” Another consideration was that the new TMS would be used by teams representing 30 different companies. It was therefore important to choose an intuitive system that could be used by local finance people. Other considerations included cost and the proposed implementation time. Based on these criteria, Mantrac selected Kyriba as its TMS provider. "If we hadn’t completed phase one before the crisis, the situation would have been much more challenging. If you have to log into multiple e-banking systems or call banks to work out how much money you’ve got, there is not going to be a lot of time for strategic decision-making." Roshun TulkensGroup Treasurer, Mantrac Group What was the implementation experience?The implementation was structured into two phases: the first focused on cash management, forecasting, reporting and accounting, while the second focused on payments and valuations. With over 140 people using the system, training was an important consideration, and had to be delivered across different time zones and in different languages. While the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis brought some challenges – such as the transition to remote working and the need for wet signatures – the second phase was completed successfully, with training and testing carried out remotely. What benefits did Mantrac realize?One major benefit is the visibility that has been achieved – not just over cash, but also over payments and pricing. “Before the implementaion, I did not have visibility over the volume of payments we were making from each of our banks, the volume of collections coming into each bank and the bank charges we were paying,” says Tulkens. Connectivity with other systems such as the procurement database and ERP system has not only improved security controls, but also eliminated the need for manual intervention. Other benefits include the ability to forecast and mitigate fraud risk more effectively, as well as lower FX costs. In total, the TMS has generated added value of $800,000 per annum by enabling the company to harness process efficiencies and time savings, switch to cheaper electronic payments and pay down debt using excess cash. What is next for Mantrac Treasury?Looking forward, the team won’t be resting on its laurels. “There will be some further bank consolidation, particularly in some of the more challenging jurisdictions,” says Tulkens. “We are also expanding into two new countries.” At the same time, the team will continue to streamline processes, as well as incorporating some recent acquisitions into the system. And with Mantrac’s five-year digital plan underway, other topics could include looking at the value of machine learning in the context of cash forecasting, as well as potentially integrating the TMS with a new ERP system.

The first major corporate purchase of the Bitcoin in October 2020 began a string of subsequent Bitcoin purchases in 2021, including recent purchases by Square and Tesla. Crypto (digital) currencies have shown to be...

The first major corporate purchase of the Bitcoin in October 2020 began a string of subsequent Bitcoin purchases in 2021, including recent purchases by Square and Tesla. Crypto (digital) currencies have shown to be elusive, unpredictable, and potentially, lucrative. According to a recent survey, at least 70% of surveyed CFOs are closely watching others in the market, deciding if they will invest in crypto currency - 5% of these CFOs are planning to buy this year.

Visibility Challenges Şişecam’s international growth over the past few decades meant the company had a fragmented approach to cash management. While treasury handled strategic decisions such as borrowing, individual subsidiaries within the group handled...

Visibility Challenges Şişecam’s international growth over the past few decades meant the company had a fragmented approach to cash management. While treasury handled strategic decisions such as borrowing, individual subsidiaries within the group handled their own payment operations and managed their cash using their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Treasury provided guidance to subsidiaries on how they should manage their cash. However, Şişecam lacked a centralized reporting system that could provide real-time visibility over cash balances globally and indicate whether guidance was being followed. Reporting tended to take place on a monthly basis, with individual subsidiaries reporting at the end of the month. As a result, treasury had to follow complex, labor-intensive and time-consuming processes to gain group-wide visibility over cash. "The biggest benefit with Kyriba is that you have one platform from which you can manage your bank operations for all your companies across the world." Baris Gokalp Treasury and Finance Director Şişecam   Payment Issues In addition, Şişecam’s payment processes were inefficient. While it was sending payment files to its banks via file transfer protocol (FTP), it followed these up with written instructions sent by fax and email. If a key signatory was unavailable, a payment could be held up by several hours until the signature was collected. Typically, it took between 30 and 60 minutes to execute a payment. Furthermore, not all payment orders were created via ERPs, which made it difficult to monitor and track payables. Quantitative Results 1000 bank account statements delivered daily 15 minutes the maximum end-to-end time it takes to make a payment Three-year history of transactional banking data One-week onboarding period for new companies and banking partners 10 country operations using Kyriba   Search for a Solution In its search for a treasury management system (TMS), Şişecam specifically looked for a vendor that met the following criteria: A good reputation in the market – and the ability to provide global customer references Supplier of a cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that could integrate with different ERP and banking systems, while supporting the payment formats of different countries Provision of a fraud detection system A focus on security and security certifications Extensive experience with large-scale TMS implementations for other global businesses A strong relationship with SAP – Şişecam’s main ERP system – and the ability to integrate with other ERP systems outside of SAP Kyriba met all of these criteria. Its TMS would also enable Şişecam to quickly onboard new ERP systems and banking partners as the group made acquisitions. Business Transformation The implementation of Kyriba has given Şişecam complete visibility over its cash and totally transformed how it manages its payments. It now receives SWIFT MT940 end-of-day bank account statements through its Kyriba TMS, which means it has an up-to-date view of its cash positions. It can also access transactional data with its banks stretching back three years. Furthermore, all payment orders have to be raised via Şişecam’s ERP systems, heightening the group’s control over the payment process. If there is no record of a payment order in an ERP system, that payment will not be made. Once an order has been raised on an ERP system, a payment file is created directly within Kyriba. Signatories can log in to the system to approve payments quickly and easily, using multi-factor authentication security. Şişecam’s banks are also able to rapidly highlight formatting errors and raise queries about specific payments. The time it takes to execute a payment has fallen to between eight and 15 minutes. Kyriba’s digital approval processes proved a real benefit when Şişecam’s staff were asked to work from home due to COVID-19. Signatories were able to approve payments remotely, which eradicated the health risks associated with handling hard-copy documents. Fraud Detection In addition to the Kyriba Payments Network’s general payments module, Şişecam implemented the fraud detection module to raise alerts around suspicious payments – for example, alerting the first payment to a new supplier or a payment to a regular supplier that is significantly larger than usual. Besides picking up on changes to IBANs of the suppliers, the system checks if the company or country is sanction listed or not. When the system identifies a suspicious payment, it requires additional checks to be made. As a result, Şişecam can prevent fraud in real time, rather than just respond to fraudulent activities that have already taken place. Next Steps Going forward, Şişecam plans to use Kyriba to offer a supply chain finance service. At present, the company follows manual processes when agreeing on the discounting terms and making payments to suppliers in certain markets. With a digital process, all the suppliers of Şişecam will have the ability to monitor and discount their receivables from Şişecam Group Companies Worldwide. It also plans to integrate Kyriba’s cash forecasting module and foreign exchange management product into its program. A Positive Experience Şişecam found the process of implementing Kyriba easy, with go-live happening relatively quickly. Employees are very impressed with the system, which they find easy-to-use. Significantly, Şişecam has benefited from Kyriba’s accumulated knowledge and experience of working with numerous customers around the world. For example, Kyriba has already established extensive connections with banks in different countries. It is also aware of processes that different companies use to facilitate safer payments or reduce the risk of fraud. The recent COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the value of Kyriba being a SaaS solution and its ability to support and foster business continuity. Kyriba manages the disaster recovery process for its TMS, and as payment files are created and stored on the system, they can be easily recovered.

Emblem Health won the 2020 Kyriba Excellence Award for Innovation. Hear directly from the team as they describe the catalyst behind their move to innovate and how they handle cash accounting and protect against...

Emblem Health won the 2020 Kyriba Excellence Award for Innovation. Hear directly from the team as they describe the catalyst behind their move to innovate and how they handle cash accounting and protect against payment fraud today.

Bridge Investment Group won the 2020 Kyriba Excellence Award for Digital Transformation. Hear from the company's executive chairman, CEO, managing director-treasurer and other members of the team as they take you through the challenges...

Bridge Investment Group won the 2020 Kyriba Excellence Award for Digital Transformation. Hear from the company's executive chairman, CEO, managing director-treasurer and other members of the team as they take you through the challenges their growing company faced, their process for finding a solution and what their plans are for the future of their treasury program.

The continued growth and global nature of Amway’s business presented many positives, but it also created challenges for the treasury function. Amway’s operations spanned more than 80 markets, but more than 200 local banks...

The continued growth and global nature of Amway’s business presented many positives, but it also created challenges for the treasury function. Amway’s operations spanned more than 80 markets, but more than 200 local banks were used for cash management and 50 banks initiated and transmitted payments. Maintaining bank connectivity with source systems was taxing and the treasury team recognized that a transformation of the global payments process was required to scale to growing business needs. The key challenges that drove treasury to this conclusion included: A lack of transparency into global payments Inconsistent payment controls across countries Inefficient alignment of payments to shared services operations Increased risk of unauthorized and fraudulent payments Numerous banking connections needed for source systems To remedy the issues, Amway established a list of goals for the payments transformation process and chose Kyriba as its treasury management system (TMS) and designed an entirely new global payments workflow, including a technology roadmap that outlined the need for a best of- breed payments platform. "We have standardized what were once fragmented, global payment processes across multiple ERPs, enabling automation, stronger controls and better visibility.” Janice Minter Senior Treasury Analyst Amway Amway’s initiative to transform the way it managed global payments was no small feat. The centralization of payments to three regional shared service centers was a significant shift away from local expertise and siloed payments. Local bank portals and processes were replaced with payments technology from Kyriba and the number of banks used for payments were cut in half. Amway was able to drive cost savings and operational efficiencies through overhauling their payments process. In recognition of its efforts, Amway won the 2019 Silver Alexander Hamilton Award in Working Capital and Payments.

In transitioning from legacy and largely manual processes for hedging foreign exchange (FX) risk management, the treasury department of Trane Technologies sought greater visibility and quantification of its exposures. This involved partnering with a...

In transitioning from legacy and largely manual processes for hedging foreign exchange (FX) risk management, the treasury department of Trane Technologies sought greater visibility and quantification of its exposures. This involved partnering with a dedicated technology provider and adoption of a centrally-led FX management strategy. "Kyriba resolves our immediate FX risk management limitations and allows us to develop best in class solutions." Chris DonohoeAssistant Group Treasurer, Having previously suffered an inability to determine key factors impacting FX exposure in real-time, analysis was reactive rather than proactive; numerous ERP systems with varying capabilities made analysis complicated, cumbersome and directional in nature, so hedging was limited only to known exposures such as intercompany loans; and consolidation tools provided functional currency or USD transparency, without transactional currency details. To address these gaps and translate exposure management into meaningful analysis that adds value to the business, Trane Technologies turned to FiREapps, now a Kyriba company. "We now have have the ability to work with our entities on specific projects and to implement business solutions rather than simply providing high-level FX hedging." Chris DonohoeAssistant Group Treasurer, Net Asset Position by Currency — to map and detail net asset exposure by asset category, legal entity, SBU, region and enterprise Map FX Accounting — to cross check for FX bookings in relation to P&L, CTA and cash flow reporting Hedge Determination — to determine Value at Risk (VaR) analysis for all hedging programs and portfolio risk optimisation to determine most efficient strategies Advanced Reporting — to explain sources of noise in the FX results and provide dashboard reporting on balance sheet hedging effectiveness Thanks to working with Kyriba for the past two years, Chris and his team are now able to cite quantitative and qualitative benefits beyond expectation, the most impressive of which is achieving 97 percent realtime visibility of group FX exposure. Most note-worthy is the global reduction of risk by an excess of 50 percent over 12 months based on the VaR quantification, which is immense for a company of this size and stature. “We in treasury have evolved into a true strategic partner to the business rather than just a corporate function,” explains Chris. “We now have have the ability to work with our entities on specific projects and to implement business solutions rather than simply providing high-level FX hedging.” Chris also notes an increased engagement from the business, resulting from awareness training and a more detailed outline of exposures. Global group risk quantification and trend analysis by business unit and by currency and dashboard presentations for business and board perspectives are also clear strategic benefits. Some Examples of the New Global Net Asset Exposure Quantification Process NB: figures and currency pairs not actual - for example purposes only

Five years ago, its corporate treasury team initiated a journey from corporate policy maker towards a strategic and pro-active corporate treasury department. With a centralized operations team as part of a new organisational set-up....

Five years ago, its corporate treasury team initiated a journey from corporate policy maker towards a strategic and pro-active corporate treasury department. With a centralized operations team as part of a new organisational set-up. The purpose of this change was to gain global insight and control of the company’s cash and support the basic treasury functions in the shared service centers. The first step was the implementation of a centralized payments hub that supported the standardization of the global payments processes. After one of the main cash management banks announced its termination of the global cash management services, the corporate treasury team realized that if they wanted to initiate change and achieve the envisioned results, each team member needed to have a focus. A dedicated treasury operations team was created to include a treasury project manager and treasury systems manager. Also key in the foundation of this transformation was the development of a dedicated treasury-owned IT strategy that set clear guidelines for the selection of new systems. Choosing cloud solutions was particularly important in future-proofing the treasury operations, in order to reduce overall dependence on internal IT, and always have an up-to-date version in order to improve speed of decision-making. “We now have the tools to further optimize our cash flows and processes, quickly and efficiently. We can provide better internal insight and authority to our stakeholders and because of the automation we have more time for strategic thinking.” Jeroen Brieffies Group Treasurer Royal FrieslandCampina   This setup kick-started acceleration towards an optimal global payment and collection process that would become more time and cost efficient and less error-prone using an efficient and lean IT infrastructure. Project Everest, as it was named, was born in 2017 to realise these objectives. After careful consultation by the main stakeholders, the project plan was mapped out with four camps to reach the summit. 1) Intercompany Netting: The shared service teams spent a lot of time on correcting errors with intercompany invoices. The settlement of internal payments were processed on a gross basis via external bank accounts. In 2017, corporate treasury selected Coprocess as their global netting tool for matching, discussing and monthly netting. The netting of one million invoices per year is now a continuous process, which releases the pressure of month-end processing by the shared service centers and reduces the transaction charges by 100,000 euros per year. The largest savings though are gained via the realized process optimization. 2) In-house Banking: To provide a basis to further reduce external payments and move away from notional pooling, an in-house bank system was selected and implemented in 2018. During the selection process Kyriba provided FrieslandCampina with an opportunity not only to set up a solid in-house bank, but also to update and integrate the TMS functionality within one solution. The total solution was implemented in six months and went live at the end of 2018, with full treasury functionality and an in-house bank. After the conversion of notional pools to zero balancing pools, the in-house bank has over 180 accounts, and a balance of 3.7 billion euros. The first cashless payments of intercompany interest, FX, and netting are booked via the in-house bank, and the number of external bank accounts is reduced by 50. 3) Payment Factory: With the in-house bank in place the last step on the route to the summit is the implementation of a payment factory. With the use of virtual accounts, FrieslandCampina wants to further reduce the number of bank accounts and gain control of outgoing and incoming cash flows. A pilot has been started in 2019 with multiple banks. 4) Beyond the Summit: FrieslandCampina is continuously looking at digital optimization, and using the efficient set up of the treasury operations team to achieve objectives. Next on the agenda is the implementation of Kyriba’s FX risk management module (formerly FiREapps), to automate FX trading and centrally calculate and monitor FX exposure. RPA (Robotic Process Automation) will also be implemented to further reduce manual steps in the treasury and netting processes. Thanks to the focus the team now has on operational excellence, the project Everest has so far been delivered on time, with integrated processes, without interruption to the business, within budget, and beyond expectation. “We are so proud of the digital transformation journey initiated by treasury,” says group treasurer Jeroen Brieffeis, project manager of Everest. “We now have the tools to further optimize our cash flows and processes, quickly and efficiently. We can provide better internal insight and authority to our stakeholders and because of the automation we have more time for strategic thinking.”

FrieslandCampina has branch offices in 34 countries and employs around 23,000 people. It is not a listed company, but a cooperative, in which the member dairy farmers in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium fully...

FrieslandCampina has branch offices in 34 countries and employs around 23,000 people. It is not a listed company, but a cooperative, in which the member dairy farmers in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium fully own the company. “We therefore operate a bit differently from listed multinationals,” says Jeroen Brieffies, Head of Treasury Operations at Royal FrieslandCampina. “We have an ‘owners mindset’, with a clear culture focused on farmers products.” Complex organization Brieffies returned to the Netherlands around five years ago, after being stationed in Switzerland. “At that time, we wanted to benchmark our treasury organization and asked Zanders to do a strategic analysis for us. It appeared that we performed very well on funding and on risk management but were lacking in support towards the operational side of the business. We then started a journey from being a corporate policy maker towards a strategic and pro-active corporate treasury department with a centralized operations team as part of a new organizational setup.” “Before we started this project, we had a lot of intercompany flows. Everybody was sending invoices to each other and at the end of the month we had to see if it all matched well. But now, instead of waiting until the end of the month, we have a continuous process and some dedicated people in intercompany teams are working on that. With the Kyriba tool we’re able to centralize all cash, which makes it much easier to do our day-to-day cash management. We paid the bank for having an in-house bank and there was a notional cash pool. If you have a system to take care of that, it makes many things a lot easier and is cost-saving too.” Jeroen Brieffies Head of Treasury Operations Royal FrieslandCampina   During this period, a lot of things started to move at FrieslandCampina. The organization had already started a project called Summit, to standardize all SAP instances within the whole company, which required all entities to comply to these standards. At the same time, financial shared service centers (FSSCs) were being set up, in which all payments, collections and other administrative activities were centralized. The rise of these new developments led to the idea of setting up a treasury operations department within corporate treasury. This would support the business more in its daily operations, and ensure treasury could standardize the payment and collections processes. The first step towards the support of the FSSCs was the implementation of TIS as a payment hub. Because of his time in Switzerland, Brieffies came up with the project name Jungfrau – one of the famous mountain tops in the Alps. That mountain can now be reached easily, after a complex building process of a railway – making it an appropriate metaphor for the difficult process you have to go through in order to create more efficiency in the end. Everest project The new developments and objectives led to the start of a project named ‘Everest’. Brieffies explains: “the implementation of TIS kickstarted an acceleration towards an optimal global payment and collection process that would take less time, be less erroneous and less costly, using an efficient and lean IT infrastructure–and that’s why we called this next big step project Everest.” “We first decided to set up some workshops with FSSC’s, finance & reporting, tax and corporate legal, to point out the challenges we had in this process,” Brieffies continues. It then turned out that the whole internal process offered challenges too. “As a dairy company we are like an oil refinery; milk comes in and we make all kinds of components that we use for several products. So, both logistically and financially we have to make sure that all this follows the correct route. We therefore decided to start with the intercompany netting first. Then we’d have a solid base metaphorically called ‘Base camp’; a standardized ERP-system, FSSCs to centralize our payments and collections, and a payment tool. And once we have intercompany netting, we want to move up to an inhouse bank to take care of all the internal payments.” Corporate treasury selected Coprocess as their global netting tool provider for matching, dispute resolution, and monthly netting of around one million intercompany invoices a year. On top of that, FrieslandCampina is currently looking at the opportunity to set up a payments and collections factory, to do its payments and collections ‘on behalf of’ (POBO and COBO). “The challenge in that is mostly the collections,” says Zanders consultant Bart Timmerman. “You can direct payments yourself, butit’s not certain on what account clients will do their payment and what references they use, if any. So, reconciliation of incoming payments is in that sense a big challenge.” A dedicated project manager Due to this reconciliation challenge, Brieffies hired Zanders for support. “We asked Zanders to draft a blueprint and to support us in the implementation of the Kyriba tool we selected as our new treasury management system. When we set up treasury operations and started with TIS as our payment hub, we noticed that we had a tool within our FSSCs, but we needed manpower in corporate treasury to support it. The corporate treasury team realized that if they really wanted to make a change and get the envisioned results, each team member needed to have focus.” A dedicated treasury operations team was created, which included a cash and currency manager, a treasury systems manager and a treasury project manager. Next to the new team setup, another major foundation to this transformation was the development of a treasury IT strategy that set some clear guidelines for the selection of new systems. Choosing cloud solutions was particularly important in future-proofing the treasury operations. This allowed treasury to reduce overall dependence on internal IT, and always have an up-to-date version in order to improve speed and decisiveness. “A project like Everest could not have been realized without a dedicated project manager,” Brieffies notes. “My colleague Marije Siebenga filled in that role and was the driving force behind this project. And at the end we could elevate it all up to a higher level.” “Project management was one of the key success factors of this project,” says Zanders’ Timmerman. “It was very clear what direction the company wanted to go, what system it needed to get there and what Zanders’ and Kyriba’s roles were.” Nick Clare, responsible for Kyriba’s European channel sales agrees: “All issues were sorted out quickly, mostly because FrieslandCampina’s Treasury was very vendor-savvy. They always took full ownership of the solution. That’s a role model.” Having everyone involved This proactive approach from FrieslandCampina’s treasury even saw it, together with Kyriba, being nominated for the EuroFinance digital transformation award. “The scale of the company is vast and very complex with hundreds of entities, so it’s commendable what its treasury has done,” says Kyriba’s Clare. “Friesland-Campina now has a platform that they can scale.” Guided by the blueprint, FrieslandCampina implemented the new system itself. And that’s a role model for how system implementation should be done, according to Timmerman: “At the end, the company needs to adopt and know the system. So, after teaching them the tricks, it’s better for our clients to work with the system themselves.” This is a sentiment that Brieffies agrees with: “All users had to get used to the system which sometimes resulted in a critical stance, but now that their processes are automated, they are very enthusiastic and supportive. In these kinds of projects, it’s important to have everyone involved, like the back-office team, finance and IT. They need to support your solution–that’s often underestimated.” Mutual dependency Using a treasury solution like Kyriba should lead to improved efficiencies and the benefits of having fewer repetitive tasks. This is something that applies to the rest of the business too, thanks to Project Everest. “Before we started this project, we had a lot of intercompany flows,” Brieffies says. “Everybody was sending invoices to each other and at the end of the month we had to see if it all matched well. But now, instead of waiting until the end of the month, we have a continuous process and some dedicated people in intercompany teams are working on that. With the Kyriba tool we’re able to centralize all cash, which makes it much easier to do our day-to-day cash management. We paid the bank for having an in-house bank and there was a notional cash pool. If you have a system to take care of that, it makes many things a lot easier and is cost-saving too.” This is the reason FrieslandCampina has its own treasury system manager connecting all systems within the company to the treasury system. “There is now a mutual dependency,” continues Brieffies. “In the past, treasury was dependent on the business delivering information, but now it’s also the other way around. The business wants to know its in-house balance.” Next steps In terms of treasury maturity, one of FrieslandCampina’s goals was to undergo a transformation. “We did our strategic benchmarking in 2015 and made a road map for the coming years,” Brieffies explains. “But now we would like to see what progress we have made and where we are compared to peer corporate treasuries.” “It’s good to do a treasury scan regularly, because treasury technology is changing fast and peers are developing too,” comments Zanders’ Timmerman. “So – using the metaphor – after a few years the mountain tops will be higher.” Brieffies is now working with his department on a pilot to set up virtual bank accounts. “We see that as a necessity to have the COBO in place. We need to reconcile what we received for selling specific dairy product, such as yoghurt, cheese or ingredients, in order to provide the correct management information.”

A Fragmented View In 2010, Wanhua began the process of upgrading its finance technology. At the time, it relied on numerous e-banking solutions, which was not only inefficient but resulted in the business having...

A Fragmented View In 2010, Wanhua began the process of upgrading its finance technology. At the time, it relied on numerous e-banking solutions, which was not only inefficient but resulted in the business having an incomplete record of its payment transactions. Meanwhile, the growth in its overseas business highlighted some shortcomings in group-wide treasury management. As a result, Wanhua wanted to adopt a treasury solution that would serve to unify its domestic and international operations. "By optimizing, integrating and automating our systems to achieve the end-to-end processing of domestic and international payments, we have laid the foundation or the eventual consolidation of all financial data across the group. The solution has also helped Wanhua to more easily adapt to unpredictable economic changes, meet global regulatory standards and support China’s globalization strategy with a view to overseas expansion.” Zhang Shoujun General Manager, Finance Department Wanhua Chemical Group   Unifying International Operations Finance IT Manager Feng Yongjin wanted to deploy a treasury management solution that would enable Wanhua to enhance and “futureproof” its ‘super e-banking’ capabilities. The solution, which needed to be expandable and scalable, had to provide an automated, centralized and global view of the company’s financial position. This would allow the company to improve internal security and controls, and reduce the risk of payment fraud. The solution also needed to enable intelligent processing in order to improve customer and supplier satisfaction. Establish transaction data maintenance requirements for each overseas entity and create a processing template that was in line with corporate business standards. Achieve global data integration with all of the company’s supplier banks with the objective to meet current and future language and policy requirements of each entity. Build a globally-unified processing platform for automated, smart payment routing based on big data analysis from international bank accounts. Supporting Overseas Payments During the implementation process, Wanhua fully mobilized the global resources of Kyriba and its partner banks. It undertook manual inspections, as well as multiple rounds and combinations of stresstesting. Kyriba designed standard payment templates to meet Wanhua’s current and future business needs and established a standard for the maintenance of transaction data. Kyriba’s cloud-based treasury management solution integrates data from Wanhua’s enterprise resource planning system with data provided by its supplier banks. As a result, the solution supports Wanhua’s banking activities, including international and Chinese wire transfers, electronic acceptances, e-commerce business, letters of credit and different payment types. Additionally, Wanhua was able to automate 98 percent of its payments and cut their accounting entries in half thanks to the streamlined settlement and accounting rules brought on by Kyriba that adhere to the requirements of each local jurisdiction. Intelligence and Visibility With the help of Kyriba, Wanhua Chemical Group has established a global data standard for its supplier banks, achieved integrated and automated payments processing, and connected 13 overseas banks in five countries. The company has also been able to unify and standardize payment templates, reduce the cost and extent of manual operations, and gain greater intelligence and visibility in terms of global treasury management.

The Need for Accessible Supply Chain Finance Funding has historically been an issue for small and medium-sized suppliers of research services in the preclinical outsourcing sector. These companies are often forced to accept 120-day...

The Need for Accessible Supply Chain Finance Funding has historically been an issue for small and medium-sized suppliers of research services in the preclinical outsourcing sector. These companies are often forced to accept 120-day payment terms, which are set by large pharmaceutical organizations. As a result, suppliers struggle to access the necessary funding that would allow them to bid for projects in competition with larger rivals. Quantitative Results $4M Early Payments to suppliers in the first six months of the program 50% Reduction of the procurement process lifecycle 95% of Payments made on time $45.5K Revenue earned in three months 130% Increase in suppliers’ gross merchandise value 24.3% Increase in volume of purchase orders (PO) issued to suppliers 60-day reduction in payment terms 75.5% GMV average supplier gross merchandise volume (GMV) growth rate Unifying International Operations   "Finance is the heart of an organization. If there are limitations or constraints, you cut off the oxygen, or energy, to fuel the operational functionality of the organization – new innovation, R&D and day-to-day operations." Kris Kagan, Senior Vice President of Finance/HR Scientist.com   While major pharmaceutical companies do utilize supply chain finance (SCF) programs, they are often not accessible to smaller suppliers. For example, a program may only onboard suppliers that complete millions of dollars in spend. And even if suppliers meet this criterion, the onboarding process can then take months to complete and prove expensive for the program provider since large suppliers tend to have high operational costs. SciPay

The Kimberly-Clark Challenge Kimberly-Clark’s former approach to managing currency exposure was highly manual and lacked standardization. Despite using a daily FX rate many entities had different processes and logic for defining FX exposure and...

The Kimberly-Clark Challenge Kimberly-Clark’s former approach to managing currency exposure was highly manual and lacked standardization. Despite using a daily FX rate many entities had different processes and logic for defining FX exposure and managed it on a monthly basis, which led to unwanted FX gains and losses in other income and expenses (OI&E). MEASURING SUCCESS Standardized and automated the company’s exposure definition across four instances of SAP Improved monitoring and oversight of affiliate balance sheet exposure management programs Implemented a data driven bottoms-up analysis of actuals vs. expected FX gain/loss impacts to OI&E   Identifying the Right Solution Kimberly-Clark implemented Kyriba’s FX Balance Sheet solution to automatically capture exposure data from its various ERP instances on a daily basis, providing an accurate, complete and timely picture of the company’s currency exposures. The new solution enables treasury to perform comprehensive exposure analysis by entity and provides drill-down capability for monitoring of day-over-day changes and variances.

As a micro-finance institution, Grameen needed a solution that brought reconciliation and forecasting all into one place. In working with Kyriba, Grameen's treasury team automated their processes and has been able to leverage valid...

As a micro-finance institution, Grameen needed a solution that brought reconciliation and forecasting all into one place. In working with Kyriba, Grameen's treasury team automated their processes and has been able to leverage valid data for timely reporting while also utilizing Kyriba's payments module for enhanced cash visibility and control.

As a fast-growing company, Scientist.com was on the lookout for treasury technologies they felt could scale with the size of their business. After selecting Kyriba, Scientist.com was able to realize that goal and work...

As a fast-growing company, Scientist.com was on the lookout for treasury technologies they felt could scale with the size of their business. After selecting Kyriba, Scientist.com was able to realize that goal and work with Kyriba as a strategic partner to streamline accounts payable and supply chain finance, as well as provide their own clients with an early payment program.

Crown World Mobility in Hong Kong, DTOne in Singapore and Tan Chong Motor Holdings in Kuala Lumpur have partnered with Kyriba for treasury transformation.

Crown World Mobility in Hong Kong, DTOne in Singapore and Tan Chong Motor Holdings in Kuala Lumpur have partnered with Kyriba for treasury transformation.

What is the value of Kyriba to your organization? Trish Fisher, director treasury operations, WeWork, shares the top benefits of Kyriba, and how Kyriba powers digital transformation with real-time visibility at WeWork to bring...

What is the value of Kyriba to your organization? Trish Fisher, director treasury operations, WeWork, shares the top benefits of Kyriba, and how Kyriba powers digital transformation with real-time visibility at WeWork to bring their treasury to the next level.

Treasury and finance professionals from top companies share their customer service experience with Kyriba and detail the growth and innovations they have seen in response to customer feedback.

Treasury and finance professionals from top companies share their customer service experience with Kyriba and detail the growth and innovations they have seen in response to customer feedback.

Kyriba customers share the benefits they’ve experienced using Kyriba, including the ease-of-use, real-time visibility into cash, automation of formerly manual tasks, and enhanced security.

Kyriba customers share the benefits they’ve experienced using Kyriba, including the ease-of-use, real-time visibility into cash, automation of formerly manual tasks, and enhanced security.

Among the key reasons why EmblemHealth chose Kyriba was the cloudbase. That was just huge for us. And the fact that there's no IT intervention that was another huge plus during all the different...

Among the key reasons why EmblemHealth chose Kyriba was the cloudbase. That was just huge for us. And the fact that there's no IT intervention that was another huge plus during all the different phases of the different modules that wanted to implement.

Treasury was very manual. We were losing a lot of time every day doing the same functions over and over and getting the same data out of the bank. By implementing Kyriba we've streamlined...

Treasury was very manual. We were losing a lot of time every day doing the same functions over and over and getting the same data out of the bank. By implementing Kyriba we've streamlined a lot of our processes. We have added value to our department and company.

By investing in technology, Health Care Service Corporation perfected its cash visibility and reduced working capital holdings by $3.95 billion. Escaping the drudgery of manual processes, the treasury team was equipped to deliver advanced...

By investing in technology, Health Care Service Corporation perfected its cash visibility and reduced working capital holdings by $3.95 billion. Escaping the drudgery of manual processes, the treasury team was equipped to deliver advanced decision support to internal clients and provide financial consultation on strategic projects. Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) is the fourth largest health insurer in the US, with revenues of $62 billion. A mutually owned company, it has 16 million health plan members, 20,000 employees and more than 30 operating subsidiaries. The treasury team, which consists of 41 people, is responsible for managing 14 bank relationships and more than 200 bank accounts. It also oversees $12 billion in cash management and investment assets, as well as $120 billion of cash transactions on an annual basis. "Create a vision of how treasury should work at your organization. Find the right technology and banking partners to deliver best practice." David Deranek, Director, Enterprise Treasury Operations Health Care Service Corporation Three drivers for change The convergence of three major drivers earlier this decade provided an opportunity to transform HCSC’s treasury operations. These factors included 1) the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which had a significant impact on the company’s liquidity and planning, 2) a desire to centralize treasury, bringing together treasury functions from different subsidiaries, and 3) the demand for treasury to act as a strategic consultant to the CFO and other business leaders. An internal review highlighted several cultural and operational challenges that were preventing HCSC’s treasury from becoming more strategic. These included: • An understaffed department dealing with heavy workloads • Manual, inefficient processes for key functions • A reputation for being a heads down, process-oriented department Quantitative Results $3.95B Reduction in working capital holdings 100% Cash visibility $140M Increase in long term investments Treasury-led transformation With a requirement to become more strategic, HCSC’s treasury team embarked on a transformation program that had specific objectives. Initially, it sought to enhance global cash visibility, improve controls, and increase global team productivity. It also wanted to develop a comprehensive business continuity plan, as well as coordinate all treasury operations through a centralized platform. To achieve its objectives, the team would need the support of a cloud-based treasury management system (TMS) with integrated solutions on a single platform. HCSC’s treasury team selected and implemented Kyriba on the basis that it could deliver integrated cloud capabilities for cash, forecasting, payments and reporting, supported by robust global bank connectivity. Through automation and better decision support, the treasury team could create focus on strategic initiatives and consult with business partners. Meeting strategic objectives Since it embarked on its transformation program, with Kyriba as a catalyst, HCSC’s treasury has successfully met its objectives. It has achieved 100 percent global visibility, including automated cash positioning, as well as reconciling, accounting and reporting. Better forecasting has enabled the team to reduce Tier 1 working capital balances from $4 billion to $50 million bands. Thanks to Kyriba, it can make more strategic investment decisions earlier in the day, resulting in a 5 percent increase in investment returns (short-term returns have grown by $40 million, while long-term returns have increased by $140 million). HCSC has also achieved annual cost savings of $2.4 million in bank fees, established a secure business continuity plan, and automated numerous treasury operations. Industry recognition David Deranek, Director of Enterprise Treasury Operations at HCSC, now regularly consults with treasurers who are looking to embark on their own digital transformation programs and embed automation and continual process improvement into their treasury culture. He advises other treasurers to “create a vision of how treasury should work at your organization. Find the right technology and banking partners to deliver best practices.”

With 34 affiliate companies working in 20 different currencies, Ola Energy’s 105 banking partners are responsible for more than 400,000 transactions per year. So it’s not surprising that Ola Energy Group Treasurer Abdessalem Lassoued...

With 34 affiliate companies working in 20 different currencies, Ola Energy’s 105 banking partners are responsible for more than 400,000 transactions per year. So it’s not surprising that Ola Energy Group Treasurer Abdessalem Lassoued was facing some challenges before deploying a cloud treasury solution. Lassoued sat down with Kyriba to explain more. What were the main issues you faced when you joined Ola Energy in 2015? Abdessalem: The main issue was a lack of consolidated cash visibility. The treasury function was very decentralized and cash positions, forecasting and reconciliation were done manually on spreadsheets based on downloads from various online banking portals and in some cases hard copy bank statements. This meant we rarely managed to obtain a view of our daily cash positions until late morning or early afternoon. Not being able to see real time, group-wide cash positions led to a lack of accuracy in the data we worked with, a lack of reliable variance analysis and as a result, an inability to measure the effectiveness of our analytics. As a result, we also had no real view of our short-term liquidity risk or FX exposure. "Overall, we expect to optimize operational efficiency by 80 percent, while reducing operational costs by around 20 percent, with the expectation that these metrics will improve over time." Abdessalem LassouedGroup Treasurer, Ola Energy So what impact were these issues having on the business? Abdessalem: Working with spreadsheets, we suffered operational inefficiencies through the time-consuming additional workload. We were also more susceptible to making mistakes. However, the biggest impact was undoubtedly on the quality of the data, which by the time it was compiled, was out of date and therefore meant that decision-making was based on inaccuracies. Are you able to quantify the cost to the business of suffering these challenges? Abdessalem: It is hard to quantify in terms of value, but the cost of making decisions based on inaccurate data is immeasurable. It led to losses from bad investment decisions, it meant we were under-funded for meeting debt commitments and were left looking for urgent financing solutions, and therefore also vulnerable to additional and unforeseen bank fees. The time constraints and lack of information also meant we were unable to negotiate favorable financing conditions. This all led to a general feeling of disruption and instability in the business. So in 2016 you decided you needed to invest in a treasury management solution; did you face any internal resistance or trouble gaining approval from your CFO? Abdessalem: No, I made sure I was equipped with all the information to support the need for a TMS. I created a detailed business case based on the challenges and losses we’d experienced, with quantifiable return on investment and tangible business benefits. I also tried to propose a realistic budget that could be offset by the potential future losses of not implementing a system. In addition, my previous positive experience of implementing Kyriba enabled me to provide quantifiable data showing the significant cost of not using a TMS and accurately forecasting the expected savings. What advice would you give to other corporates considering the proposed investment of a TMS? Abdessalem: In addition to a business case, I believe it’s very important to create a detailed project charter including: project planning, schedules, detailed organization of project teams and committees, roles and responsibilities, communication chart, identification of eventual risks and anticipation of back-up plans, and change management impacts. Why did you choose Kyriba following a thorough market evaluation? Abdessalem: Our selection of a TMS was based holistically on the ability to optimize our treasury function rather than on specific features and functions. We evaluated three key areas: 1) time, efficiency and financial gains; 2) risk mitigation, fraud protection and compliance; and 3) return on investment. With that said, Kyriba perfectly met our technical requirements in terms of cash management, reconciliation, reporting and risk management. Being a cloud-based solution, which was appropriate given our limited internal IT resources and complex geographical structure, we knew the solution could be accessed by users in multiple locations rolling up to provide me with a real-time centralized view of our cash positions across the group. You’ve been using Kyriba now for nearly a year, can you provide some feedback on quantifiable results and benefits seen so far? Abdessalem: Finalization of the project is still in progress so it’s difficult to quantify the results at this stage. But I have no doubt we will have improved visibility of cash thanks to the data on demand. We will have a reliable cash forecasting process upon which to base our decisions, as well as more timely view of any liquidity and FX risk exposures. We will also have full control over our bank charges and our trade finance management, and full visibility of the intercompany cash flows. Our cash calls of the affiliates will be fully automated and dematerialized. Overall, we expect to optimize operational efficiency by 80 percent, while reducing operational costs by around 20 percent, with the expectation that these metrics will improve over time.

Following the rigorous selection process, TCMH chose Kyriba for cash management, cash forecasting, risk management and bank connectivity using SWIFT Alliance Lite2 for Business Applications. The combined solution suite was deemed the best fit...

Following the rigorous selection process, TCMH chose Kyriba for cash management, cash forecasting, risk management and bank connectivity using SWIFT Alliance Lite2 for Business Applications. The combined solution suite was deemed the best fit for digitizing its treasury function and adding strategic value to the organization. Diversification and decentralization exposes the business Synonymous with brands such as Nissan, Infiniti and Renault, the diversification of the group’s business over the years now extends well beyond the entire automotive spectrum of assembly and manufacturing, sales and distribution, servicing and maintenance, finance and leasing, insurance, education and recruitment. The added complexities of managing multiple global entities through strategic partnerships in travel and tourism, apparel, energy and heavy machinery has led, not only to rapid growth, but to extensive exposure to foreign exchange rate fluctuations. "The business operates in many different countries and across more than 100 different subsidiaries, it became impossible to maintain any degree of control over the group-wide liquidity." Wan Chun Shong, Group Treasurer Tan Chong Motor Holdings “It can be a daunting prospect for any treasury team to manage global operations,” said Wan Chun Shong, Group Treasurer at TCMH. “The business operates in many different countries and across more than 100 different subsidiaries, so it became impossible to maintain any degree of control over the group-wide liquidity. We have more than 600 bank accounts and have inherited nine different incumbent systems; we struggled with poorly managed internal resources logging into 15 different banking portals every day, with some accounts holding cash that we didn’t even know existed. This decentralized model resulted in time-consuming and error- prone manual processing, so we inevitably suffered from very poor visibility of cash.” Identifying objectives and planning to execute In 2016, it was decided that the advantages of bringing automation into the treasury operation and implementing standardized processes would facilitate more opportunity and position treasury as the strategic enabler of growth. A detailed assessment of the business requirements ensued, with a focus on a cost-benefit analysis, followed by a review of technology providers and their ability to meet functional needs. Though it was relatively simple to gain board-level approval, given the challenges faced, a full business case and market evaluation was undertaken, including a scrutinized review of vendor project management and implementation processes. “It is a common mistake to only focus on whether a provider can meet functional needs,” Wan said. “Everyone has different needs and objectives, and not one system fits them all. In reality, one of the biggest differentiators between providers is often in the delivery of the software, so it is imperative to set-out a detailed project plan in advance and to ensure that you have sufficient available resources and expertise on both sides.” "We required a secure cloud solution that would give us greater financial controls, greater visibility of cash, and secure our compliance obligations. We also needed world-class, extensive bank connectivity to optimize our treasury operations across ASEAN, and after exhaustive research, we found that Kyriba exceeded our requirements." Wan Chun Shong, Group Treasurer Tan Chong Motor Holdings Reconciliation time reduced by more than half Today, the business is starting to feel the benefit of having automated its treasury processes. TCMH is historically a conservative company and the team has been slow to transition away from the manual legacy of spreadsheets. However, the time savings are already immeasurable with the morning bank reconciliations being completed in less than half the original time of four hours, and with half the number of people. At least one week in every month is now more available to hone in on greater details of the business, using the time and added visibility, both current and future, to make better, more informed strategic decisions. There is also a much greater degree of transparency, not just in terms of visibility of cash, half of which no longer sits idle, but in providing a reliable audit trail and being able to meet regulatory requirements. What’s next? Once Wan is happy that his team has fully transitioned to Kyriba, the next item on his agenda is payments. Acting as a form of in-house bank to the group, Wan has initiated the use of e-payments internally, but extending that outside will be a big leap. “Malaysia is quite behind when it comes to online payments,” he explains, “since most companies still use cheques. This is something we will really need to address. TCMH is one of the country’s flagship companies. We are held up as an example to others, and we need to be at the forefront of Fintech. We will continue our strong partnership with Kyriba to help us achieve the government’s goal for all companies to stamp out checks by 2020.”

The Government of Sharjah embraces HSBC’s digital transaction banking solutions and Kyriba’s cloud-based Treasury Management System. In recognition of implementing the solution, Sharjah Finance Department Head, Sean De Silva, was awarded a Best in...

The Government of Sharjah embraces HSBC’s digital transaction banking solutions and Kyriba’s cloud-based Treasury Management System. In recognition of implementing the solution, Sharjah Finance Department Head, Sean De Silva, was awarded a Best in Class Treasury Solution in the Middle East award, at the 2018 Adam Smith awards ceremony. "Around 70% of transactions are now processed electronically and we have gained full visibility over our cash and financial transactions. Our processing times are significantly reduced and we have made significant operational cost savings, which have more than offset the implementation costs." Sean De Silva, Cash Management Section Head, Sharjah Finance Department Requirements SFD’s primary requirements were to obtain visibility over its cash positions across 250+ accounts with 16 banks; enhance financial controls; optimise liquidity management and control financial risk. The ultimate aim: to become more efficient and reduce the net cost of borrowing. It became clear that SFD needed to leverage technology to significantly automate operations and minimise reliance on the various manual processes that were in place to make payments and reconcile transactions in the General Ledger. In line with best practice suggested by the World Bank, SFD decided to implement a Single Treasury Account (STA) to manage cash in the most optimal manner. The project started with an exercise to gather requirements, map the various manual processes being undertaken and collate an inventory of all of the bank accounts held by the various departments and other entities. HSBC stepped in to work with SFD on a request for a proposal to choose a vendor that would provide a solution to meet its current and future requirements alongside HSBC’s digital banking products. After reviewing a number of Treasury Management System providers, SFD chose to work with Kyriba, a leading fintech company which supplies cloud-based treasury management tools. The solution Given the complexity of the requirements and the aim to achieve full automation, HSBC provided business process analysis as well as technical consulting to build a comprehensive, bespoke solution in partnership with Kyriba. Extensive collaboration with the project team from SFD, HSBC and Kyriba resulted in an innovative solution combining many products and services utilising cutting-edge technology. SFD has so far implemented HSBC’s digital banking platforms: HSBCnet for viewing its balances across banks and HSBC Connect, a host-to-host platform that provides secure connectivity between the bank, Kyriba and SFD. This has enabled SFD to receive consolidated electronic statements (MT940) from all of their banks and straight-through transaction processing capability fully integrated with the Kyriba platform. Justain Bateman, Regional Head of Client Integration at HSBC Middle East Ltd commented that "The lack of bilateral agreements between banks in the UAE necessitated an innovative solution to enable SFD to concentrate all of its funds from various banks into the STA at HSBC. In agreement with the Central Bank of the UAE we devised a solution using the recently implemented UAE Direct Debit system." "This now enables SFD to generate a same-day direct debit instruction to pull funds from accounts held at its other banks to HSBC." In collaboration with Kyriba, the direct debit and wire transfer file formats (XML ISO2022) were quickly developed and integrated into SFD's payment module. Kyriba also developed a unique process to automatically generate payment and collection instructions based on previous end-of-day balances from the MT940s and cash-flow forecasts minimising reliance on overdraft facilities and manual intervention. SFD’s Cash Management Section Head, Sean De Silva commented that "Around 70% of transactions are now processed electronically and we have gained full visibility over our cash and financial transactions. Our processing times are significantly reduced and we have made significant operational cost savings, which have more than offset the implementation costs". Future enhancements include full integration with SFD’s ERP to complete the automation of the reconciliation process, enhancements to the liquidity structure, automated cash-flow forecasting as well as the roll-out of the solution to other entities within the public sector of the Emirate. Through harnessing the power of emerging technology, SFD’s processes are now simpler, better and faster. ABOUT GOVERNMENT OF SHARJAH AND HSBC the Government of Sharjah’s relationship with HSBC in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) goes back more than 40 years. As the third largest of the Emirates, Sharjah contributes more than 7% to the overall GDP of the country. Sharjah Finance Department (SFD) is the Government entity responsible for most of the country's public sector finances. SFD wanted to strengthen the financial controls of the Government through the migration of payment and cash management activities from various departments into a centralised treasury team. HSBC Holdings is a British multinational banking and financial services holding company. It is the world's seventh-largest bank by total assets and the largest in Europe, with total assets of US$2.374 trillion (as of December 2016). It was established in its present form in London in 1991 by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. HSBC has around 3,900 offices in 67 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America, and around 38 million customers. As of 2014, it was the world's sixth-largest public company, according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine. "Harnessing the Power of Emerging Technology" originally appeared on HSBC, July 16, 2018.

Before deploying Kyriba, the treasury teams at Zahid Tractor and its subsidiaries were using a variety of paper-based records and spreadsheets to control the vast portfolio of treasury transactions within the group. This became...

Before deploying Kyriba, the treasury teams at Zahid Tractor and its subsidiaries were using a variety of paper-based records and spreadsheets to control the vast portfolio of treasury transactions within the group. This became untenable and it was decided back in 2013 to review the process with the aim of implementing a treasury management system (TMS). The project unfortunately fell by the wayside and was resurrected in 2015 when it became apparent that their enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform didn’t fulfill all the company’s requirements in terms of payments processing, bank reconciliation automation and transaction security. Zahid’s Financial Controller Nadeem Ahmed and Treasury Manager Sanjeewa Aduruge tell us more. "Having confidence in the security of the payment process was extremely important, and the fact that Kyriba manages the entire process without any third-party integration, was crucial." Nadeem Ahmed, Financial Controller Zahid Group Why did you select Kyriba? Nadeem: Following a rigorous selection process, we selected Kyriba two years ago based on two key determining factors: integral bank connectivity management and security. Having confidence in the security of the payment process was extremely important, and the fact that Kyriba manages the entire process without any third-party integration, was crucial. Menus, mapping, workflows and reporting were also all very favorable compared to the other vendors we investigated. Why was a cloud-based solution a priority for Zahid? Sanjeewa: Cost was the main consideration here. The benefit of a cloud solution is that there is no upfront investment in order to get set up. There is no need for any physical facility, no infrastructure, no additional security requirements and no ongoing maintenance costs. Kyriba charges an implementation fee and the monthly subscription fees but the bi-annual upgrades are taken care of automatically by them and there is no need for our internal IT department to get involved. We also found Kyriba to have a higher standard of security than some of the installed solutions. What is the geographic and functional scope of the implementation? Nadeem: As Zahid operates exclusively in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the scope of Kyriba doesn’t currently extend beyond this country. We are using Kyriba primarily for cash management and forecasting, deal capture of our financial transactions and payments processing. Integral to all of this is the bank connectivity. How would you describe your client services experience? Sanjeewa: Kyriba has a strong client support system with 24/7 coverage out of Dubai. Response to any queries is always very prompt and we have never faced any security issues or delays in terms of processing payments. Kyriba always informs us in advance of any system maintenance and upgrades. How would you describe the implementation process? Nadeem: The implementation project was on-time and on budget. Our project manager had a realistic time frame in which to complete the implementation and there were no delays. He was always monitoring and reviewing the status of the project and the technical consultants were knowledgeable and experienced. Quantitative Results 50% Drop in idle cash 53% Revenue gain 1% Earnings in short-term deposits What quantitative benefits can you cite as a result of using Kyriba? Nadeem: For the first time, we now have complete visibility of cash across the whole company. Cash collections in the different subsidiaries previously had to be pooled at head office to enable a centralized view of cash in order to make effective short-term investment decisions. Since using Kyriba, the amount of idle cash sitting in the subsidiaries has dropped by 50 percent and the amount of revenue gained from more efficient investments has grown by 53 percent. Our main objective with Kyriba was to ensure that our cash management operations are streamlined so that unnecessary overdrafts are avoided, payments and financial transactions are funded, and all excess cash is invested in the short-term money markets. We maintain a target balance and ensure that all balances in excess of the target are invested. We now earn a return of approximately one percent through short-term deposits due to the improved visibility of all cash balances and funds are accurately allocated back to the correct entity. Sanjeewa: In terms of operational gains, the segregation of duties is now in force for payments processing, meaning that no single employee has complete control of approvals, which in turn reduces errors and eliminates the risk of fraud. We now also benefit from reduced borrowing costs through more accurate identification of funding requirements, and have the ability to set up more reliable cash forecasts and variance analysis. The production time of cash and liquidity reports has also significantly decreased leading to more timely decision-making. Have there been any cultural changes to the business since using Kyriba? Corporate banking in Saudi Arabia is still very relationship based. The change in culture from relationship banking to online banking and the reliance on technology was initially quite challenging, but now everyone is used to it so there are no issues. That is the only shift which has taken a bit of adjustment. What’s next for the treasury team at Zahid Tractor and how does Kyriba contribute to that vision? We expect to integrate Kyriba with our new ERP system and automate all transaction postings and the entire bank reconciliation process. This will increase efficiency and accuracy of treasury functions. For the next stage, we will introduce Kyriba into other Zahid Group companies and transform the treasury department to a group treasury and enable corporate finance and group treasury functions.

French retail group Auchan uses reverse factoring to pay suppliers sooner without negative impact to working capital. After the global financial crisis, Auchan Group’s suppliers began asking whether their invoices could be paid sooner,...

French retail group Auchan uses reverse factoring to pay suppliers sooner without negative impact to working capital. After the global financial crisis, Auchan Group’s suppliers began asking whether their invoices could be paid sooner, as they were struggling to secure bank financing on acceptable terms. When some of these suppliers began to have difficulty fulfilling orders placed by Auchan, it was clear that action was needed. The group began exploring how reverse factoring programs could be used to pay suppliers faster and at favorable terms, without adversely affecting Auchan’s working capital. These programs would need to be supported by a supplier portal in order to keep suppliers informed about the status of their invoices. Auchan therefore decided to set up ASAP (Auchan Supplier Advanced Platform), a wholly owned subsidiary, which would provide the group’s entities with reverse factoring programs. Another goal of the project was to modernize the group’s payment methods, thereby improving security and reducing costs. "The feedback from suppliers that joined the program has been unanimously positive. We have met their expectations in terms of visibility, simplicity, transparency, independence and attractiveness." François Verrodde, CEO of ASAP, Auchan Group   Getting started Once management had given the project the green light, the company rapidly assembled the affected teams: purchasing, IT, legal and the financial department. “This was a company-wide project in response to highly strategic challenges,” said François Verrodde, CEO of ASAP and head of the Group's Reverse Factoring programs. “It was therefore important to have powerful sponsors within the company, and the involvement of all players.” Where technology was concerned, Auchan was looking for a bank-independent solution which could cover multiple laws, languages, banks, IT systems, repositories and currencies. “Only a solution independent from the banks, such as that offered by Kyriba, could natively integrate all of these requirements,” said Verrodde. He notes that the decision to adopt Kyriba’s platform was also driven by the need for a modern, flexible and customizable solution. The implementation began with a pilot phase incorporating four group entities and three banking partners. “We approved some of the decisions made, such as the financing arrangements offered to our suppliers,” said Verrodde. Thereafter, the focus was on onboarding as many suppliers as possible to the platform using a range of communication methods, from an e-mail campaign to in-person discussions at conventions. Quantitative Results 15,500 Suppliers Paticipating 5 Auchan group entities covered 47% Increase in financing requests. Dec. 2016-2017   Surpassing the original goals Three years after the project began, the program has already exceeded the company’s original goals with over 15,500 suppliers on the platform. ASAP currently tracks reverse factoring programs on behalf of five different group entities: Hypermarkets France, Supermarkets France, Auchan Poland, Auchan Romania and Auchan Portugal. Suppliers can use Kyriba’s portal to access information about the status of their invoices and can finance their invoices on attractive terms with a few clicks. “The feedback from suppliers that joined the program has been unanimously positive,” said Verrodde. “We have met their expectations in terms of visibility, simplicity, transparency, independence and attractiveness.” In some countries, the company has also been able to move from paper-based payments to electronic transfers. For other companies looking to adopt a similar program, Verrodde emphasizes the importance of working with multiple banks, adding this was “essential” to the success of Auchan’s project. He also notes the importance of addressing legal considerations thoroughly: “In our multinational environment, with its wide array of legislation, any legal impact must be approved by our internal teams, with the support of an outside firm that specializes in international finance.” Future plans Looking ahead, it is likely that the reverse factoring programs will be expanded into additional countries. “Our primary mission is to support the growth of Auchan Group, so naturally we will respond to requests from other countries that face significant challenges in this area,” said Verrodde. The company also hopes to develop existing tools further in order to provide greater agility and flexibility. Future developments could include the use of techniques such as purchase order-based financing or dynamic discounting. “Of course, we are working on these issues in close cooperation with our partner Kyriba, which has effectively supported us from the start of this project, and continues to provide us with appropriate solutions,” Verrodde concludes.

Graff Diamonds has been expanding its network of overseas stores since the first one opened in Monaco in 2000. It now has 45 of its own stores across Europe, Asia, the United States and...

Graff Diamonds has been expanding its network of overseas stores since the first one opened in Monaco in 2000. It now has 45 of its own stores across Europe, Asia, the United States and South Africa with 6 local finance teams whose core responsibility was originally to validate fund clearance for sales. Monthly accounting was always done on a cash rather than accrual basis with too many banks and multiple currency accounts for every entity across 15 different countries. With a new senior finance team in place in 2013, Graff had treasury-based aspirations to achieve solid monthly accrual accounting, better cash management and stronger controls and visibility with less reliance on spreadsheets. When he first came aboard in 2013, one of CFO Andrew Nicholson's first decisions was to implement Kyriba. The greatest value he now sees is the improved visibility and control. Here he tells us more about the benefits of a TMS from the C-level perspective. Why and how did you select Kyriba over other providers? When I joined Graff I made the decision almost immediately to deploy a TMS. We undertook a rigorous selection process and found that Kyriba best met both our current and expected needs without any unnecessary extra functionality. Of course, integration with our ERP was crucial, as was the centralisation and standardisation of cash and payments and the ability to drawdown and track credit facilities. In the end, the fact that Kyriba is a hosted web-based platform and could provide real-time access to consolidated bank reports was the real determining factor in my decision. The payments and connectivity functionality of Kyriba is particularly important. Can you explain why? It was simply unsustainable to continue logging into each individual e-banking platform in order to approve payments. Having rationalised our bank relationships and selected one leading local commercial bank in each country, it was then key for us that Kyriba could offer a single, consolidated point of access across all our bank accounts. We also needed the ability to set up payments, to define different payment types, to receive notification of pending approvals and we needed a robust security framework with dual-factor authentication and dual authorisation. "From one single, low maintenance and user-friendly platform, we have greater visibility of current and future cash positions, solid controls and less reliance on error prone spreadsheets." Andrew Nicholson CFO of Graff How do you measure the success of your Treasury operation? We don’t formally measure the success of our treasury and finance operation in terms of KPIs. What the owners do recognise is that with Kyriba we have shared visibility of accurate data coming from different sources into one format. From one single, low maintenance and user-friendly platform, we have greater visibility of current and future cash positions, solid controls and less reliance on error-prone spreadsheets. This in turn has led to improvements in operational efficiency, the ability to make more informed and strategic decisions and cost savings, which in turn is contributing to overall productivity and growth of the company. Quantitative Results 15 Countries of operation 11 Different currencies 5/1 Reduction in number of finance teams As CFO, what do you get out of a Treasury Management System? The main benefit I personally get from Kyriba is risk mitigation through much greater confidence in my treasury. I receive meaningful data to analyse, including automated standardised reports and accurate cash forecasts. I can also authorise transactions remotely. We can access real-time, centralised bank statements first thing in the morning. Finally, we can source and analyse historical data for bank queries and we have centralised and secure payments control. What is next for Graff Diamonds and Kyriba? Well, we have actually purchased some additional functionality that we have yet to start using for FX exposure management and GL reconciliation. I think the plan for 2018 is to focus on rolling these out and we are also exploring the adoption of Kyriba’s newly released Payments Fraud Detection module, which, considering our business is high value luxury-based retail, is critical in the current climate.

Crown required a secure, scalable and efficient solution that would enable them to offer an innovative and professional service to clients, reducing the nonproductive global mobility costs of delivering payments worldwide. Optimizing the Outsourced...

Crown required a secure, scalable and efficient solution that would enable them to offer an innovative and professional service to clients, reducing the nonproductive global mobility costs of delivering payments worldwide. Optimizing the Outsourced International Payments Process A rapidly expanding part of Crown’s service is outsourced expense payment and treasury solutions. When Crown World Mobility first offered this service it executed payments largely through manual processes based on spreadsheets and web-based electronic banking systems. This created a number of risks and compliance challenges and was insufficiently scalable in meeting client demand as well as the growing complexity of managing client funds across multiple geographies, currencies and payment products. Identifying the Right Solution Crown met with SWIFT and attended a workshop on cash and treasury management technology. It was decided that the payments and cash management team required a solution designed to support the needs of a payment factory, to align with how the function was developing. So in evaluating multiple vendors for security, scalability and efficiency gains, Crown also sought to implement a solution with a local presence in Hong Kong and without large technical overheads – Kyriba was deemed the only supplier to meet these needs and provide a truly cloud-based solution which met European data privacy storage compliance requirements. "Kyriba is integral to enabling us to become an entrepreneurial, automated treasury. We can confidently attribute a 2016 non-productive cost saving for our clients of over USD$1.7m." Matthew Crockett Director of Finance & Technology, Crown World Mobility Achieving the Vision, Measuring Success… The Crown World Mobility team first completed a pilot implementation for a single entity and has since rolled out the solution to three further clients. The most immediately tangible result was the reduction in time and resource required to execute payments. For example, the time taken to prepare, approve and transmit payments has dropped from 3-4 hours to 20 minutes; reconciliation has been reduced from 4 hours daily to around 30 minutes. Altogether the team has achieved a 20% productivity increase, saving 1 full-time headcount whilst improving quality and accuracy. Previously additional staff were required for each new client, whereas now they have the capacity to support both existing and additional clients without further recruitment. Quantitative Results 20% ~ Overall productivity increase 92% ~ Time savings on payments execution $1.7m ~ Non-productive client cost savings in 2016 65-95% ~ Cost savings on payments fees 88% ~ Time savings on payments reconciliation $80k ~ Payments cost savings for clients in 2016 There have also been notable improvements in control. As part of the Kyriba project, Crown implemented host-to-host connections with three payment banks, providing straight-through-processing of payments from initiation to transmission with no manual intervention required. Transaction controls, such as authentication and approval take place in Kyriba before release to the bank, without users requiring access to the banking system directly. Through the automatic selection and set-up of optimal payment methods predetermined by Kyriba, including SEPA and Global Disbursement ACH, Crown has been able to achieve payment cost savings exceeding USD$80k per year for its clients, reducing the cost of some payments by 65-95% without additional labour overheads. Moving Forward The Crown team will be exploring how the solution can support a wider range of services to customers, including funding linked to overdrafts. Kyriba is a strategic and essential platform on which to grow the business; It will continue to be a catalyst for further optimizing the payments and cash management processes, making better use of the data to create more sophisticated and informative business intelligence.

ILG is a recognized leader in the watchmaking market and an established player in the branded eyewear, jewelry and leather goods markets. The Swiss-based manufacturer and distributor has been optimizing its cash management and...

ILG is a recognized leader in the watchmaking market and an established player in the branded eyewear, jewelry and leather goods markets. The Swiss-based manufacturer and distributor has been optimizing its cash management and forecasting using Kyriba to achieve a consolidated view of its group-level cash positions. It has also benefited from Kyriba’s core strength in bank connectivity to enhance controls, reduce risk of fraud, and enable more strategic decision-making. Group Treasurer of ILG, Mr Hozefa Kapasi, talks us through the strategic decision to select Kyriba for use across the entire ILG Group. "The idea of having access to a mission-critical platform from any location, without any hardware investment and without the headache of upgrades, was key in our decision to choose a cloud-based solution." Hozefa Kapasi Group Treasurer of ILG   What factors initially drove the transformation project at International Luxury Group? Being a global organization with a distribution network spanning 90 countries, we had multiple channels in multiple geographies that gave rise to the need for operational and cash visibility optimization. As a result of our business model, most of our excess cash was sitting idle in one set of entities, while external cash commitments were placed with another set of entities. We needed a solution to help reconcile our total inflows and outflows, irrespective of its place of occurrence. Why did you select Kyriba, and when did you start using the platform? We selected Kyriba’s treasury management solution in July 2015 and went live in less than three months. Not only did it meet our functional and budgetary requirements, but we established a strong working relationship with the team in Dubai. The implementation went smoothly. Kyriba trained us well and we’ve required minimal technical help since going live. When we do require assistance, the client support team promptly addresses any issues. Kyriba has a strong brand reputation compared to its peers and having a local presence with an office in Dubai was a definite advantage. Enhanced Capabilities 90 Number of countries operating 9/5 Global banks with 5 users creating cash positions 16 16 entities and currencies Why was buying a cloud solution a priority for ILG? The idea of having access to a mission-critical platform from any location, without any hardware investment and without the headache of upgrades, was key in our decision to choose a cloud-based solution. Unlike on premise deployment, other than the implementation fee, you are not committing to a huge upfront expense without first experiencing the benefits of the application. What is the geographic scope of the Kyriba deployment? We have banks in the UAE, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Germany and the UK: some are large multi-nationals and others are local banks. We now have improved communication, with accurate and more relevant reporting for covenant management. Today, we are connected to nine banks through Kyriba and we have five users at ILG creating consolidated cash positions, current and future, from across 16 entities in multiple currencies including AED, USD, GBP, EUR, CHF, SEK, HKD and CNY. Using Kyriba to consolidate our FX exposure and hedge currency risk centrally has a direct and positive impact on our bottom line. What are the most notable benefits of using a treasury management solution? We now have a tool to centrally manage inter-dependent companies. We know where we are headed in terms of cash generation and EBITDA, where our working capital cycles need improvement and how much cash is realistically available. The benefit is most notable when we need to reduce our leverage without affecting any subsidiary’s working capital requirement. Overall, Kyriba is adding value through improved operational efficiency and productivity while reducing costs to drive growth.

In 2014, A. Schulman made the decision to embark on a global treasury transformation project to support the company’s evolving business needs in a rapidly changing market and regulatory environment. A. Schulman’s treasury team...

In 2014, A. Schulman made the decision to embark on a global treasury transformation project to support the company’s evolving business needs in a rapidly changing market and regulatory environment. A. Schulman’s treasury team worked with PwC to design a new framework that included centralizing treasury activities and reviewing every aspect of its business across technology, banking, liquidity and risk, to help achieve best-in-class processes and decision-making. Positioning treasury for success The aim of A. Schulman’s global transformation was not simply to replace its systems or processes, but to demonstrate best-in-class processes and controls, according to Nicolas Tusseau, Global In-House Bank Manager. The company therefore needed to determine whether it could achieve these objectives using existing infrastructure. The company issued a detailed request for proposal (RFP) to its existing treasury management system (TMS) provider and other leading vendors to ensure that it had the right capabilities to underpin current and future treasury needs. Following a rigorous evaluation, the company opted to replace its existing TMS with Kyriba for a variety of reasons. Kyriba is delivered on a software-as-aservice (SaaS) basis, which would simplify ongoing maintenance and upgrades, as well as streamline the introduction of new functionality, Tusseau said. A. Schulman was also impressed by Kyriba’s depth of expertise and presence in both the United States and Europe, and the company’s proven experience in working with partner banks it had already targeted as part of its transformation. From a functional perspective, the company recognized that a new TMS was instrumental in supporting a new treasury strategy to support best practices for cash and liquidity management, including using XML to exchange payment and account statement information with its banks, and CAMT.086 for bank services billing. It also wanted a single system across both cash and risk management, which needed to be intuitive, easy to use and cost effective. Furthermore, the company evaluated potential systems based not only on current needs, but also on the system’s flexibility, breadth and depth of capability to support future needs. Kyriba was able to support these requirements, giving the treasury team a high degree of confidence in being able to deliver on its transformation project. "Certainly the fact that Kyriba is an integrated platform for treasury, finance and service bureau solutions was a main factor driving our choice." Nicolas TusseauGlobal In-House Bank Manager, A. Schulman   Cash and liquidity management transformation As part of the project, A. Schulman reduced its cash management banks from around 30 globally to three partner banks: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi and JPMorgan Chase, each of which were connected to Kyriba for payments and account statement reporting using XML formats. By rationalizing its cash management banking panel, and streamlining the way that it communicated with these banks, A. Schulman achieved far better visibility and control over cash and risk, and was able to standardize and improve control over treasury processes. Not only was the company able to manage cash and risk with greater confidence, it was also able to respond quickly to changes in market conditions and group cash and risk positions. According to Tusseau, the company has around 124 bank accounts globally across three banks. It has also set up set up zero balancing in nine currencies in 15 countries with three partner banks, supported by a multi-currency notional pool. This is managed automatically in Kyriba, including posting to the relevant intercompany accounts, producing intercompany statements for each business unit, allocating intercompany interest and withholding tax, and last but not least, automatically sending and posting treasury-related accounting entries to its ERP. This has been a major step toward becoming a ‘smart treasury’ – leveraging technology to reduce manual processing and introduce intelligent automation wherever possible. Project outcomes and benefits A. Schulman’s treasury transformation project, including the implementation of Kyriba, has resulted in significant benefits. By improving efficiency and automation, it has made substantial time and resource savings. Cash pools and in-house banking has enabled the company to reduce bank charges, lower borrowing costs and achieve tax efficiencies. In summary, A. Schulman captured $91M of cash within its in-house bank, closed 84 external bank accounts and decreased total bank systems from 28 to three globally. Overall, A. Schulman has calculated these savings to be $2.5M per year. In addition, by implementing cash pooling together with an in-house bank and multilateral netting process using Kyriba, it has reduced the number of physical transfers between entities and replaced them with intercompany flows, reducing intercompany payments by $500M per year, while also eliminating associated banking (wires and FX hedging) costs. These cost efficiencies are not restricted to treasury. Thanks to the general ledger postings automated within Kyriba, A. Schulman’s shared service center has generated efficiencies amounting to 1-1.5 full time equivalents. Sharing experiences A. Schulman’s initial system implementation took around six months to complete, including cash pooling, and has continued to expand its use of the system ever since. As a $2.5B group operating globally, with a high level of complexity, the company has sophisticated and diverse treasury requirements, but lacks the resources of larger corporations. By implementing Kyriba, A. Schulman has been able to achieve a greater level of sophistication, depth and scalability in its treasury operations, but with lower cost and resource overheads. Tusseau said Kyriba has also proved adaptable to specific needs, such as modifying XML formats to meet individual banks’ requirements, and supporting local payment formats in countries such as Romania, Poland and Hungary.

Large private research university rethinks its treasury approach to increase efficiency and protect against loss Note: the client in this case study could not be publicly named per university policy, but the assistant treasurer...

Large private research university rethinks its treasury approach to increase efficiency and protect against loss Note: the client in this case study could not be publicly named per university policy, but the assistant treasurer agreed to share their success story anonymously. The client is an iconic private university in the Northeast with more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students in a dozen major cities around the globe. The university has a multi-billion-dollar endowment and is closely associated with a famous medical center. To operate at peak efficiency, the university needs to have the highest standards for security, compliance and efficiency to properly manage its global cash flows and meet its obligations. "Financial controls are incredibly important in locking down the treasury function against fraudulent activity. Kyriba makes us much more secure and efficient, so we can meet our obligations and help drive global growth." — Large Private University Assistant Treasurer   Overdependence on Traditional Processes To maintain these high standards, the university’s assistant treasurer knew he needed to make some key changes when he first arrived on campus. At the time, the treasury staff relied on two traditional staples—spreadsheets and bank portals—to chart their daily cash positions across multiple global banks. Treasury members spent several hours each morning on this task, which was not only inefficient, but created operational risk in the form of potential manual errors and “key person risk,” where only one or two people could understand the department’s massive spreadsheets. Cloud-Based Simplification As a former management consultant, the assistant treasurer knew all about processes and procedures, as well as the importance of technology in the modern workforce. But which technology could deliver the best results? He knew he wanted a simple, easy-to-use cloud-based solution that could solve multiple activities at once and help him run a more efficient and secure organization. After conducting an extensive RFP review and talking to peers, the treasurer selected Kyriba based on its simplified approach, ability to centralize operations globally, and depth of integrated capabilities that could grow with the department’s needs. He also liked Kyriba’s strong presence in the education market, including clients such as the University of Notre Dame, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and many more. Quantitative Results 5x Estimated reduction in operational risk 2x Increase in treasury productivity $65k Annual bank fee savings Boosting Efficiency, Reducing Operational Risk The university deployed several Kyriba modules within a matter of months: Cash Management, Cash Forecasting and Bank Fee Analysis (BFA). The cloud-based platform for managing cash was an immediate success, enabling treasury staffers to quickly automate the collection of their daily positions each morning across more than 4 global banks. This boosted efficiency by at least 2X, helping contribute to more timely and accurate cash forecasts, while enabling team members to spend more time on strategic initiatives and variance analysis. In addition, the university is now well positioned to take on the treasury functions of two campuses overseas because of the ability to centralize operations into a single cloud application. Meanwhile, the bank fee analysis capabilities enabled treasury to easily pinpoint and eliminate redundant bank services, saving about $65,000 per year in fees. The biggest payoff, however, came in the form of reduced operational risk and improved business continuity planning. Through cloud-based automation and robust controls, the university was able to mitigate the potential for manual errors, minimize the threat of key person risk, and dramatically improve fraud detection and prevention. Information is automatically backed up to reduce the risk of data loss and the university is using Kyriba’s multi-factor authentication and IP filtering functionalities to strengthen controls over access to the system. Overall, through the use of technology and smart processes, the assistant treasurer estimates the university has reduced operational risk by at least 5X, while providing greater peace of mind to senior leadership.

Consumer goods company, Newell Brands, has leveraged technology to complete a major treasury modernization project. In 2016, Newell Rubbermaid purchased Jarden Corporation to form a new $16 billion consumer goods company, Newell Brands. While...

Consumer goods company, Newell Brands, has leveraged technology to complete a major treasury modernization project. In 2016, Newell Rubbermaid purchased Jarden Corporation to form a new $16 billion consumer goods company, Newell Brands. While the deal brought considerable business benefits, it also resulted in a number of challenges where treasury was concerned. Need to innovate Before the acquisition, both teams spent a lot of time on manual processes—so opportunities to undertake value adding activities were limited. Newell’s treasury had under-invested in technology, which meant that the combined team had to take on numerous additional tasks without increasing headcount. Spreadsheets were being used for daily cash management, giving the company limited global cash visibility. Daily cash positions were manual and took two employees over 20 hours per week to complete, while global cash reporting was only available once a month. Automation was also needed where hedging was concerned. Despite large FX transaction net losses, process inefficiencies meant the company had not implemented a balance sheet hedging program and was only hedging one-off intercompany loans. A standalone software solution was used to manage cash flow hedges, but this lacked automation. "Gathering and assimilating data was the biggest challenge–and that is where we are seeing the greatest benefits." Amit Singh SVP & Treasurer Newell Brands   Seeking a solution It was clear that technology and automation was essential if the treasury team was to achieve its goal of becoming more strategic and unlocking value for the organization. Following the acquisition, Newell’s newly appointed SVP and Treasurer, Amit Singh, put a plan in place to integrate and modernize the combined treasury organization. Crucial to Singh’s plans was the introduction of a cloud-based treasury management solution (TMS) and currency analytics solution that could automate manual tasks, mitigate risk and free up time for strategic data analysis. Following a formal RFP process, Kyriba was chosen as the TMS for cash and liquidity management, payment management, bank connectivity, hedge accounting and interest rate derivatives. Newell also selected a cloud-based currency management platform, FiREapps, for its data collection, exposure consolidation, currency analysis and reporting and hedge recommendations. The company also relied on trading support from FXall, which was integrated with the Kyriba and FiREapps solution in order to automate the hedging process. The benefits The project resulted in a complete treasury transformation. The new process pulls data from 38 legacy ERP systems and 25 different business units. As a result of the treasury management automation, modernized workflow, and more timely and accurate cash forecasting, the size of the balance sheet hedging program has grown from $800M in 2015 to $2B in 2016. The biggest benefit was the massive reduction of P&L noise due to the new workflow efficiencies from Kyriba, FiREapps and FXall, which reduced FX transaction net losses from $90M between 2013-2015 down to $2M in 2016. Quantitative Results 95% cash visibility $25M+ reduction in FX transaction net losses per year $120K technology cost savings 38 Legacy ERP systems included $1.3M Reduction in trading fees 4 Cash processing hours saved per day   Also, with the implementation of the robust hedge accounting and trading solution, Newell realized $1.3M in trading savings with the FiREapps and FXall integration. Treasury processes overall have become considerably more efficient, with an automated workflow freeing up more time for value-adding activities. Cash visibility has increased from under 50 percent to 95 percent, while the consolidation of technology platforms has also resulted in savings of $120,000 per year. In addition to the existing benefits, the project lays the groundwork for future improvements. These could include adding in-house banking and currency netting functionalities in Kyriba, as well as expanding cash flow exposure forecasting processes in FiREapps. Celebrating teamwork The project has completely modernized Newell’s treasury processes—an achievement that Singh attributes to two factors. The first is the use of innovative technology. The second is the support of a dedicated and ambitious in-house treasury team, undeterred by the upheaval of a significant merger. “It is one thing to have ideas, but quite another to implement them,” Singh said. “I am fortunate to have a team that believed in the merits of technology in the treasury arena, and that worked so hard to put these solutions in place.”

Innovation - Sound Treasury Management In alignment with the company’s truly innovative approach to technology, and in support of the challenges associated with managing the exponential growth of a world class digital music service,...

Innovation - Sound Treasury Management In alignment with the company’s truly innovative approach to technology, and in support of the challenges associated with managing the exponential growth of a world class digital music service, Spotify’s treasury team planned an ambitious transformation project in 2014 centered around the Kyriba platform. It started with a review and rationalisation of the company’s banking relationships. Project visionary Johan Bergqvist’s strategy to select and work with a core number of banks was totally unconventional and yielded significant returns on relationships and time. Instead of a traditional RFP for banking services, Spotify with support from an external consultancy firm, analysed data to identify which banks that in earlier RFP processes had won in the areas that were relevant for Spotify. These banks were invited to a collaborative workshop to learn about the business and to discuss Spotify’s strategic requirements and how the bank and its products could support those needs. Once the banks understood Spotify’s business and pain points they could dedicate their time to analyse how they could remove operational friction, instead of answering a five page questionnaire of things someone else already vetted. Once selected, it was imperative from the outset for Spotify to maximise global bank connectivity and scalability with the utmost efficiency. The innovative and strategic leadership from Bergqvist looked to Software-as-a-Service models to accommodate the fast-paced growth of his own Saas music product. The transformation project was then initiated following Spotify’s decision to join the SWIFT network. "Our goal was to create a solution oriented and agile treasury to support short and long term business expansion. As a small team, we needed a secure, robust and scalable solution that integrated well with our systems, and although innovation comes from both internal drive and external collaboration, we found that among other technology partners, Kyriba was best aligned to support our needs." Johan Bergqvist, VP, Corporate Finance & Treasury, Spotify Collaboration - Sharing the Vision Key to successful deployment was the collaborative approach of a dynamic team who understood the vision and shared a common goal. Delivery of the broad scope within a challenging timeline meant the project was split into two phases. The first phase - run by a cohesive team of solution experts from Kyriba and external consultancy Covarius - focused on building the bank reporting architecture via Kyriba’s integrated SWIFT Service Bureau, setting up the Spotify entities to align with the cash pools set-up within the Spotify Group. A payment import from, and General Ledger (GL) export to the main Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution were set-up, as well as a market data feed and online trading platform interface. With engagement and close involvement from Spotify’s IT team, the interfaces were designed and built within a month, enabling the business users to concentrate on the task of end-to-end payment and statement import testing with the banks. Quantitative Results 5x Estimated reduction in operational risk 2x Increase in treasury productivity $65k Annual bank fee savings During onsite workshops in Stockholm, the consulting team worked closely with Spotify to design and test workflows built around the SWIFT automation for cash positioning and payments processing. Legacy spreadsheet-based cash positioning processes were quickly decommissioned once automated bank feeds were reconciled to the new process. Segregation of duties built into the approval workflows were shared between the treasury team and accounting department centrally within Kyriba. This enhanced central visibility and security of payments, while reducing reliance on bank-specific software. Finally, the prior day reconciliation workflow with cash categorisation and transaction matching, allowed Spotify to post GL journals for all bank activity to the ERP system on a daily basis. Risk Mitigation - Treasury and Beyond In parallel to the global rollout of Kyriba to support Bergqvist’s vision of a centralised payment factory for enhanced security and visibility of cash, the second phase of the project extended the functional scope. In order to mitigate the challenges faced by any global organisation working in multiple geographies and currencies, Spotify and one of its banking partners built a cloudbased algo-driven FX solution, thus removing manual work and shifting focus towards more strategic and analytic work. Spotify’s Treasury is utilising the Hedge Accounting functionality in Kyriba to ensure a correct and efficient accounting for the derivatives used for hedging the FX exposure. Expansion - Growing with Intent Reflecting the effort and vision of its treasury team combined with the agile implementation of Kyriba, Spotify is now fully equipped to perform its function in a rapidly expanding environment. Enhancing visibility through improved cash management and accounting, while mitigating the risk of fraud and human error through a centralised payments factory, the added financial controls, standardised workflows and treasurywide audit trails have strategically positioned Spotify for its next phase of growth and helped realise Bergqvist’s vision of achieving a cutting-edge treasury.

Using the Cloud for Speed and Flexibility DIC (formerly Dainippon Ink and Chemicals) was established in 1908 as a manufacturer and seller of printing inks. It now offers a broad range of products based...

Using the Cloud for Speed and Flexibility DIC (formerly Dainippon Ink and Chemicals) was established in 1908 as a manufacturer and seller of printing inks. It now offers a broad range of products based on organic pigment and synthetic resin technologies, which are the base materials of these inks. DIC has a long history of overseas operations: it first opened a branch in China in 1919, and is now developing its business through 174 group companies in 64 countries around the world (143 of these are in foreign countries). This means that its overseas sales is approximately 60% of its total business. One major turning point in DIC’s global expansion was its success in purchasing the graphic arts materials (inks, pigments, etc.) division of Sun Chemical, a major producer of these materials in the United States. It has subsequently engaged in expanding its overseas business further through proactive mergers and acquisitions. "We have been able to introduce Kyriba Enterprise according to the schedule, and we believe that future phases will be realized quickly as well." Shuji Furuta, Head of Finance, DCI Corporation   According to Shuji Furuta, Head of DIC’s Finance Department, “One of our major financial issues was strengthening our financial standing by increasing the group’s cash efficiency. It was also necessary for us to respond to a variety of risks, such as currency exchange control, that resulted from the increase in the proportion of our overseas business.” According to Furuta, the company formerly used spreadsheets to manually manage cash. Kiminori Sakai, the Global Fund Manager in the Finance Department, reflected that “We were only able to determine our outstanding cash balance at month-end, and we were not given any indication from the head office as to how our money was performing during the month.” Furuta went on to say that, “Although we were using cash pooling (automatic fund aggregation and distribution) in order to reduce our surplus funds so that we could increase our cash efficiency, we needed to be able to visualize our cash so that it could be efficiently managed.” There are several methods available to generate information on account deposits. Furuta continued, “Up until now, we were obtaining the credit balance for each company on a monthly basis through an ERP (an enterprise resource planning system), but these reports are not timely.” “Although you can obtain balances from a bank terminal, our company has many accounts, making it complicated to do so. We considered adopting a standalone TMS (treasury management system) directly connected to an ERP, but it would have been difficult to implement.” The major impeding factors were cost and time. If each of the 170+ companies in the group adopted a standalone TMS, it would have cost hundreds of millions of yen and would require a significant amount of time to deploy. “The business environment changes all the time, and not only would this approach be inferior in terms of speed, but it also wouldn’t be able to adapt to future changes,” said Furuta. The company ultimately decided to adopt Kyriba’s global financial management system, Kyriba Enterprise. In addition to having been adopted by over 1,500 companies worldwide, including the United States, it is also used by major global companies in Japan. One of the major features of Kyriba Enterprise is that it is operated through the cloud. It can be used everywhere with Internet connectivity. Furthermore, it is easy to include additional bases and subsidiaries, as well as additional functionality. Compared to a standalone TMS, it is significantly cheaper and the installation process is easier. Sakai said that, “We reached an agreement in December 2015, and the first phase was completed in April 2016. We saw how quick and high-quality it was, and this gave us faith to quickly advance to phase 2.” Quantitative Results 80% SWIFT connection allows visibility into 80% of primary accounts. ¥150bn 3 year increase in risk management investment +170 Number of companies integrated Cash Visualization and Initiation of Automated Report Aggregation from Subsidiaries At DIC, the first phase involved being able to visualize bank accounts. SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), was used to accumulate information on the company’s different primary accounts on Kyriba Enterprise. This allowed for pooling between accounts, and we now had a concrete timeline for cash visualization for about 80% of the company’s primary settlement accounts. “The second phase is to automate cash forecasts on a global level,” says Sakai. Although account visualization allows the current cash status to be generated, cash management for tomorrow, next week, or next month is not possible. The company will link the group companies’ ERP and Kyriba Enterprise, which will allow debt and credit data, such as accounts receivable, accounts payable, and liabilities, to be incorporated, thus automating cash forecasting. Adopting Kyriba Enterprise had quick, concrete results. “Up until now, cash pooling management involved transferring numbers from bank terminals or manually using spreadsheets sent from each company, but this is now unnecessary. Kyriba’s staff was incredibly helpful in providing explanations and support to us. We have been able to introduce Kyriba Enterprise according to the schedule, and we believe that future phases will be realized quickly as well,” says Sakai. Furuta went on to say that DIC is now looking at strengthening governance using Kyriba Enterprise. “Our company published our three-year mid-term management plan called DIC 108 in February 2016. One of the basic strategies in the plan is the strategic investment of 150 billion yen in 3 years (through mergers and acquisitions, etc.). Financial management on a global scale is becoming more and more important. Using Kyriba will allow us to realize head-office-initiated governance.”

The fraud attempt started with an email from the CEO. Fortunately, the treasury team at a leading real estate developer had worked diligently to establish effective payment processes that would reduce the risk of...

The fraud attempt started with an email from the CEO. Fortunately, the treasury team at a leading real estate developer had worked diligently to establish effective payment processes that would reduce the risk of fraudulent or inaccurate payments. These policies included internal controls, information technology and dissemination, corporate culture and monitoring/compliance. A Credible Request The assistant treasurer received an email from the CEO requesting an $8 million wire to execute an acquisition of a UK target company. Given the confidential nature of the transaction, the email indicated that the assistant treasurer should not discuss the wire with anyone else. To top it off, the treasurer happened to be on vacation. The transaction appeared credible and the email accurately mimicked the writing style of the CEO. As the assistant treasurer began to take action on the CEO’s request, he realized that for a number of reasons he would be unable to execute the wire. Policy Meets Reality via Kyriba Thanks to the controls established by the company and held in place by Kyriba: The payment could not be processed by a single person. This company had configured Kyriba so that every payment must have at least three separate employees involved before it can be processed. One employee requests the payment, one employee processes the payment and a final employee approves/releases the payment. The $8 million amount exceeded the assistant treasurer’s authority in Kyriba. Kyriba’s platform enforces authority limits that give each employee a specific maximum on the payment amount they can approve. He would need to gain approval from someone with a higher limit in order to execute the wire. Fraud Stopped in its Tracks When the assistant treasurer walked down to the CEO’s office to discuss these questions, it quickly became apparent that this wire request was fraudulent. The company’s use of Kyriba to enforce its internal fraud prevention policies was critical to preventing this fraud attempt. Other ways that Kyriba helps this company identify and protect against fraud includes the rapid dissemination of information in order to ensure that all transactions are widely communicated to accounting and other key departments. The platform distributes key reports, including a list of payments being processed, several times a day. Daily report dissemination allows their accounting group to perform timely accounting reconciliations which highlights fraudulent or inaccurate payments and prevent them from occurring in the future. Thanks to Kyriba’s ability to support segregation of duties, payment authorization limits, and bank controls, this leading real estate developer avoided an $8 million loss.

Why Kyriba? Following the creation of the joint venture in March 2014, ALVEAN’s treasury team was tasked with implementing a cash management solution for the new company. From the outset, the decision was made...

Why Kyriba? Following the creation of the joint venture in March 2014, ALVEAN’s treasury team was tasked with implementing a cash management solution for the new company. From the outset, the decision was made to use an external solution, not the host-to-host type of solution used by Cargill. ALVEAN was supported by PwC, and chose the Kyriba solution: “I immediately appreciated the solution’s user-friendly nature; this spared us from having to write procedures for the users. Above all, we had to go live in less than 3 months, which could only be achieved with a SaaS solution.” Beyond the traditional benefits of the SaaS model (no maintenance and rapid implementation), the “free asset” type of solution fully meets ALVEAN’s needs as a trading company with minimal assets. The Information Systems Department(ISD)fully audited the system’s security: “The ISD, which is very meticulous, reviewed all aspects of security, and approved the solution. In addition, they were captivated by the live demonstration of the solution, contrary to other publishers that conducted their demonstrations in test environments. I hadn’t paid attention to that, but for the ISD, it was important to verify the system’s capacity and its operation in a real environment,” stated Catherine Da Silva, Treasurer of ALVEAN. Finally, ALVEAN needed a partner that could implement the solution in less than four months. "We signed in July 2014, and worked with our main banking partner from the end of September. The MT940 was already operating, and we were in production on December 1, 2014! In less than two and a half months, we were making our payments from Geneva." Catherine Da Silva Treasurer, ALVEAN   Payments, Payments, Payments Initially, deployment of the Kyriba solution focused on payments, specifically high value payments. “We are very proactive in cash and payment management. Balances are available in the morning, and we are able to make decisions more quickly. In the evening, we generate a zero balance, and anticipate our financing needs.” In total, more than 26 users work on the Kyriba solution, including 12 on the Kyriba Payment module. Transactions vary between 8,000 and 10,000 payments per year, largely high value payments, via the secure SWIFTnet protocol. “All payments and past data are available in a single system, offering greater visibility. We have completely eliminated payments by fax and e-Banking. In terms of benefits, secure automation of the processes generated savings equivalent to two full-time positions and led to significant reductions of payment-related costs.” Lastly, the Treasury Department is pressing ahead with the use of its system to implement mobile payments: “We are using the Kyriba Mobile application for iPhone to validate payments, especially on holidays. If urgent payments need to be validated when we are not in the office, it can always be done remotely.” Treasury, the Business Partner Today, ALVEAN’s treasury department focuses more on strategic analysis, tariff renegotiation, and reporting rather than transactions. "We have control and decision-making duties, as opposed to transactional tasks. We understand the financial health of our business, loan maturities, day to day operations, without reprocessing. The information is available and quickly accessible." Catherine Da Silva Treasurer, ALVEAN   The Treasury team is asserting its ability to step in and work on strategy with the business teams. “We know exactly where to find the cash, and how it is invested! If I have to present a business analysis to my CEO, I save several days of work thanks to the system. It’s more interesting to work with the business teams and take part in decision-making, rather than spending time gathering data.” Teams have better visibility of the company’s data. Quickly throughout the day, they make forecasts, optimize the cash position – in short, they focus on the future. “When I prepare my analyses for the Board, I save a great deal of time. Before, it took approximately two weeks for me to collect the data, verify and analyze it. Today, everything moves very fast, and the same applies in the treasury. To pursue excellence, you need rapid, accurate responses. We know the status of debt and loans, we know who to repay first, which banks have higher interest rates and which I need to offset...I know that I’m spot-on!” Alvean's Three Tips for the Success of a Cash Management Project Correctly define expected needs and benefits over the medium to long term, then prioritize them. Work upstream with top management to identify their expectations. It is essential to understand the needs of the CFO and CEO, define what they wish to see and how they wish to see it, then work on their requests to incorporate them from the start of the project. Surround yourself with a good team! Externally, this refers to the software publisher as well as the banking partners to serve as the interface and project coordinator. ABOUT ALVEAN ALVEAN is one of the global leaders in the sugar industry specializing in originating, commercializing and trading raw and white sugar. By combining decades of experience, comprehensive global market knowledge, trading expertise and a unique supply base together with integrated logistics, our employees across 10 countries worldwide are uniquely placed to deliver the best service to our customers globally. ALVEAN was formed in 2014 when parent companies Cargill and Copersucar decided to combine their global sugar trading activities. ALVEAN’s trading activities, based in Geneva, Switzerland, rely on a worldwide network of offices located in Bangkok, Bilbao, Delhi, Dubai, Hong-Kong, Jakarta, Miami, Moscow, Sao Paolo and Shanghai.

Bracing for Healthcare Reform Excerpted with permission from the Treasury & Risk article Making Strides with the Help of Technology by Susan Kelly, April 2016 Bracing for Healthcare Reform, HCSC leveraged a new treasury...

Bracing for Healthcare Reform Excerpted with permission from the Treasury & Risk article Making Strides with the Help of Technology by Susan Kelly, April 2016 Bracing for Healthcare Reform, HCSC leveraged a new treasury management system it implemented to improve its cash forecasting. "We created a better forecasting platform, and what that allowed us to do was shrink the cushion we had in our working capital and put that money to better use by investing it. We had better clarity to what our working capital needs were on a day-to-day basis." David Deranek, Senior Manager of Treasury Corporate Cash and Control HCSC When the enactment of the Affordable Care Act pointed to big changes coming ahead for the health care industry, HCSC decided it was time to reengineer its treasury operations. The insurer, which has more than 150 bank accounts, 14 bank portals, and 70 investment accounts, had used a treasury system but still relied heavily on spreadsheets and the manual keying in of data. It wanted to centralize its information and automate the treasury’s routine tasks to free staff members up to provide consulting to the rest of the organization. And with the requirements of the ACA expected to create stress on HCSC’s balance sheet, the insurer wanted to improve its forecasting so that it could manage its working capital better and improve the returns on its $10 billion investment portfolio. HCSC selected Kyriba’s system and put in place a custom solution that integrates 13-week operating and investing forecasts. The company worked with its custodian to come up with a forecast of investment maturities and investment income, using custom BAI codes to aid in the reporting of investment activity. At the same time, HCSC built a regression model in-house to forecast operating cash flows, which it is currently moving into Kyriba. Quantitative Results 5x Estimated reduction in working capital $140m Investment income increase 150 Bank accounts   The improved cash forecasting allowed HCSC to shrink its working capital band from $500 million to $200 million, Deranek said. And just last month HCSC announced that it will shrink working capital even more, down to the $50 million to $100 million range. The company estimates that investing some funds over a longer term provided additional investment income of $140 million. ABOUT HCSC Health Care Service Corporation is the 4th largest health insurer in the US overall, it employs more than 22,000 people and serves nearly 15 million members. It offers group life, disability, and dental solutions, and a range of other individual solutions. The company also provides various care management and wellness resources.

Following a period of vast economic transition in its primary market, Angola, Dubai-based food distributor Webcor Group needed better visibility over its cash flow and liquidity. CFO Frederic Marret opted for a fresh treasury...

Following a period of vast economic transition in its primary market, Angola, Dubai-based food distributor Webcor Group needed better visibility over its cash flow and liquidity. CFO Frederic Marret opted for a fresh treasury management system which is due to bring untold benefits to the firm. For Webcor Group, visibility has become its bread and butter. With 3,500 employees in the firm, and with operations stretching across Europe, Africa and Asia – whilst being headquartered centrally in the UAE – keeping track of its finance supply chain and dealings with banks is crucial for the finance team. Founded in 1992 in Congo, the family-owned firm expanded its operations to Angola, Mozambique and various other African locations over the course of a decade, initially focusing on its food business, and the distribution of rice, sugar, flour, vegetable oil and FMCG products. Webcor’s business now focuses on supplying a variety of consumers these FMCG products. “We sell our product to the last procurer in the process before it touches the consumer,” CFO Frederic Marret says. “This includes supermarkets, wholesalers and even local traders for markets.” "We need to secure our payments abroad so as to avoid the risk of defaulting. Everything that has happened in Angola necessitates greater visibility and less margin for error." Frederic Marret, CFO Webcor Group   Their business, however, is being affected by a shift in consumer preference to different products. “Yoghurt, cheese and packed rice are becoming much more popular.” With this in mind, Webcor has introduced four new supermarkets in Angola, as well as opening an industrial flour mill, and is beginning the process of importing vinegar to the country, before diluting it to be sold on. As the company’s operations have grown, Marret and his team have focused more on optimising their supply chain in order to accommodate international buying processes. “We need to ensure that processes have the best possible transparency, from the unloading of boats to our customers,” he says. The breadth and complexity of Webcor’s operations have put extra strain on its treasury department. After joining the firm in December 2013, Marret appointed a global treasury head to give them an enhanced understanding of cash flow. With finance departments in each operating country needing better visibility over this, Marret sought a new solution that could ensure a swift exchange of information for transparency. “An important part of our strategy is being able to fund our business from trade finance activity to long-term financing,” he says. Against this backdrop, Marret had faced a major challenge, in the form of local, regional and international banks having no clear channels of communication between one another. At the same time, there was an expectation that Webcor could increase its compliance and regulatory processes. “Failure to adhere to these demands can result in blocked transactions or worse,” Marret says. “You’ll be exposed if you don’t do your homework. Banks in Africa have become more cautious of late; investors are there for low risk ventures.” What’s more, Angola, Webcor’s primary market, is in the midst of economic transition. Although it has been one of the world’s fastest-growing economies in the last 20 years – with capital Luanda having boasted the world’s highest cost of living, its GDP decelerated by 3.8 percent last year. The oil-exporting nation has suffered as a result of the drop in prices, prompting the government to tighten the process of clearing imported goods before their arrival, while its currency, the Angolan Kwanza, has depreciated by 60 percent in the last year. Meanwhile, the country is one of many in Africa to have halted a series of large infrastructure projects, with local demand and housing costs decreasing. "Once we have full visibility over bank charges, that will give us much greater leverage in negotiating them." Frederic Marret, CFO Webcor Group   The series of obstacles faced by Webcor in Angola served as a timely incentive to refresh its relationships with investors. “We needed a stronger grip on our operations, cash and liquidity,” Marret says, “as well as reviewing our trade finance structures.”  Together with Webcor’s senior management, Marret decided that a new treasury management system (TMS) was in order. At the start of 2015, Marret and his team began a rigorous POC process, meeting with seven different service providers to determine whose solution could best suit their needs. “We were keen to know exactly how they could help us manage whatever we installed,” Marret says. Eventually opting for the Kyriba solution, Marret highlights the vendor’s “flexibility” as being their USP. “They seemed to understand how we work, and how their system could solve our issues,” he says. While work on getting the solution completely up-and-running is still ongoing, the team at Webcor has already begun to notice the impact that awaits. Over time, Marret began to realise that the solution could bring more benefits to Webcor than he had initially envisaged. “It’s already evident that the TMS can bring new features to us that can help in a way we hadn’t expected,” he says. “What’s also very important is its user-friendliness; it’s very easy to navigate for non-finance users.” This was even more important, given Marret’s description of Webcor’s IT team as lacking in TMS exposure. “It has certainly been a learning curve for them,” he says. “Detailed RFPs certainly made this process much smoother.” Although Webcor is still in the midst of completing the final phases of the project, Marret is enthused by the progress has been made, and says that being based in the Middle East has brought its unique challenges. “We’re still getting there in terms of our final stages,” he says. “For our previous implementation, there was no local functional consultant, while a lot of TMS forms are not set up for the Middle East. Most service providers want to sell you the whole package, but Kyriba were very understanding in terms of our needs.” Nonetheless, Marret has high expectations for the changes. “I certainly expect it to give us full visibility over our cash flow, which is obviously a huge benefit,” he says. “Once we have full visibility over bank charges, that will give us much greater leverage in negotiating them, will reduce time lag, as well as improving reconciliation with banks.” Marret plans to establish a “two-way” treasury, with in and out flows. The original story appeared in CFOme.com

Based on an interview with James Adams, Group Treasurer, and Shiban Patel, Treasury Analyst, Chalhoub Group The benefits of centralized Treasury operations – and of in-house banks – are today of increasing interest to...

Based on an interview with James Adams, Group Treasurer, and Shiban Patel, Treasury Analyst, Chalhoub Group The benefits of centralized Treasury operations – and of in-house banks – are today of increasing interest to more and more successful corporations in the Middle East. This case study explains why the Chalhoub Group built a new Treasury department, outlines how it was set up and automated, and summarizes the benefits which are now being achieved. It concludes with a few recommendations for others who are considering similar developments. Why Build a Group Treasury? About two years ago, the Dubai based Chalhoub Group’s sustained business success and growth caused the CFO and CEO to decide to establish a Group Treasury department. The primary reasons for doing so were to take advantage of the economies of scale in the management of Foreign Exchange risk and of cash, and to improve the visibility and mobilization of cash, in what was a typically decentralized corporate structure. At the time, there was no centralized Treasury function at the Chalhoub Group. Chalhoub’s management team did not have clear, up-to- date visibility of the organization’s overall cash balances, or of the group’s financial risk due to the rapid pace of growth. Some entities were running cash surpluses, whilst others were overdrawn. Accordingly, the senior management team decided to initiate a project to create a new central Treasury operation, at the corporate head office in Dubai. Initiating the Group Treasury Project The internal resources for establishing a professional Treasury operation from scratch were limited, so Chalhoub commissioned one of the Big Four consulting firms to perform the necessary research and analysis. The firm reviewed the ‘as is’ situation, and proposed a target operating model for Treasury. Chalhoub then built a team to establish the new department under these parameters. A key feature of the model was the implementation of a modern Treasury Management System (‘TMS’) to underpin operations, and to provide automated support for core activities, with the required security, control and transparency, and with high grade audit quality. The project team consisted of a cross-functional panel from the consulting firm and the Chalhoub Group. For the system selection and implementation processes, this also included Chalhoub IT and Legal specialists. There was a full time project manager to drive things forward, and senior management were actively involved in monitoring the direction and progress of the project, and to ensure that it was fully supported throughout the organization. The Target Operating Model The target operating model identified four key business objectives for the new Group Treasury:   > Centralized cash management.   > Centralized FX risk management.   > Establishing best practice governance.   > Achieving the operating benefits of automation. The structure of the new department that was created now consists of seven professionals, including legal, IT and accounting. The Technology Investment The team built the business case for the technology investment to secure a budget for the project. The business case needed to demonstrate a tangible return on the investment, as well as the intangible benefits of enhanced control and financial risk visibility. The business case was based upon the benefits of the better use of cash through pooling and cash concentration, and of improved FX transaction pricing. Chalhoub’s Banking Network At an early stage, Chalhoub reviewed and updated its banking relationships, to implement the quite complex cash pooling arrangements needed, and to set up the required credit facilities and structures. The Chalhoub Group now works with 19 different banks, operating about 200 bank accounts in 15 different currencies. Chalhoub has three core Partner Banks, and also works with local banks that can provide multiple branches to service the Group’s retail business. Robust SWIFT bank communications are outsourced to Kyriba, who are a SWIFT bureau. Cash Management Benefits The centralized structure gives Treasury real-time visibility over the Group’s network of bank accounts. Chalhoub has successfully set up cash pooling arrangements wherever permitted, meaning that they are now effectively using cash surpluses in some parts of the Group to finance shortfalls in others. This innovation has generated valuable interest savings, by minimizing external borrowings, and by enabling surpluses to be aggregated for investment at the best available rates. FX Benefits The central Treasury now has full visibility of the Group’s Foreign Exchange exposures. Treasury Analyst Shiban Patel elaborates: ‘we are now able to net many exposures internally, wherever feasible eliminating the need to buy and/or sell in the FX markets - and thus avoiding the related costs. We can easily identify the remaining exposures, and we hedge them in the markets in compliance with Treasury policy. As we aggregate individual exposures internally, we need less frequent market interventions, and we are able to command finer prices for our transactions.’ Treasury Control The Kyriba TMS provides the required automation support for Treasury’s STP workflows, ensuring that bank connectivity and treasury management work together seamlessly, in compliance with treasury policy. The system’s security and control facilities will ensure that system access rights are fully controlled, to protect the use and reporting of sensitive Treasury information. In-House Banking "Chalhoub Group Treasury has established an active in-house bank function to automate the organization’s key cash and FX management functions - which is quite a change from the highly decentralized situation of just two years ago." James Adams Group Treasurer of Chalhoub Group   James Adams continued, "In-house banking is quite a new concept among corporations in the Gulf Region and the Middle East in general, where decentralized business models have generally been the norm. The Chalhoub Group's senior management team initiated and drove through the Treasury project to enable the Group to enjoy the benefits and efficiencies of international best practice Treasury operations." Future Growth Plans There are numerous possibilities for Chalhoub Treasury to extend its use of the TMS, subject of course to a positive cost/benefit analysis for each alternative. These include automated bank account management (‘BAM’), reconciliation, payments management and financial accounting. Summary There are many private companies in the Middle East that have grown rapidly over the past decade, but lack a clear approach to Treasury management. In some instances, this has created inefficiencies and several challenges for financial risk management, particularly in the current environment in which greater levels of automation and control are increasingly accepted as best practice. Chalhoub has taken the initiative by successfully creating a value-adding central treasury operation. James Adams adds: ‘If your senior management team decides that establishing a new Group Treasury is the best way forward, I offer the following recommendations to those responsible for the project: Take the time to research, define and document all the business requirements from the outset, so that the project can be accurately planned, measured and managed. This should minimize delays and errors. Do not underestimate the human resources needed for success! Work with your team to identify the necessary resources to complete the project as planned. Consider using an external advisor to provide the expertise you do not have in-house, to validate your planning, and to add value as specifically needed. Ensure that your detailed planning includes clearly defined targets and deadlines, so that you can measure progress accurately, can identify potential problems and delays, and can define and initiate any necessary adjustments and corrections. Ensure that you organize sufficient resources (including legal) to complete the demanding administrative processes required for setting up cash pools and borrowing facilities without delaying the project. Secure the backing and participation of senior management, to provide authority for the significant process change involved in implementing a new central Treasury.’ About James Adams James is the Group Treasurer at the Chalhoub Group, a leading partner for luxury across the Middle East, expert in retail, distribution and marketing services. He is responsible for all aspects of Treasury, and has recently led several projects to establish the new function within the firm. Prior to joining Chalhoub in 2014, James was a Senior Manager in the Deloitte Treasury Advisory team based in London. He has worked with Group Treasurers and CFOs at a variety of companies in the UK, Europe, Middle East, North America, Russia and Asia. His particular areas of interest are Treasury Systems, Risk Management and Treasury Strategy. James is a Full Member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (MCT) and a Chartered Management Accountant. About Shiban Patel Shiban is currently a Treasury Analyst at the Chalhoub Group. He has worked closely with the Group Treasurer to set up the new, centralized Treasury department within the Group. Whilst primarily looking after Front and Middle Office activities, he has also been involved in managing several projects ranging from implementing systems, to advising on Treasury best practice policy and governance. Prior to joining the Chalhoub Group in 2014, Shiban worked at ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 in London, where he played an integral role in setting up the downstream company’s Treasury team as the oil and energy giant went through a demerger. Shiban is also a member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers and has completed the certificate in International Treasury Management (CertITM). ABOUT THE CHALHOUB GROUP The Chalhoub Group has been the leading partner for luxury across the Middle East since 1955. As an expert in retail, distribution and marketing services based in Dubai, the Group has become a major player in the beauty, fashion and gift sectors regionally. With a growing workforce of more than 12,000 people, implemented in 14 countries, and a network of over 650 retail stores, the Group’s success is attributed to its most valued asset: highly skilled and dedicated teams. By demonstrating commitment to sustainable business, the Chalhoub Group was awarded in 2015, for the third consecutive year, the CSR Label from the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and has been accepted as a new member of the United Nations Global Compact Community.

Challenges EmblemHealth was seeking a treasury management solution to eliminate manual processes and to streamline wire payments – all with a fairly lean treasury team. After the Storm After reviewing several solution providers, one...

Challenges EmblemHealth was seeking a treasury management solution to eliminate manual processes and to streamline wire payments – all with a fairly lean treasury team. After the Storm After reviewing several solution providers, one of the primary reasons EmblemHealth selected Kyriba was for its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, which did not require internal IT support and could be implemented rapidly. In fact, immediately after establishing the company’s desire to work with Kyriba, EmblemHealth, based in New York City, was hit by SuperStorm Sandy, a category 3 hurricane that resulted in the loss of a common workplace for several months. Undaunted, EmblemHealth’s treasury team was able to implement Kyriba from their offices at home, thanks to Kyriba’s SaaS solution which facilitated the task. IT Resources Not Required As a result of SuperStorm Sandy, EmblemHealth’s IT resources were spread thin as their focus was on getting the rest of the company back on track. With Kyriba, EmblemHealth did not need to utilize its IT resources. This allowed the treasury team to move forward with implementing Kyriba, even without a functioning corporate building or computer servers. "The ability to have everything on a single platform that can share automated reports with internal teams is very helpful. This kind of knowledge sharing leads to multiplying positive impacts." Senior Member Treasury Team, EmblemHealth   Automating Manual Bank Processes Prior to Kyriba, EmblemHealth had a very time- and labor-intensive wire payment process, complete with a token for every bank. The treasury team had to use the tokens to log onto each bank’s website to pull up prior and current day activity, as well as to initiate wire payments. This manual process was very time-consuming, and for a lean treasury team, took up a lot of resources that could be spent on more strategic activities. Today, the treasury team has a much more organized and streamlined outgoing wire distribution process – it now has line items for recurring wires all in one area. Plus, the treasury team is saving time since it doesn’t get timed out when visiting bank portals individually. Bank Reporting Module EmblemHealth uses the bank account management module to access both prior day and current day information. All of its bank accounts are easily accessible through Kyriba, and initiating wire payments is a much faster and automated process. The solution has also been positive for EmblemHealth’s banking partners. Having a data repository through Kyriba reduces the need to rely as heavily on the banks for information. When the treasury team does need to request information from its banks, it’s perceived as a true valued-added service, rather than everyday “asks.” Benefitting Accounting and Billing Teams Implementing Kyriba has benefitted not only the treasury team at EmblemHealth, but also other internal teams, such as accounting. With Kyriba, GL entries are automatically entered into EmblemHealth’s ERP system via electronic feeds from Kyriba. EmblemHealth’s accounting team was also performing manual processes before Kyriba, particularly for month end close. Currently, 50% of Emblem Health’s cash related GL entries are now being recorded via Kyriba, saving the accounting team three days per month of manually posting entries. A project is underway to assess adding the remaining GL entries into the electronic feed, saving the accounting team additional days of manual postings during the month. Now, the treasury team is able to provide the billing department with current day reports early in the morning, so it’s able to create the entries and ensure they are being mapped in Kyriba. This allows everything to be booked within the current month. Managing Risk Through Financial Controls An additional benefit from implementing Kyriba is the control environment, which allows EmblemHealth to manage its exposure to risk through financial controls. Prior to Kyriba, the treasury team would have to add an entry into a spreadsheet every time it moved any money, which would then get passed to accounting, and then a manual entry for accounting would need to be created. Thanks to Kyriba’s cash management and treasury solution, EmblemHealth’s treasury team is now confident that all of its bank data flows through the system – and that those transactions are going to pass through an automatic GL feed. From an internal control perspective, Kyriba makes the auditing process easier for the treasury team at year-end, as the auditors have a higher level of confidence around the more fully controlled environment. Cash Reconciliation EmblemHealth prepares a daily cash reconciliation report, which is shared with the treasury management team. Before Kyriba, this was very time consuming to create, and deadlines were missed. The treasury team worked to resolve this issue and have suggested using Kyriba to create and distribute this report, ensuring no more missed deadlines. Looking Ahead to Cash Forecasting EmblemHealth’s treasury team has laid the groundwork to move to their next project: establishing cash forecasting. Part of this process involves evaluating their initial treasury requirements together with current and future needs, to ensure they are providing internal teams with the information they need to know on a timely basis. ABOUT EMBLEMHEALTH EmblemHealth, Inc., through its companies Group Health Incorporated (GHI) and HIP Health Plan of New York (HIP), provides quality health care coverage and administrative services to approximately 3.4 million people. Groups and individuals can choose from a variety of PPO, EPO and HMO plans, as well as coverage for prescription drugs and dental and vision care. EmblemHealth offers a choice of networks, including quality doctors and other health care professionals throughout the region, leading acute care hospitals across the tristate area, and physicians and hospitals across all 50 states.

By anticipating increased consumer demand for indoor comfort as well as changing energy regulations, Aldes has based its strategy and growth on its capacity to offer global, innovative, high-performance solutions. The Kyriba Solution Lacking...

By anticipating increased consumer demand for indoor comfort as well as changing energy regulations, Aldes has based its strategy and growth on its capacity to offer global, innovative, high-performance solutions. The Kyriba Solution Lacking global cash visibility due to the use of piecemeal solutions within the group, the treasury team at Aldes was unable to consolidate its treasury information or manage its debt. After restructuring its treasury operations with UTSIT, Aldes selected Kyriba in March 2012. The change of protocol provided an excellent opportunity to review and thoroughly overhaul its procedures. As a result, Aldes revised its working methods, mapped its banking network and streamlined its banking relationships, to effectively support its subsidiaries by implementing a single tool. Aldes’ focus was to achieve global cash visibility and improve operational control to minimize fraud. "The advantage of full integration: cash, payments, bank reporting? Each morning, I open a single application: with two clicks I can access account statements from around the world, two more clicks and I can view worldwide balances - and in just two more I can see every payment. In a nutshell, I can manage our worldwide operations with a password and six mouse clicks!" Séverine Bienfait Treasury Manager and Supplier Accounts, Aldes Kyriba offered the key advantage of a single solution for cash management solutions and bank reporting. The time savings and flexibility of a single solution provided reassurance to the existing team. In addition, Kyriba's reputation and its many endorsements played a significant role in the decision. Functional cash and liquidity management,  payment and integrated bank reporting fully addressed the company's needs. Bank connectivity By streamlining its procedures and tools, Aldes chose to eliminate the web banking portals used in its subsidiaries. Before Kyriba, it was not unusual for a single subsidiary to have up to three different web banking services. Now, subsidiaries enter their forecasts into Kyriba and issue a daily, real-time consolidated position. For the corporate team, this visibility allows it to determine whether the company is cash positive or cash negative. Thus, debt is managed by the team, which can draw on a medium-term line of credit if necessary. In the past, cash "positions" only offered an approximate visualization of forecasts, limiting optimization and decision-making. “Today, we no longer have to wait for the quarterly or half-yearly balance sheet to understand our position. Each morning, I can optimize and streamline credit requests from our subsidiaries thanks to feedback on our cash position. I am more proactive because I have day-to-day visibility. We can view the subsidiaries' balances and real-time forecasts, allowing us to anticipate and make quick decisions. It's as though the fog has lifted!" Manage attempted fraud "Supplier payments, wages – all payments pass through Kyriba. Everything is automated, in both the head office and the subsidiaries." Séverine Bienfait Treasury Manager and Supplier Accounts, Aldes Approval workflows were established to secure transactions and fight attempts to defraud. "Within Kyriba, we implemented a validation with bank signing authority by the subsidiary director, a second validation by treasury, then a third by the CFO or a member of the Management Committee. This allowed us to secure transactions at every level." Kyriba analyzes every payment through a comprehensive, integrated process. Roles are compartmentalized to make sure that every transaction is secure. In addition, Aldes worked on security issues with the finance department and the IT team. Every internal process was overhauled, then reproduced within Kyriba, integrating workflows, administrative rights, user roles and so forth. Cash Culture The cash culture, initiated by the CFO, was strengthened by the introduction of centralized cash management. "Today, the cash culture extends across all levels, from the CFO to the subsidiaries, all the way to the CEO. They want to know the consolidated position of each subsidiary, and of the group as a whole. In the past, they only had access to the half-yearly position upon publication of the financial statements." In automating its operations, the treasury team can now visualize risks when making decisions with its internal partners. "Our transactions are more secure and our data is undoubtedly more reliable. Payments and transfers are fully automated. The real innovation is the fact that we're working more closely with our subsidiaries. The project has been a success, but the real gain is measured in human terms. Now we can anticipate our subsidiaries' needs and help them make the right decisions." For Aldes, the gains are two-fold: expanded controls and greater awareness among subsidiary directors. With their increased involvement, they are now more attentive to movements and operations. Logging on to Kyriba is now part of the daily routine. ABOUT ALDES Aldes designs, manufactures and markets high-performance solutions that meet the dual aim of providing high-quality air, indoor comfort and optimal safety while sustainably reducing energy consumption in buildings. Established in 1925 in Lyon, France, Aldes is an international family-owned group, with more than 1,300 employees spanning 13 countries.

The Previous Situation Prior to the BAM project, the BBC had two separate BAM databases, one for the BBC public service and one for commercial activities, reflecting the two separate treasury teams in place...

The Previous Situation Prior to the BAM project, the BBC had two separate BAM databases, one for the BBC public service and one for commercial activities, reflecting the two separate treasury teams in place at the time. The public service database had been in existence for some time, and the commercial database was newly created. Some of the drivers for the change were: Existing solutions were not formally supported by the BBC IT department The databases lacked key controls such as segregation of duties The databases had no workflow functionality The data generated by this solution could not be treated as reliable Ultimately, the solution was not future-proofed against potential new requirements, such as eBAM (electronic Bank Account Management). The BAM Project – Origination and Objectives The BBC treasury team defined the requirement for a robust BAM solution, with the centralisation of account, signatory and mandate information, with strong controls, documentation attachments, workflow management to track the addition and amendment operations, and providing dependable visibility of the global bank account network for treasury, audit and management purposes. Some of the key business objectives included: Significantly enhancing the control of bank account data Error reduction Assuring the robust management of opening and amendment operations; The provision of strong audit visibility Reduction of operational risk Improvement of data integrity and quality through the imposition of dual controls Effective disaster recovery processes Storing all related documentation Overall, the solution needed to provide effective security over data access rights, including protection of very sensitive information such as specimen signatures and signatories’ identification validation documents, such as passport copies. Kyriba was chosen for several reasons, including its functional fit to the BBC’s primary BAM requirements as defined in the business case, and its cost versus the project’s allocated budget. Another important consideration was Kyriba’s willingness to work with the BBC to design and develop functional enhancements. Need to innovate Key BAM Process Benefits Kyriba manages the administration of about 550 bank accounts globally, held by between 80-100 banks. The bank accounts presently reflect 54 different currencies. There are approximately 1,000 unique legal signatories across the organisation. Kyriba’s segregation of duties enables the performance of the central front and back office functions needed to open, close and amend core information. The implementation of the Kyriba solution has delivered the full range of planned project business objectives, as listed above. The BBC’s bank account management process is now well controlled, efficient and transparent, and complies with the relevant regulation. The significant improvement in audit quality has proved to be very beneficial, for example in the production of an accurate and complete list of authorised account signatories on-demand. The quality of cash visibility has been enhanced, as the entire global network of bank accounts is held in Kyriba’s database, enabling a full reconciliation to be performed. The cash visibility improvement has been achieved through this process, as not all of the BBC’s bank accounts are managed in their separate treasury management system. The cash position reporting is now fully dependable, as it reflects the balances of all the Corporation’s bank accounts. The signatories are confident of the quality of the system’s control and security provisions, notably in the protection of their own sensitive personal authentication data. SaaS Technology Benefits As a native SaaS system, the Kyriba BAM solution delivers a number of technology benefits compared with installed and ASP alternatives. These include: Cost effectiveness, through the sharing of database and hardware infrastructure resources; Operational risk reduction, through the outsourcing of technology acquisition and management; Database administration, data back up and disaster recovery services are provided inclusively, further reducing operational risk; The flexibility of the web based solution enables the system to be configured and streamlined to meet client-specific process requirements Upgrades are painless, as they are tested by Kyriba and delivered over weekends, minimising system risk and work disruption; All Kyriba clients use the most up-to-date validated release of the system, and therefore benefit from the latest bank account management functionality. This also simplifies and enhances the provision of professional services by the Kyriba team. ABOUT BBC The BBC is the world’s leading public service broadcaster. It is organised into two major divisions, Public Service and Commercial. In 2012 there were two distinct treasury teams for the two groups, which were combined into one global centralised function at the start of 2013. At that time, the BBC treasury embarked on a process improvement project. A key initiative that resulted was a project to select and implement a robust automated Bank Account Management (BAM) solution.

Based on an interview with John Colleemallay, Senior Director, Group Treasury & Financing at Dassault Systèmes. A global enterprise takes advantage of Kyriba’s true SaaS technology to realise significant treasury management and performance benefits....

Based on an interview with John Colleemallay, Senior Director, Group Treasury & Financing at Dassault Systèmes. A global enterprise takes advantage of Kyriba’s true SaaS technology to realise significant treasury management and performance benefits. Please describe the main features of the Dassault Systèmes’ treasury automation project and implementation. Our treasury management harmonization project was initiated more than six years ago. Its strategic goal was first to streamline and harmonize our banking relations worldwide, then to select one single treasury management system software solution that could be easily implemented globally. We selected Kyriba as our solution provider. What was the main reason for Dassault Systèmes’ choice? Kyriba’s native SaaS technology was very important for us, as this approach provides the most assured and flexible route to effective deployment, implementation and operation. Quantitative Results 140 Number of countries operating 10X Improvement factor in yield 97% Cash visibility What is the geographic scope of the implementation? We have rolled out the system for the direct use of our US, EMEA and Asian treasury centres. Together, these serve our global business network, covering 140 countries. Please describe your client service experience. The Kyriba team has been both reactive and proactive in the delivery of professional services, for implementation, and for the support of live operations. In the early days, this team was quite small. They were very energetic, and provided a most responsive service. Today, with Kyriba’s success and corporate growth, we hope that they will maintain the flexibility and high quality of service that has distinguished them. I have stressed this important point to Kyriba’s senior management! Please explain some of the key business benefits that Dassault Systèmes is now enjoying from the Kyriba system implementation. We have achieved a most important treasury process improvement through the centralisation of cash management and the implementation of cash pooling worldwide. Prior to doing this, we had measured our level of cash visibility which was at 66%; today, this has grown to 97%. How long did the cash visibility project take to implement? We were very pleased that we achieved the first phase of implementation in Europe and the US in just three months. We found that Kyriba’s SaaS technology really does deliver streamlined business process implementation with a high level of quality assurance. What is the impact of the enhanced level of cash visibility on Dassault Systèmes’ treasury and commercial operations? We now have a clear picture of how much free cash is available. Dassault is a cash rich organisation, and today’s high level of visibility has enabled us to centralise cash investment, and also to provide liquidity quickly and accurately to finance corporate acquisitions. Will you share any Key Performance Indicator metrics on the optimization of the cash investment operation? Today, we can beat the yield performance of overnight money market deposits by a factor of 10, through actively managing the centralised pool of surplus cash. As a general idea, we achieve a ROI for our portfolio of about 1%, which compares with about 0.1% available overnight, and consequently provides a significant interest income improvement on a portfolio of approximately EUR 1 billion. Please outline your investment policy. We seek yield enhancement by investing out to a 1 year maximum maturity. We use time deposits and CDs, and we only work with top rated investment counterparties, as our policy requires a capital risk of effectively zero. What are some of the specific SaaS features and benefits that are important to you? We are very comfortable with the level of data protection provided by the Kyriba solution. The database is secured and encrypted. Daussault Systèmes is of course itself a technology company, and part of the commissioning process for Kyriba involved a test process performed by our IT team. The system has successfully passed our intrusion tests, to confirm its high level of robustness and security. The system’s SaaS architecture allows for enhancements and upgrades to be deployed very quickly, which ensure for example, that sufficient technical resources are available for treasury operations. Our SLA includes a resource availability guaranty. A further SaaS-related benefit is that our treasury operations have no internal IT dependency, enhancing operational efficiency. Please describe your experience with the Kyriba upgrade process. This has been improved and streamlined, with the vendor delivering strong quality assurance results for the upgraded functionality. Kyriba consults with its clients to discuss new releases, and they listen to clients’ requirements before finalising the planning and timing of upgrades. This flexibility means that upgrades avoid anticipated peak times of treasury activity.

The Kyriba Solution By virtue of its size, Arianespace is considered a small to medium-sized enterprise, but in its operations, the company is similar to a major industrial group, with revenues of more than €1...

The Kyriba Solution By virtue of its size, Arianespace is considered a small to medium-sized enterprise, but in its operations, the company is similar to a major industrial group, with revenues of more than €1 billion. “Arianespace is a company that finances the development and markets satellite launches by employing a major industrial network. From a financial point of view, the number of launches are low, but the sums involved are significant.” "The ability to better manage fraud brings considerable added value. By checking and securing transfers throughout Europe involving very large amounts of cash, we enjoy a higher level of security." Bernard Gall, Assistant Treasurer Arianespace Despite the fact that Arianespace is a well-managed, vibrant and debt-free company with an entrepreneurial spirit, it still has to deal with constraints related to cash investments and exchange rate management. After the transition to the euro, Arianespace wanted to improve its banking communications: “We knew that moving to the euro would entail new technical constraints like using SWIFT codes, replacing ETEBAC protocols and implementing SEPA, and we also needed to reinforce our treasury management system. We could no longer just conduct transfers without checking and securing them!” Its internally developed solution was not scalable or sustainable, and required a significant amount of effort and time to manage. “It was a tool designed to manage cash positions, determine yields on securities, and calculate purchases and sales on a forward basis, etc. However, in economic terms, it was not cost-effective, and maintaining the system was not really my or my team’s line of work. It was obvious to me that a software-as-a-service (SaaS) system was the best fit!” For Arianespace, the main challenge was the inability to communicate with its banks in a timely manner, and the team anticipated that risk: “I wanted a solution that integrates banking communications so that we could move towards international standards and avoid heavy investments in the future.” Kyriba was chosen in 2006 and deployed in 2007. Arianespace and Security By implementing Kyriba, Arianespace is able to eliminate checks and paper permanently since transfers are now carried out electronically. In the past, the company had to manage around 100 checks and 30 bank transfers every month. What’s more, doubts lingered about whether the money had actually been deposited in the recipient’s bank account or not. All in all, an enormous amount of time was spent processing the checks and the risk of fraud was quite high. “The elimination of checks brought a breath of fresh air to the treasury team!” The most important advantage was the increased level of general data protection and security during transfers, particularly when very large amounts of cash were involved. While the volume of transactions is low, the value for Arianespace’s operations is significant: "In our case, the ability to better manage fraud brings considerable added value. By checking and securing transfers throughout Europe involving very large amounts of cash, we enjoy a higher level of security. Without these capabilities, we would still be concerned about the security of our financial exchanges." Bernard Gall, Assistant Treasurer Arianespace Treasurer = Business Partner Arianespace’s treasury team was forward thinking in its approach. In the mid-2000s, the SaaS model was still relatively unknown, and there were several reservations regarding IT systems management. At that time, the team was already prepared to deal with fraud management, and more generally, it intended to refocus on its core responsibilities. “It was important to get the department out of its ivory tower and reposition itself as being integrated throughout the organization, with a strategic reach. We had to explain the project internally and how teams were going to work together moving forward.” End-users rapidly understood the advantages of this solution: “They simply press a button, and all their files are generated automatically. In broader terms, they were able to refocus their activities on their jobs and become more autonomous.” In addition to end-users, the management team has also benefited from Kyriba: “While I emphasized the fact that we were going to reduce our bank charges, I ultimately sold the system internally based solely on security concerns - the real return on our investment. Even though Arianespace is classified as a small to medium-sized enterprise, we operate as a major industrial group, and the entire organization has to ensure the highest levels of security.” Today, Arianespace manages its long-term forecasts on a two-year basis and its investments on UCITS and other products in the longer term. “We control our risks and fiscal constraints. At this stage, I would like to get involved in future developments and implement even smarter tools available within Kyriba.” ABOUT ARIANESPACE Arianespace was founded in 1980 as the world’s first commercial satellite launch company. Its shareholders include CNES, Astrium and all European space agencies, representing 10 European countries. As of January 1, 2013, the company had 315 employees, located at corporate headquarters in suburban Paris, at the Guiana Space Center (CSG) – launch site for Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega - and at local offices in Washington D.C., Singapore and Tokyo. In 2012, seven launches of Ariane 5, two launches of Soyuz at CSG and one launch of Vega generated revenues of €1.3 billion, an increase of more than 30 percent compared to 2011. Since it was founded, Arianespace has signed contracts with 85 customers, carrying out 215 Ariane launches, 31 Soyuz launches (five at CSG and 26 at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Russia, via its Euro-Russian Subsidiary, Starsem) and two Vega launches. More than half of the commercial satellites in service today have been launched by Arianespace.

"With Kyriba, we can maintain the system ourselves. With our previous system, changes to mapping rules and general ledger account numbers had to be programmed by an internal IT resource which took time, causing...

"With Kyriba, we can maintain the system ourselves. With our previous system, changes to mapping rules and general ledger account numbers had to be programmed by an internal IT resource which took time, causing manual intervention until completed. With Kyriba, I can make that same change myself in 30 seconds." Frank H. Boykin, CFO & VP Finance Mohawk Industries   Challenges With limited IT resources, one of Mohawk’s challenges was to find a solution that would not require significant IT resources to implement. A software-as-a-service model, SaaS, was also important, as Mohawk’s treasury team needed access to the system outside of their laptops as part of its disaster recovery plan. Real-time, global cash visibility was also a key challenge – prior to Kyriba, Mohawk did not have visibility to real time global cash balances. Kyriba Solutions No Need for IT Resources A primary reason that Mohawk selected Kyriba was the ability for Mohawk’s treasury team to manage the system itself. Making changes within the system or to the system’s schedule is now managed by Mohawk’s treasury team. With its previous treasury management system, if Mohawk wanted to make a change to a transaction posted to a specific GL account, a support ticket had to be submitted to the IT department, which could take weeks to complete. With Kyriba, if Mohawk wants to make a change to a transaction, it can be done by one individual – in 30 seconds. Being able to maintain Kyriba within the treasury department has not only saved treasury time, but also saved corporate accounting time, as fewer transactions are being posted incorrectly, resulting in fewer manual journal entries to correct the errors. Kyriba has allowed Mohawk the flexibility to diminish its reliance on IT as part of its ongoing processes and to become more self-sufficient. SaaS Model with Flexible Access The benefits of a SaaS model became more apparent to Mohawk during the winter of 2013-2014, when a freak snowstorm shut down North Georgia, the site of Mohawk’s corporate office, for several days. Mohawk’s previous system resided on company computers and required access to Mohawk servers in their offices to operate. During the storm, working remotely from home was the only option. Mohawk was able to successfully access Kyriba during this time. As a global company, Mohawk’s treasury function must go on any day the banks are open. Real-Time Global Cash Visibility Over the last year, Mohawk has increased their footprint with a large acquisition, resulting in new locations in several countries. With Kyriba, Mohawk can confidently handle BAI and MT940 files, providing a real-time view of where their money is and how much they have in local currency anywhere in the world. All global bank accounts are now integrated into the system, creating visibility in all currencies and creating a daily global position snapshot. Additional Kyriba Benefits Foreign language support – One of the big selling points for Mohawk in selecting Kyriba was foreign language support in its team’s native languages – currently, Kyriba supports 11 languages. The Mohawk team around the world has the ability to view the system in their preferred language, eliminating the need for translation. Bank fee analysis – Mohawk uses bank fee analysis reports to analyze and charge bank fees back to certain business units. Prior to Kyriba, Mohawk had to manually go through analysis statements, extract the correct item and add it to an Excel report. This function has automated what was once a manual effort, saving time and eliminating manual errors. Debt – With a significant amount of domestic and foreign debt, Mohawk stores its debt in Kyriba, allowing them to see when the next payment is due. Payments – Mohawk uses the Kyriba payment module to make debt and interest payments. There is a direct connection set up between Kyriba and Mohawk’s disbursement bank, eliminating the need to log on to a bank portal to initiate an electronic payment. ABOUT MOHAWK INDUSTRIES Mohawk Industries is a leading global flooring manufacturer that creates products to enhance residential and commercial spaces around the world. Mohawk’s vertically integrated manufacturing and distribution processes provide competitive advantages in the production of carpet, rugs, ceramic tile, laminate, wood, stone and vinyl flooring. During the past decade, Mohawk has transformed its business from an American carpet manufacturer into the world’s largest flooring company with operations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia and the United States.

Why Kyriba? In 2010, Europcar began its search for a supplier with whom it could work to centralise its cash management activities and for a secure cash-flow solution. “Before Kyriba, there was no immediacy;...

Why Kyriba? In 2010, Europcar began its search for a supplier with whom it could work to centralise its cash management activities and for a secure cash-flow solution. “Before Kyriba, there was no immediacy; it took five days to establish a consolidated liquidity position. Today, everything is available in real time,” says Jean-Claude Poupard, Europcar Group treasury director. "Before Kyriba, it took five days to establish a consolidated cash position. Today, everything is available in real time." Jean-Claude Poupard - Europcar Group Treasury Director, Europcar Since the launch of the consultation, Europcar has had a clear view of its objectives, i.e. the centralization of its cash-management activities, with cash and liquidity management, and the abandonment of spreadsheets once and for all. The new solution is used by all the Europcar subsidiaries (Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand). “Our priority was to improve, harmonise and increase security of our processes by providing our teams in all the countries with a centralised cash-flow solution.” Europcar has also opted for a software-as-a-service solution (SaaS). “The SaaS solution appealed to us for several reasons: its accessibility, vendor hosting and the pooling offered by the solution.” Kyriba provides all its customers with a unique solution, information in real time and an international environment. For Europcar, the solution must also meet the needs of users who speak the same language but not in the same tongue: “the multilingual aspect was essential to encourage ownership of the solution by the teams. Each country needed to be able to use the solution in its own language.” The solution was rolled out in France in less than two months. “The Kyriba teams have taken a very educational approach. Our aim was to be able to use the solution ourselves in our own countries in order to be autonomous. What’s more, it was important that we train our colleagues in order to facilitate knowledge sharing, improve local processes and also provide an after-sales service should there be problems.” "With Kyriba, we have improved visibility and cash control. The outcome is very simple, by mobilising the cash available within the group, we have cut costs! Today, the cash of companies showing a surplus balance is fully reallocated to finance the companies who need it." Jean-Claude Poupard - Europcar Group Treasury Director, Europcar Kyriba Enterprise and Centralization of Treasury With Kyriba, cash-flow forecasting is instantaneous, bank communication is monitored and payments are automated. “We really hoped to achieve a single cash-management facility, linked to our accounting ERP system which is unique to the group. We no longer need to send files by e-mail, nor use local web banking since we handle everything in Kyriba. It’s a benefit in terms of security and flexibility.” Europcar has prioritised the use of Kyriba’s cash pooling over a banking ZBA: “A banking ZBA is worthwhile if you do not have any Treasury Management System or if it is inadequate. Otherwise, the banking ZBA makes less sense and generates high costs.” Europcar and Global implementation “We met with each of our seven subsidiaries early in the project in order to identify their needs and share with them the benefits of the solution offered by Kyriba. Next, we looked at how each subsidiary managed its cash and the accompanying conditions compared to the conditions offered by the central cash facility.” Even though training and education have been important, the change of mind set and method of working have been even more so in order to get commitment.“We set up workshops to present the Kyriba solution to future users so that they will take the tool on board. We took an approach in the spirit of sharing. The human factor should not be underestimated since it is key to the success of this kind of project.” ABOUT EUROPCAR GROUP Europcar is one of the leading vehicle rental players in Europe. Present in over 130 countries, the group provides customers with one of the largest vehicle rental networks through its own operators, franchisees and partnerships. Europcar operates worldwide through its own brands Europcar and InterRent, which is its low cost brand. It also operates the National and Alamo brands in EMEA. The group puts customers at the heart of its mission whether it is innovation or service. All the employees of the group are committed to delivering customer satisfaction. Europcar actively promotes Corporate and Environmental social responsibility. In 2012, for the 4th consecutive year, Europcar was the winner of the first World Travel Award recognizing the World’s Leading Green Transport Solutions Company. Europcar was honored for the first time in 2012 with the “Europe’s Responsible Tourism Award”. Europcar is owned by Eurazeo, one the leading listed investment companies in Europe.

Challenges Atkore’s treasury team oversees 16 global brands, a mix of standalone and non-standalone brands, all of which roll up to the corporate treasury team. Atkore was entirely reliant on spreadsheets to run its treasury...

Challenges Atkore’s treasury team oversees 16 global brands, a mix of standalone and non-standalone brands, all of which roll up to the corporate treasury team. Atkore was entirely reliant on spreadsheets to run its treasury management program prior to using Kyriba. The treasury team would pull cash data from bank portals for its 45 domestic and 25 international accounts, and then manually enter it into the cash positioning spreadsheet. The team developed a number of macros in order to expedite the transfer of data into the system. In addition to the time required to enter daily cash data manually, one of the key challenges of using spreadsheets for its cash positioning was that Atkore’s team spent considerable amounts of time preparing reports. For example, it wasn’t possible to pull time-specific inquiries for individual accounts, making it very difficult to perform detailed analysis of individual cash positions. "The fact that cash positioning and balance tracking are automatically coming in really allows us to spend more time doing analysis versus preparation of the data. With Kyriba I can quickly pull information from the system that previously wasn’t even possible." Top Treasury Official Atkore Kyriba Solutions Atkore decided to purchase a treasury management system, to streamline its cash management processes and enable it to create more accurate and timely analysis and reports. As Atkore runs a lean treasury department, it needed a cost-effective solution, which would require a short implementation period, and be intuitive and user-friendly. The company initially looked at five vendors, before choosing Kyriba. Kyriba’s SaaS platform was a key factor in Atkore’s decision, as it requires no up-front IT investment, and can be supported by Atkore’s own team, with no burden on in-house IT staff. Another key factor in their decision was the fact that Kyriba was scalable and Atkore felt it would not outgrow Kyriba. Atkore primarily uses three core packages within the Kyriba Enterprise treasury management system: Cash Management, Bank Account Management and Debt Tracking. With Kyriba, all of Atkore’s bank accounts are automatically imported into a single, web-based platform, primarily via FTP for domestic accounts and SWIFT messages for international accounts. This enables Atkore’s team to quickly track balances and perform detailed analysis on individual vendor receipts. Previously only aggregate ACH data was imported, making it impossible to perform analysis at a granular level. Atkore uses Kyriba’s Debt module to track corporate debt. As with cash management, this was previously a manual, spreadsheet-based activity, which Kyriba has made a more efficient and less cumbersome process. Kyriba enables Atkore to consolidate several processes – tracking debt, calculating interest payments and submitting agreement letters to borrowers. As with other spreadsheet-based processes that Kyriba replaced, this was previously a time-consuming activity, which took away from the treasury team’s ability to deliver high-value strategic support to the business as a whole. The primary overall benefit for Atkore since it implemented Kyriba has been the increase in its analytical capabilities. The treasury team can extract more relevant financial data from Kyriba, giving it the ability to provide actionable analysis and strategic counsel for running the business more successfully. ABOUT ATKORE Atkore is an industry leader in the manufacturing of galvanized steel tubes and pipes, electrical conduit, armored wire and cable, metal framing systems and building components; serving a wide range of construction, electrical, fire and security, mechanical and automotive applications. With 3,100 employees and 23 manufacturing and distribution facilities worldwide, Atkore supplies global customers with innovative products and outstanding service.

Key treasury issues in the healthcare industry Kyriba works with a large number of organizations across the healthcare industry, from hospital systems to managed health services providers. Whether these organizations are regional or nationwide in their focus, they...

Key treasury issues in the healthcare industry Kyriba works with a large number of organizations across the healthcare industry, from hospital systems to managed health services providers. Whether these organizations are regional or nationwide in their focus, they face similar treasury management challenges, particularly in areas such as cash forecasting and risk management. The healthcare industry is unique in the issues that it faces when it comes to cash forecasting. Unlike most industries where there is a single, fixed price for a specific product or service, the cost of treatment varies from provider to provider. Payments also vary from payee to payee, both in respect to the negotiated discount for the service, and also the agreed-upon terms. In addition, if a patient doesn’t have health insurance (or not enough), there is a significant risk that the amount of cash eventually received by the health care provider could be a fraction of the original billed amount. Healthcare providers have also been hit hard by the economic downturn, particularly concerning the way they receive cash from individuals. As many hospitals and managed health providers have non-profit status, they are legally obliged to provide emergency services to anyone who requires it. The increased number of patients who have lost health insurance has created a cash burden on care providers. Individuals’ cash flow concerns have also had a significant impact on the amount of non-essential, elective surgery being provided by hospitals, providing a further challenge for long-term cash forecasting. In addition, the adoption of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is leading to reimbursement rates being changed between providers and insurers, increasing uncertainty for cash flow and forecasting. The cumulative impact of these issues is that health care providers face a larger challenge than ever before in cash management and forecasting. Challenge This client has two key challenges related to the management of its cash. As a nationwide health network, the organization has a network of almost 60 banks across the country. There was no centralized reporting system in place, so each bank had to be manually polled to obtain balances on a daily basis, consuming a significant amount of time and resources each day. The organization also has a lockbox bank, into which commercial insurers deposit a lump sum. The lockbox takes data of individual transactions and imports this data into the management system and reconciles it against invoices. As a second challenge, the organization lacked visibility at the senior management level. There was often a disparity between the financial statements and the actual cash balances held within its network of banks. Solution The organization implemented the Kyriba Enterprise SaaS-based treasury management platform across its treasury department. Kyriba is a modular solution, and in the first phase, the organization implemented a number of cash and bank account management modules. This solution enables the organization to easily add further modules at a later date, at an incremental cost. Bank streamlining - As part of its overall process to streamline its banking relationships, the organization is moving to a system with three preferred banks. Each of these banks automatically reports into the Kyriba platform with a BAI file, eliminating the need for a treasury team member to manually poll the bank. This both speeds up the process and also eliminates the risk of potential mis-keying errors, giving the organization an immediate, true awareness of its cash position. By using Kyriba to manage outflows as well, the organization also eliminated the need for a concentrator. Easier forecasting – Given the complex and variable nature of inflows and outflows in the healthcare industry, the organization needs to be particularly agile in its cash forecasting processes. Before implementing Kyriba, cash forecasting was a difficult, often manual process requiring data to be re-keyed—increasing the possibility of errors. With a more complete picture of cash movement (such as the ability for automatic emails to be sent to senior management when large wires are received), efficient cash forecasting allows the treasury team to be more effective in analyzing data and providing a truer picture. Straightforward reporting and data visualization – The organization’s senior management team does not have time to review financial statements in detail and reconcile them against bank statements. By importing the bank information directly into Kyriba, the organization ensures that there is one true figure for its cash holdings. The treasury team can then develop custom dashboards within Kyriba, which gives an at-a-glance, visual representation of the organization’s cash balance. By implementing Kyriba’s Proactive Treasury Management approach, the organization improved its treasury in three key ways: It optimized its cash, by automating its banking processes; allowing it to have better, more timely visibility into cash balances. It managed its risk, by making its forecasting process more accurate and efficient, reducing the likelihood of unexpected cash shortfalls. It worked its capital, by providing straightforward visual data to its senior management, giving them at-a-glance strategic insight into its cash position and giving them the analysis to make strategic business decisions.

Pulte is the country’s largest home builder, with revenues of approximately $4 billion. While entirely domestic, it faces a very common obstacle of larger organizations: it has close to 100 bank accounts some of...

Pulte is the country’s largest home builder, with revenues of approximately $4 billion. While entirely domestic, it faces a very common obstacle of larger organizations: it has close to 100 bank accounts some of which are due to regulatory requirements. It has found technology is invaluable to treasury operations, dramatically reducing cost and improving efficiency. Domestic companies may argue that they can get by with spreadsheet solutions to treasury operations. But you don’t have to be a large multinational to see the upside of a TMS. Pulte, the nation’s largest homebuilder, faces a daunting challenge: while it has largely concentrated its cash management activity in two banks, it has close to 100 bank accounts. That is due in part to regulations related to the homebuilding industry. Some states require that sales be conducted from a local bank account, and the company frequently needs to hold money in escrow near a specific project. The result was that Pulte’s treasury had one person spending almost an entire day on cash management, logging in/out of bank portals, initiating wires and having to rekey data. Thus, the decision to automate was a natural one. "Prior to Kyriba we got emails or faxes related to yields on funds we that we had invested cash with, we then had to upload that data into Treasura to calculate accrued interest. With the new solution, those are all automated feeds. Now the accruals are calculated automatically, shaving off valuable time." Dory Malouf, Treasury Cash Operations Manager PulteGroup Background Pulte’s technological evolution reflects that of the market as a whole. It began with an installed solution from SunGard. Pulte switched to a SaaS offering that was web-accessible. Then a few years into it, the company found that its existing system no longer offered the functionality it required. So, a year ago, Pulte decided to make a switch and has implemented another Cloud/SaaS solution. Treasury Cash Operations Manager Dory Malouf recalls making the initial transition to implement a SunGard product in 2000. The implementation lasted nine months and left treasury with a bitter taste. While it was presented as an upgrade, “It was really an implementation from scratch,” explained Malouf. A lot of the functionality did not pan out. The company signed a five-year agreement and four years into the contract it began to actively seek an alternative. In 2005, it selected Treasura, then marketed by Thomson (now owned by Wall Street Systems). Treasura was developed on an Application Service Provider (ASP) basis and later branded Cloud. It was offered as Software as a Service (SaaS) basis. The difference was noticeable from day one. The implementation took two months. The process was smooth, and the product delivered. For several years things worked as intended. Pulte had no cost of ownership and paid a monthly subscription fee. When Treasura was acquired by Wall Street Systems, Pulte grew increasingly unsatisfied with the level of customer service and perceived lack of product development. “Service requests were put on phantom email,” Malouf said. “We decided to go out again.” One of the reasons Pulte was able to switch solutions easily was the SaaS model. “We were on a month-to-month basis,” Malouf explained. Instead of having to endure unsatisfactory service, treasury could find an alternative. For Malouf, the SaaS model became a basic business requirement. He wouldn’t even look at other delivery models. “We wanted to stick to a web-based product,” explained Malouf. “I don’t care if you’re global or domestic, the SaaS model allows you to eliminate resources within your company for managing disaster recovery, IT support, and the maintenance of a critical and highly secure system.” The process with SaaS is simple: “Once you get the contract, you have IT review it to ensure it meets their standards.” If the answer is yes, “you get ‘green lighted.’” “The beauty of SaaS is that after implementation fees your fees are monthly and there’s no ‘break’ fees,” added Malouf. That means practitioners have negotiating leverage (Pulte was able to decrease the monthly fees by agreeing to sign up for a certain duration). But it truly means the customer has the leverage in the relationship, because the cost of going with another provider is drastically reduced in terms of upfront expense but also in terms of the implementation time of a new system and the process of downloading/uploading data into the new product. When Pulte “upgraded” from ICMS 1 to 2, it needed to rekey data, remap to the G/L and move account ID and signers. “It was a lot of work,” Malouf recalled. None of that happens with SaaS. The end result After exploring its options, Pulte selected Kyriba. “The economics played a key role,” of course said Malouf. But so did three other things: References. The corporate references were very good. Pulte checked not only corporate references, but also checked in with its key bank partners. This was a very big issue for treasury. Its main banks were already very familiar with the solution; there was even a preexisting relationship with the implementation team. That gave Pulte a great level of comfort that the implementation would be handled smoothly. Functionality. The other reason was functionality: compared to the other solutions it reviewed, Kyriba offered advanced bank-fee analysis capabilities. That was an important part of how Pulte wanted to manage its banking costs and relationships. The human touch. Finally, Malouf put a lot of emphasis on the notion of building a partnership with the vendor. That’s why he insisted on in person demos rather than something over the web. “We could have done a WebEx,” he suggested. “But we wanted to cram everybody in the room and get a feel for the vendor’s tone and approach to its clients. “We’re very big on relationships,” he said. Pulte has been using Kyriba for a year now. Switching from its previous system to the new SaaS solution was easy. “We weren’t coming off a spreadsheet,” explained Malouf. It was just a matter of taking a data download from one system and uploading it into the new one. Pulte has also seen big plusses from its new bank-fee analysis capabilities. “What we found most beneficial was not finding whether bank A was charging us $10 instead of $4 for an account,” Malouf said. “The best benefit is that we’ve been really able to see what services we’ve signed for and at what cost, and then figuring out whether we’re really using those services.” In the process, “we eliminated services and that we were not using and saved a significant amount of dollars on an annualized basis. The biggest bang is analyzing your services and find out how you can save money by getting rid of legacy old processes that you’re not using that are not applicable anymore.” In his mind, there’s no going back to the pre-automation days. “You want a one-stop shop,” he said. The idea of logging into multiple banks’ portals to view information and execute transactions is simply no longer acceptable. That model has been entirely replaced by a single login into the TMS. “Why manage all the different banks’ websites when you can simply log into one solution?” It may be a painful measure to use, but cost speaks to many CFOs. “We can honestly say that TM systems have helped us to save at least two FTEs,” Malouf divulged. That’s mostly in the shift from manual to automated. But each additional technology generation helped increase efficiency: “Prior to the implementation of Treasura, cash management process from start to ‘done for the day,’ took about five hours. Treasura got it down to one hour. With Kyriba, it’s now down to half hour,” he said. “The rest of the time you can spend adding value to the organization and treasury by doing bigger and better things other than just cash management.” ABOUT PULTEGROUP PulteGroup, Inc. is a home construction company based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Pulte is the country’s largest home builder, with revenues of approximately $4 billion. The company is ranked 353rd on the Fortune 500. The company operates in 49 markets in 25 states.

How the corporate treasury team at DFC Global simultaneously improved efficiency and became a more strategic partner to other areas of the business. In many corporate finance departments, siloed data, systems, and processes hamper...

How the corporate treasury team at DFC Global simultaneously improved efficiency and became a more strategic partner to other areas of the business. In many corporate finance departments, siloed data, systems, and processes hamper communication and hamstring efficiency. Treasury groups that can tear down those silos not only provide better support to the company, but also position themselves to play a more strategic role in the organization. At DFC Global, an international, non‐bank financial services business, the treasury team played a leading role in an initiative to streamline processes from cash forecasting and financial risk management to reconciliations and accounting. The team also became a strategic partner for business units looking to grow through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) or even develop new product offerings. Treasury & Risk talked to Eric Erickson, the company’s senior vice president and corporate treasurer, about how he has overseen the evolution of his function over the past two years. "That daily visibility into our global cash has enhanced our liquidity and has enabled more real‐time funding for us so it doesn’t tie up working capital. Moving to a common interface companywide has also reduced the risk exposure associated with maintaining user access to numerous banking platforms. SOX compliance is now much easier and better managed, because we have one master user list and centralized system admin, versus having 20-plus different admins for the various banking platforms." Eric Erickson, SVP & Corporate Treasurer DFC Global T&R: What types of financial services does DFC Global provide? Eric Erickson: We provide unsecured short‐term lending, secured pawn lending, check cashing, Western Union money orders and transfers, prepaid debit cards, and gold purchasing, primarily to unbanked or underbanked consumers. Our customers might have a bank account at a traditional bank, but they come to us for the convenience that we offer. We have 1,500‐plus retail locations, and they also provide services digitally. We have operations in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Poland, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Romania, and the Czech Republic, with retail stores in all of those countries except for the Czech Republic. T&R: What’s the role of the treasury function within this organization? Eric Erickson: We have a North American team of five professionals in Pennsylvania and a European team of five located in London. Both teams handle capital markets activity as well as cash management. In conjunction with the CFO, corporate treasury advises on our optimal capital structure, our debt levels, the types of debt instruments we use, and our maturity profile. We’re a U.S.‐based company, but most of our earnings are overseas, so we have to manage FX risk organically as well as synthetically through non-speculative hedging instruments. On almost every strategic initiative, we coordinate closely with each discipline within finance. For instance, we partner with tax and accounting on all financing-related transactions to fully vet and hopefully optimize the final debt structure, including considering the currency and jurisdiction mix. Then we work with the CFO to make sure that the alternatives we ultimately put in front of the board make long‐term sense for the company, considering our leverage and corporate credit ratings. We’re responsible for making sure all those activities are coordinated and properly approved. T&R: What are the biggest treasury challenges your organization faces? Eric Erickson: I’d say the biggest challenge is ensuring that the corporate treasury department matures with the business. DFC Global is essentially a retailer of consumer finance products. Diversification—by product, geography, and distribution channel—is core to the company’s success and growth plans. For us, there’s no shortage of customers globally, but it’s important to strike the right balance between efficiently operating the broad business that we have today and growing, both organically and through acquisitions. We also need to stay at the forefront of technology and innovation so that doing business with us is as convenient as possible for our customers. Within corporate treasury, we have to be a strategic partner to senior management, the board, and operations, so we need to have the right people and systems in place to support the organization. We’ve made considerable investment in both of those areas over the past couple of years. As a result, corporate treasury has become more integral, more important, and more strategic within the company. T&R: In what ways is your treasury department strategic? Eric Erickson: Because we’re a consumer lender, our inventory is cash. Our business revolves around the ability to provide cash to our customers and collect money from our customers. As a company, a lot of what we do revolves around banking channels. So whereas the corporate treasury department in a different industry might be focused on automating payables, at DFC Global treasury is more of a production environment. Within the broader business, capital allocation is critical to our future success, so treasury partners with the business units to figure out where their opportunities are and how we can best allocate our capital to support the business and their growth objectives. This includes M&A opportunities as well as new product development—such as partnering with financial institutions to leverage their product suite to serve our customer base. A good example is our deployment of remote check capture technology to facilitate and expedite the check cashing process for our customers. Partnering with the business units internally not only allows us to gain efficiencies by re‐engineering processes and systems, but it could also lead to a new product offering for our customers. T&R: How did corporate treasury evolve to this degree of strategic partnership with the business units? Eric Erickson: A couple years ago, the company started to look at processes and really open up the hood to see where there was opportunity to achieve operational efficiencies in our back office through greater coordination and automation. Because we’re in 10 different countries, we had 20-plus different banking platforms that our operations people used to fund loans to our customers. And corporate treasury was manually tracking these 20-plus banking systems to perform activities such as cash reporting, daily cash positioning, funds transfer, etc. So we made a deep‐dive assessment of what our processes looked like and then developed what we termed an end‐state vision. We said, ‘OK, here’s where we are today. Where is it that we really want to be? Do we have the right products and infrastructure to make doing business with us as convenient and satisfying as possible?’ We also started working with our strategic vendors—including commercial banks, card acquirers, and armored car delivery carriers—to benchmark through them and see what’s out there in the market. T&R: Was this a companywide initiative, or was it specific to treasury? Eric Erickson: I believe each department within the company is in a constant state of reassessment and refinement of its processes, but you could say that it was corporate treasury’s turn to comprehensively overhaul global systems. We need to have daily visibility into where our cash is globally, as well as the ability to quickly develop a cash position. The nature of our business requires getting cash to our retail outlets so that we can serve customers who come in looking for a loan, to cash a check, or to send money through Western Union. For that reason, the end result of our evaluation of our processes was that we decided to deploy a global SaaS treasury application from Kyriba. Corporate treasury used this project not only to enhance the areas that we’re specifically responsible for, but also to automate the reconciliations that we have to perform in order to be compliant with all applicable laws and regulations. So we took a look at the needs of operations as they relate to treasury transactions—like payments, loan funding, and collections—and then considered what corporate treasury needed to automate to gain greater efficiencies. We put those concepts together and came up with a solution that addressed multiple issues, which really turned out to be opportunities for us. T&R: So, how were you able to automate treasury processes? Eric Erickson: Transaction and balance records flow automatically into the Kyriba system, so we have daily visibility into cash globally. We use that to develop a cash position, which tells us whether we need to borrow money from a bank or repay money to a bank. The application also manages all of our debt and helps us to calculate/verify interest accruals, interest expense, etc. Then all transactions automatically feed a model that develops a cash forecast based on the historical values, which we can modify by certain percentages based on what we expect to happen in the market. The application produces a detailed cash forecast for each of the different countries that we operate in. Two other modules of Kyriba are important to us, as well. Because we are getting so much transaction detail, we can bring in a point‐of‐sale file and do reconciliations in an automated fashion. Historically, we did them manually, which was very time consuming. We’re also using a payments module. The typical company uses this module to pay vendor invoices, but we use it to automate funding loans to our customers. It also provides a lot of file validation, which ensures that we don’t fund customers in excess of their daily limits, process duplicate payment files, etc. T&R: What were some lessons you learned through the process and technology upgrade? Eric Erickson: Well, I’ve been in treasury a while and have implemented a number of different workstations, but I did learn one lesson on this project. Everyone fears scope creep, but for us scope creep was a good thing. When we started this implementation, Kyriba communicated that there were additional modules that the company might be able to benefit from, but we didn’t truly know whether the system would have application within the broader company. To our pleasant surprise, we ran tests which revealed that several additional modules, including reconciliations and payments, are able to bring a lot of efficiencies to our business units. Now that we’ve proven the concept, we have other internal customers standing in line, waiting for us to roll out these modules for their business units as well. So the lesson learned is to stay flexible. And you don’t just need a good understanding of corporate treasury, but you should also do a little homework on the potential for corporate treasury improvements to affect other departments. Broadly speaking, you need to understand the back offices of each of your different business units and then figure out how to get buy‐in from all the managers whose processes you can improve. T&R: How did you get buy‐in from the diverse business units? Eric Erickson: We’ve grown by acquisition, and processes were very different from country to country. Corporate treasury partnered with the businesses to understand how each division fits into the broader finance department and what they might want their end‐state vision to look like. Then we put together a presentation that outlined an end‐state vision that addressed not only reconciliation, but also accounting and payments. At the end of the day, all our different divisions are going to have a common solution that will be more efficient. They’re also going to get re‐engineering and commonality from a training perspective. Identifying the benefits for each individual business unit and then having a strategic conversation with them helped make our software implementation a lot smoother. Having senior management support, specifically from the CFO, doesn’t hurt either. This aspect greatly facilitated the overall implementation. T&R: What advice do you have for a corporate treasurer who is looking to play a more strategic role? Eric Erickson: Think about how corporate treasury can partner with all the different disciplines within finance, as well as the various business units. Understand their needs for capital. Look at how corporate treasury interfaces with tax and accounting, specifically. The more hooks you get into other departments, the more strategic and the less siloed you become. You want people to stop seeing corporate treasury only as the people they should turn to if they need to wire funds. Instead, make sure that each department understands the value you can add and the access you have to strategic vendors, including software vendors and banks. Also, take advantage of your relationships with those strategic vendors. Our banks see what other companies are doing, and they continue to bring new ideas to us. This type of project is definitely a challenge. You have to manage up, manage across, and manage down. To become more strategic, you have to proactively seek out opportunities for corporate treasury to add value to every department within the company. ABOUT DFC GLOBAL CORP. DFC Global Corp is one of the largest providers of accessible consumer financial services in the world. By providing a wide variety of innovative and accessible financial solutions for over 30 years via a technology enabled web based underwriting and almost 1,300 retail locations throughout the world, we at DFC Global are continuously fulfilling our commitment to meet the needs of everyday consumers and business owners in the most socially responsible way.

"On top of the major time and productivity benefits, Kyriba gave us huge peace of mind. Knowing that our forecast was accurate enabled us to be much more strategic in the way we used...

"On top of the major time and productivity benefits, Kyriba gave us huge peace of mind. Knowing that our forecast was accurate enabled us to be much more strategic in the way we used cash. The increased visibility also enabled us to comply with accounting regulations with a greater degree of confidence." An Oil & Gas Financial Officer A Gas & Oil Company   Treasury requirements in the oil and gas industries Kyriba works with a number of clients in the oil and natural gas industry. Our clients’ expertise ranges from production equipment manufacturing, to exploration and extraction, to pipeline transportation. While no two companies have exactly the same needs and requirements, many of our clients in the sector share one or more of these cash and treasury requirements: Cash Forecasting - Increasing forecasting horizons and improving accuracy is a key requirement. With margins often tight, it is increasingly important to minimize idle cash and optimize cash returns. Kyriba consolidates forecast data and measures forecast accuracy to increase confidence in your cash projections. Debt and interest rate hedging - Higher debt loads are common in the industry, so managing interest rates and enabling effective interest rate hedging programs is key for the treasurer. Kyriba supports debt and interest rate derivative position keeping, automated mark to market, and delivers regulatory compliance including hedge accounting support. Multiple business entities - Kyriba’s oil and gas clients commonly have multiple subsidiaries and lines of business across the globe, often in emerging markets with limited banking infrastructure. This drives cash pooling, netting, in-house banking, and intercompany requirements. Kyriba fully supports multi-entity businesses, offering positioning, forecasting, accounting, payments, financing, and risk management for parent and subsidiary treasury management. Efficiency and productivity - As with other industries, CFOs and treasurers are focused on improving the efficiency and productivity of the treasury function. From optimizing bank accounts, to bank relationship management, and through automation of manual tasks to improve operational controls, Kyriba delivers productivity to the financial team enabling less time spent on treasury and more time allocated to business intelligence and strategic insight. One example of a challenge faced by one of Kyriba’s clients within the oil and gas industry, as well as how Kyriba addressed the challenge, is outlined below: Challenge As a result of the many governmental regulations in place, the company was required to adhere to several stringent accounting and financial processes. Specifically, it needed improved controls to provide increased visibility, from cash visibility to inter-company loan updates and bank account management. To satisfy these particular needs, the company had a number of requirements: it was looking for a webbased solution that would provide payment, cash forecasting, along with electronic banking processes, such as bank account management and in-house banking (for intercompany loans) capabilities. In addition, the organization wanted to instill best practices that would allow the treasury team to be a more efficient and analytical partner to the business. Quantitative Results 50% Reduction in journal entries 300 Number of accounts 100 Intracompany loans managed on 1 platform Solution Relying upon manual processes, the company was eager to implement Kyriba and eliminate the manual processes upon which it was relying. Kyriba’s solutions for payment, cash forecasting, signatory management and in-house banking entailed: Payments - The ability to generate payment requests that are released to the bank without needing to rekey information or to log into the bank’s website – a huge savings in treasury teams time. Cash forecasting – Before Kyriba, cash forecasting was an onerous and manual process that involved frequent re-keying – a critical area for manual mistakes. With a more complete picture of cash movement, cash forecasting has allowed the company’s treasury team to be more effective in analyzing data that enables the team to assist in making critical company decisions – to pay down debt or invest in infrastructure needed to advance the organization. Cash pooling – With only four banks, but with more than 300 bank accounts spread amongst these banks, maintaining control over account signatories was critical for both security and auditing. Moving from a manual process to manage these accounts to Kyriba’s automated solution has ensured that the company can manage these procedures seamlessly. In-house banking (intercompany loans) – Previously this was managed through multiple systems, which required separate journal entries. More than 100 intercompany loans are now managed entirely through Kyriba, with a 50 percent reduction in journal entries – and the entire process is down to hours from multiple days.

"I used my iPhone to make payments with Kyriba! This summer, I approved a payment while I was on the beach" Vincent Arnould, Director of Treasury and Internal Control Elis Why Kyriba In 2010,...

"I used my iPhone to make payments with Kyriba! This summer, I approved a payment while I was on the beach" Vincent Arnould, Director of Treasury and Internal Control Elis Why Kyriba In 2010, Elis faced an urgent situation: the end of ETEBAC (a French bank connectivity protocol that enables bank reporting and payments transmission), and also a financial management system that was no longer supported. Elis took the opportunity to redefine treasury management processes to better support the business, rather than simply replacing the obsolete systems, and proceeded to issue an RFP. Elis chose Kyriba primarily because it was a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution, meaning it could be deployed quickly and supported easily. In addition, Elis’ choice of Kyriba was reinforced by numerous positive reference clients in both Europe and the United States, who confirmed Kyriba’s ability to meet stringent security and compliance standards. “There are only upsides to using the SaaS model and I remain extremely happy in choosing Kyriba to support our treasury management processes,” said Vincent Arnould, Director of Treasury and Internal Control at Elis. In addition to the benefits of a SaaS delivery model, Elis wanted a solution that enabled the company’s users to save time, especially in regards to gathering daily bank information: Kyriba connects to more than 300 international banks and offers multiple connectivity choices. “Other vendors were pushing us to choose EBICS; in our situation, this was not the best solution. Kyriba evaluated our requirements and recommended SWIFT connectivity, which enabled us to achieve international deployment and global cash visibility.” At the same time as the treasury selection, Elis was preparing to roll out a new ERP solution to optimize and unify its processes. “I wanted a consistent approach within the finance and treasury department: to deploy a centralized finance system for all entities. A single ERP solution, and a single TMS!” Elis and Cash Pooling Before the selection and overhaul of the department, the Elis treasury team was not able to manage its consolidated bank position. “We thought we had strong cash management processes, but use of Kyriba helped us see cash more accurately. We found that we didn’t have so much cash available.” This was driven by Elis managing cash for multiple entities in varying geographies. The business units lacked transparency into cash and liquidity positions, never really knowing where they stood. In cases of limited liquidity, for example, headquarters would simply initiate a transfer to the business unit. To develop a more robust cash management operation, Elis leveraged Kyriba’s Cash Pooling capabilities. “Kyriba provides a real, bank-free, cash pool.” This saves Elis not only time, but also bank fees. The latter benefit met an important goal of Elis; they wanted to achieve global visibility into cash and liquidity without dependence on banks. Overall, the Kyriba project was driven by a need to improve cash management and to optimize the treasury processes. “At a minimum, we must be 95 percent accurate on our cash forecasting. Little by little, we’re creating a best practice culture for finance and liquidity management. Kyriba helps us to put this culture in place.” Kyriba Enterprise and Kyriba Mobile The Kyriba implementation was finished at the end of 2012. Kyriba was rolled out in France, as well as Belgium and Luxembourg. Future deployments will take place in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Portugal. “With Kyriba Enterprise, we’ve been able to integrate all processes from treasury to bank connectivity and payments. Prior to Kyriba, treasury issues could take 3 weeks to resolve; now treasury issues are resolved in less than three hours. Our treasury team now has an integrated approach which makes our finance teams more efficient.” In addition to Kyriba’s web-based platform, Elis uses Kyriba Mobile to increase productivity. At Elis, all payments need to be pre-approved. “I used my iPhone! It makes payment approval so easy. This summer, I approved a payment while I was at the beach; it was so straightforward. It is especially effective in allowing us, for example, to clear merchandise through customs by approving the suppliers’ payments. I was amazed.” ABOUT ELIS For 40 years, Elis has offered a large range of services in the fields of sanitation services, well-being and health. Elis is a multi-service organization, a leader in Europe in the rental and maintenance of uniforms and workplace clothing, and also provides additional services in office hygiene and beverages. Elis’ primary goal is to simplify operational services so that companies can spend time on their core business. With 14,550 employees in 10 European countries, Elis had sales of €1.2 billion in 2012. Benefiting from more than a century of expertise working with hotels, restaurants and healthcare facilities, Elis today delivers to more than 290,000 companies of all sizes and all sectors, thanks to its network of 151 service and production centers, which guarantees the company is always close to its clients.

Challenges As Murphy USA prepared for its spinoff from Murphy Oil two months ago, cash management was a key concern. The new company wouldn’t be able to borrow as easily as Murphy Oil can,...

Challenges As Murphy USA prepared for its spinoff from Murphy Oil two months ago, cash management was a key concern. The new company wouldn’t be able to borrow as easily as Murphy Oil can, so treasurer Kristi Clay and manager of cash management Todd Gilreath needed better real-time visibility into their cash position and forecasts. The company engaged a team of Deloitte & Touche LLP advisers led by Carina Ruiz, partner, and Prashant Patri, senior manager, to assist. Not only did the project dramatically improve cash management, but it also opened up new lines of communication companywide and boosted visibility between business units. Treasury & Risk sat down with Clay, Gilreath, and Patri to discuss how Murphy USA broke down the silos in its corporate culture. T&R: First of all, what does Murphy USA do? Todd Gilreath: Murphy USA is a retail gasoline marketer with over 1,000 retail gas stations in 23 states. We also have two ethanol production facilities and a terminal network. But our primary business is selling gasoline to the consumer through our company-owned stations, the vast majority of which are in front of Walmart Supercenters. T&R: Why did you spin off from Murphy Oil? TG: Murphy Oil used to be a fully integrated oil company. Murphy explored for oil, extracted it out of the ground, refined it, transmitted it, and sold it to consumers. A couple of years ago, the company decided to exit the refining business. Through the process of that divestiture, we discovered that some of the value of Murphy was still being overlooked in the market. Retail marketing was a small portion of the much larger company, and Murphy Oil overall was valued completely differently on the Street from what a gasoline retailer would be. That started the discussion about splitting the business. T&R: What did cash forecasting and cash management look like in the consolidated company? TG: The cash flows were significantly different before the spinoff, and cash forecasting wasn’t very precise in the retail side of the business. Forecasts were based on historicals and current trends, which we used to determine cash flows for a typical month. Because we had a greater ability to borrow money without securing it, cash forecasting for retail wasn’t viewed as strategically important. As a result, our treasury department was very reactive. T&R: Why did this need to change with the spinoff? TG: Because the stand-alone retail company would not be investment-grade, access to capital would be more difficult, complex, and expensive. As the spinoff approached, we knew we needed to understand our cash position at any given point in time. If we were going to have a shortfall, we would have to be prepared. For example, many of our invoices are due in 30 days, but we weren’t finding out about many of them until they were actually due for payment. We asked the Deloitte & Touche team to help us establish a cash forecasting program. T&R: How did you go about building this new program? Prashant Patri: The team set out to create a repeatable, reliable, and business-focused cash flow forecasting program that would better reflect the cash requirements of the business. One of the first things we did as a team is we looked to see what we could leverage from Murphy USA’s available systems. But the nature of the business is such that many transactions don’t go out very far. For example, a gallon of gas that’s bought through the bulk channel—which is basically a pipeline—has to be paid for within 48 hours, and then that gallon of gas is sold at the pump very quickly, within a few days at most. If you’re trying to put together a quarterly forecast, it’s virtually impossible to rely on the data within the company’s systems because the sales and purchases have not yet taken place. TG: So much of our business is determined by world events; there are so many things outside of our control that show no seasonality. We decided the best sources of truth would be our internal business units. So we pulled in people from each business unit and said, ‘We need to understand your business. Help us understand what drives your decisions, what impacts your costs and margins, etc.’ We worked with each group to set up a spreadsheet-based process to show us what they’re considering, what trends they see as important, what they see coming. Now we get a forecast every week from each of our five business units showing their expectations for the upcoming week. It’s broken down by pump price, margins, volumes—it contains every little detail. The weekly forecasts go out 13 weeks, and in January we’re going to start collecting 12-month forecasts every month. The business units submit their forecasts in in-depth spreadsheets, and then we upload that information into our treasury workstation, where we can view the consolidated data. T&R: Do you get conflicting forecasts from different business units? TG: Sometimes we do. That was a big problem up front. Early on, we showed large cash swings because two groups wouldn’t be aligned. We look at this every week. And not only do we get their finalized forecasts, but we get all the background information so we can see what’s driving each part of the overall forecast. For example, we might see on the forecasts that volumes are consistent from last week to this week, while pump prices and margins are down. If the forecasts show we still have cash, then we can dig into the backup sheets to find out why. Maybe our supply group is selling more to third parties, so we’re making up the difference on that end. We also compare the forecasted amounts with actuals and ask the business units to figure out what happened so that we can avoid variances in the future. I put together a weekly presentation that goes to all of upper management and to our board. It breaks down the expected cash flows, why they’ve changed, and the major drivers we see over the next six weeks. Part of that presentation is the variance from the previous week—who has the largest variance, where is the difference, why are we not where we said we’d be? Right there on the first slide is ‘This group missed their forecast by 20 percent’ or ‘That group’s variance accounted for 40 percent of the overall variance.’ Kristi Clay: It’s made a lot of our departments more accountable. TG: The business units are owners of their forecasting information. Upper management sees, in a very straightforward way, who understands their environment and who doesn’t. T&R: Did you face resistance to this change in some of the business units? TG: Yes. There’s a lot of nervousness when people understand that somebody else is going to be looking at what they do. A major issue we had to overcome was that each part of the business was operating in silos, and treasury was guilty of this as well. Nobody was talking to each other. Everybody held their cards really close to their chest. We had situations where two groups would have meetings to discuss the same thing, independent of each other. It was very much like everyone was playing poker—but we’re all on the same team. The other issue was that some of the groups worried that we were going to come back and tell them they couldn’t do what they wanted because we didn’t have the money. We spun that back to them by telling them that what we want to be able to say is, ‘We understand what you want to do, and this is how we can make it happen. We need to find a way that you can do what you think you need to do to make the company money.’ T&R: Was this approach enough to overcome the silos? TG: We had to make people understand what we do in treasury and how it impacts them. We opened up a lot of discussion, and we were able to get everyone’s assumptions going the same direction. For the first few months, we had meetings every week to try to understand what was driving the variants and how we could help different groups perfect their forecasting process. We found that everybody knew their part of the business, and they knew it well, but they weren’t necessarily sure how it affected other parts of the business. We told them that we don’t think we know everything. We gave the groups a lot of visibility into what the issues in treasury are, why we need their information, and how we’ll use it. We made our needs clear and tried to be very sympathetic to other groups’ issues. And because of it, we got a lot of buy-in. Treasury developed a much greater understanding of our overall retail business, and each business unit gained a much greater understanding of what we do in treasury. KC: The business units have adopted more of a cash mind-set, in addition to the accounting or accrual mind-set. Our accounting department tended to think in historical terms, and our operations group thought very much in volumes. It was really important to make them all aware that even when transactions might net out for them in the end, if money’s going out one day and not coming in until the next day, those transactions could create issues for treasury. T&R: Are you still having regular meetings to discuss variances? TG: Time is at a premium, and we have a pretty good system now, so unless we have a major issue—and we haven’t had any major issues in a while—we just handle it by email. Every Monday we send out a note that says, ‘This is your forecast from last week. The actuals came in. Here’s how your forecast did against the actuals.’ We ask the groups to get back to us by Wednesday with an explanation of significant variances, which are $1 million or more, or 5 percent or more. If we see anything big, we discuss it over the phone. We use all this information to put together our presentation for the next week. PP: This is really a measure of success for this project. When we started, some of the meetings went as long as 90 minutes, and then we’d follow up with offline discussions with the groups. But around the time we went live, we found that we didn’t need to have the meetings anymore. The discussions were happening before the numbers were submitted, so the numbers were pretty well aligned. The enhancement in communication across these different groups drove the success of this project and drove the quality of the numbers as the project progressed. KC: Anytime a company starts communicating, it’s going to be a lot better off. We had an issue come up the other day, and I knew exactly who to go to, I knew who the team players were, and we all got in a room and talked about the issue. We’ve opened up lines of communication, not just in our cash forecasting process but in other areas of the company as well. T&R: How does Murphy USA benefit from the improved visibility into your cash position? TG: To be honest, business has been good, so cash-wise we’re doing well. We’ve been an independent company for a month and a half, and we’ve already paid down on some spin-related debt because our executive team had confidence that they understood our cash position and the direction of the company. This also allows our treasury team to be more strategic. We’re helping drive the business rather than just reacting to the business. Treasury is really the place where all the information flows in from the various operating groups. It’s consolidated, analyzed, and redistributed throughout the company. We tell people what’s coming and they can adjust to facilitate that. For example, maybe we anticipate that cash will be tight because our ethanol plants are going to be in a turnaround or because we have large tax payments coming. The fuel supply group can look at that and say, ‘We’ve built up inventory for hurricane season, but it’s been a slow hurricane season. We can sell some of this off to bring in cash.’ T&R: So individual groups are now making decisions based on the corporate cash needs? TG: Absolutely. This project has not just allowed treasury to go from being reactive to proactive, but it’s allowed our other business groups to do the same. They see our projected positions, so they can make decisions based off the holistic view, rather than their little piece. KC: We’ve helped them understand why we need their cash forecasts and how important their information is to what we’re trying to achieve. Our company overall has a lot more transparency now than it did previously. Everybody is thinking about how their actions affect other departments. TG: And as a treasury organization, we have built some really solid relationships with other departments. We learned not only about the business, but also about how to do business within our business. T&R: Prashant, in your experience, does cash forecasting at Murphy USA align with best practices? PP: Yes, they have incorporated best practices in many ways. Cash forecasting is more successful when the project is designed and implemented as a companywide program. There must be a strong desire to optimize available liquidity across the organization. The tone has to be set at the top, and Murphy USA was very fortunate to have strong support from not just the company’s CFO, but also the CEO. TG: Our CFO, Mindy West, and CEO, Andrew Clyde, were great in supporting us throughout this entire project. Their support was instrumental to our success. Our CEO has even made the comment that the company will use this cross-functional model in future projects. PP: Another thing Murphy USA did right is that they had a core group of dedicated individuals, rather than part-time resources or floaters, within both treasury and operations. Todd was dedicated to this effort during its establishment, and the operations side dedicated resources as well, to drive the assumptions and own the responsibility of the results that came out of the effort. This project had shared accountability across treasury and operations, as well as strong leadership support. Thirdly, it’s critical to have an underlying structure of processes that will carry the program in the longer term. By that, I mean having a submission cadence, deadlines for consolidation of submissions and variance reporting, establishment of formal and informal communication channels, use of tools and templates to standardize execution of the process, and a framework for policies and procedures, including escalation procedures in the case of conflicts. And finally, the effective use of technology is a best practice. I think in cash forecasting programs, there will be some use of spreadsheets, but the idea is to minimize reliance on them—and, to the extent that you use them, have good controls and avoid errors as much as possible. T&R: Do you have any advice for a company wanting to pursue a similar project? PP: Start early. Don’t wait for a missed payment or default on an interest payment or any other adverse event. Murphy USA identified the need immediately after the anticipated spin from Murphy Oil was announced. That’s a tribute to the company’s leadership team. Far too many times companies wait for an adverse trigger to launch this kind of project. This is a time-consuming exercise, and it almost always takes more time than you anticipate. The sooner you start, the better. ABOUT MURPHY USA Murphy USA is a retail gasoline marketer with over 1,000 retail gas stations in 23 states, two ethanol production facilities and a terminal network. Murphy USA is a recent spin off from Murphy Oil, an independent exploration and production company with a strong portfolio of global offshore and onshore assets delivering oil-weighted growth.

"The investment in Kyriba’s SaaS platform had already generated a positive NPV by the end of the six-month implementation and an IRR exceeding 800 percent after the first year alone." A Company Financial Officer...

"The investment in Kyriba’s SaaS platform had already generated a positive NPV by the end of the six-month implementation and an IRR exceeding 800 percent after the first year alone." A Company Financial Officer Cunningham Lindsey Company Goals Cunningham Lindsey, one of the largest loss adjusting and claim management companies in the world,  selected Kyriba’s web-based treasury management system to automate its bank reporting, improve cash positioning, and enhance the accuracy of its cash forecast. The company improved cash visibility by a factor of ten, improved forecasting accuracy by 60 percent, and optimized its use of cash by eliminating the bank credit facility and reducing excess cash by 140 percent. Cunningham Lindsey implemented a global, in-house banking program to optimize cash movement. This delivered further benefits by reducing bank fees and FX translation costs and minimizing physical cash movements which reduced tax events that would otherwise have occurred. Quantitative Results 10X Cash visibliity improvement 60% Forecasting accuracy improvement 140% Excess cash reduction Challenges Cunningham Lindsey had three goals it wanted to address with Kyriba. First, improve visibility into global cash – the organization previously obtained weekly balances for less than 10 percent of worldwide bank accounts. Second, enhance accuracy of cash forecasting – treasury struggled to achieve accuracy of 75 to 80 percent on average.  Forecasting was especially problematic at peak times when cash inflows were two to three times weekly averages. Third, optimize use of cash – cash held on the balance sheet was more than 250 percent over target and was not optimally deployed to pay down debt or invest in favorable ROI projects. Kyriba Solutions Improved Global Cash Visibility – Cash reporting was highly decentralized, where only 25 percent of entities provided weekly updated cash balances. Implementing direct bank connectivity and SWIFT reporting into the treasury workstation provided Cunningham Lindsey automated daily reporting on 92 percent of accounts. This allowed the treasury team to implement cash management guidelines to reduce idle balances and free up cash flow. Improved Cash Forecasting – Cunningham Lindsey’s forecast variance was on average 20 percent. By implementing Kyriba’s cloud solution, remote users entered forecasts every week, producing a global cash forecast. Through increased visibility to cash, cash forecast variances were reduced 60 percent. Optimized Use of Cash – After implementing Kyriba, cash balances had been reduced by 140 percent.  The company was able to completely pay down the bank revolver, improving cash returns by 400 percent over the minimal returns from maintaining idle cash. Additional Benefits – Cunningham Lindsey noted significant time savings from automating previously manual tasks such as logging into bank portals and calculating cash positions. In addition, implementing Kyriba has introduced scalability to the treasury team – and allows them to run more efficiently than larger peer organizations.

Objectives Faced with an antiquated cash management system incapable of supporting its growth, Vivarte required a web-based treasury management system that would allow it to deploy cash and treasury functionality to treasury and finance...

Objectives Faced with an antiquated cash management system incapable of supporting its growth, Vivarte required a web-based treasury management system that would allow it to deploy cash and treasury functionality to treasury and finance users throughout the organization. Before Kyriba Vivarte was faced with a significant technology issue – while it had a cash management system in place, it was an installed system that could not be shared with treasury and finance users from different business units. This issue threatened to hinder the company’s productivity, especially as it continued to grow organically and through acquisitions. Vivarte made the decision to find a new cash and treasury management system that could help manage cash and treasury for the multiple entities within Vivarte. Why Kyriba? Several factors led Vivarte to choose Kyriba, including: Software-as-a-Service It was actually Vivarte’s IT department that encouraged treasury to pursue a SaaS application rather than an installed and internally hosted solution, since Vivarte had already switched much of its computer infrastructure to the cloud. Vivarte also felt that a SaaS solution would make the admission of new users much easier, thereby better supporting the scalability of the business. Cost The cost of the solution was also a deciding factor. The SaaS model eliminated significant costs attributed to hosting the software internally, including upgrading hardware, operating systems, and compatible software. Ease of Use The Vivarte team felt that Kyriba could be used similarly to their older cash management system so that processes did not have to be completely re-engineered. Kyriba was also able to migrate data from the old system as part of the implementation. With Kyriba Vivarte uses the following Kyriba modules: Bank Reporting Cash Management Cash Forecasting Payments GL Posting GL Reconciliation In addition to the typical automation and productivity improvements, Vivarte benefited from: Improved Productivity Kyriba has become a strategic tool for the Vivarte Group, managing 3,000 accounts for 37 different businesses. The company was able to fully replace their legacy cash management system while also improving productivity of the treasury operation. The flexibility of the solution and ease of use made the implementation significantly easier. Kyriba’s Cash Positioning and Forecasting features exceeded Vivarte’s expectations, especially the ability to integrate Kyriba with internal systems for a consolidated view of cash activity. Global Cash Visibility Bank Reporting was key for Vivarte as they had previously used ETEBAC, a regional banking protocol and solution. Because Kyriba supported two replacements, Ebics and SwiftNet, Vivarte benefited from Kyriba’s flexibility. Vivarte chose SWIFTNet and incorporated daily reporting into Kyriba which combined bank connectivity with the rest of Kyriba’s workflow. Thanks to Kyriba Vivarte now enjoys a single fully integrated tool that delivers global cash visibility in all regions, including Europe and Asia. GL Reconciliation Vivarte chose to use Kyriba’s GL Reconciliation module since the bank transactions were already in Kyriba as a result of the daily bank connectivity. Vivarte was able to help Kyriba enrich its solution by recommending a number of feature enhancements that allowed Vivarte to migrate most of their processes to Kyriba. Today, 80 Vivarte employees use Kyriba’s GL Reconciliation module.

"The Kyriba personnel that we have been in contact with have been experts in their field. Not only do they know the product very well, but I have found that their Treasury expertise has...

"The Kyriba personnel that we have been in contact with have been experts in their field. Not only do they know the product very well, but I have found that their Treasury expertise has been excellent and very helpful when implementing the system. They have been able to advise on all facets of the system and suggest ways to improve current processes." A Company Financial Officer Qualcomm   Objectives Automate treasury processes performed manually using spreadsheets Increase global cash visibility and monitoring of international bank accounts Improve reporting capabilities – more frequent review of bank account activity and authorized signers Before Kyriba Qualcomm spent a significant amount of time on manual processes and had outgrown the use of Excel spreadsheets to manage cash and bank accounts. The monitoring of international bank account activity and investment of excess cash within their international entities was a key area for process and control improvement. Why Kyriba? Compared to the other solutions Qualcomm reviewed, they preferred the functionality offered by Kyriba – particularly the cash forecasting capabilities, flexible reporting, and the intuitive user interface. Qualcomm also liked the Software-as-a-Service model compared to both the installed solutions and ASP offerings, as they wanted a pure web solution that eliminated the need for internal IT resources. With Kyriba Qualcomm has successfully implemented Bank Reporting, Cash Positioning, Cash Forecasting, GL Posting and identified Payments, Bank Fee Analysis, and Bank Account Management as Phase 2 items. Bank Reporting Qualcomm chose to implement global balance and transaction reporting for their worldwide bank accounts across 7 banks in North America, Europe, and Asia. This provides them visibility into 95% of accounts, improving visibility significantly. Qualcomm chose to report on prior day for other continents while reporting on current day in North America. Cash Positioning Qualcomm performs all cash positioning in Kyriba and was especially pleased with the flexibility to configure the system around their different bank account structures. Through the automation of Kyriba, Qualcomm was able to save significant time for daily positioning within the US as well as globally. Qualcomm also improved time and accuracy of their Forecast to Actual Reconciliation process, improving the efficiency of cash positioning and forecasting. GL Posting One of Qualcomm’s priorities was to automate tagging and posting of accounting entries from bank transactions to their Oracle GL system. Kyriba’s automatic GL Posting module is used to post several hundred domestic transactions via interface to Oracle, which allows them to automate over 99% of the transactions. This has completely streamlined their accounting process and reduced the manual classification and review previously necessary. To aid with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, Qualcomm has significantly improved their audit and control mechanisms - key to their internal treasury audit. Transparency of user access and full segregation of duties within the organization were the top improvements. Qualcomm also expects to take advantage of the dual-administration features of the Payments module and the ability to provide an audit trail on bank account signatory activity. Technology and IT The Kyriba platform has worked flawlessly since Qualcomm implemented the solution, including when the upgrade to new versions, which requires no user involvement. While Qualcomm did require an IT resource to provide the specifications for file import into the Oracle GL module, they have been working without internal IT support of any kind and absolutely no hardware was purchased. ABOUT QUALCOMM Qualcomm, Inc. is a $15 billion designer and manufacturer of digital wireless telecommunications products and services based out of San Diego, CA. Founded in 1986, it employs over 17,500 employees.

"Not only do we see positive, measurable benefits from the Kyriba solution, but we think it also highlights our objective for our treasury group to be pro-active, best-in-class – always stretching to deliver high...

"Not only do we see positive, measurable benefits from the Kyriba solution, but we think it also highlights our objective for our treasury group to be pro-active, best-in-class – always stretching to deliver high quality services to our customers: the member hospitals and affiliates of Partners HealthCare." A Company Financial Officer Partners Healthcare   Objectives Create a unified web-based cash management platform Maintain, at the minimum, the functionality that their three disparate software solutions provided Improve Data Management without requiring additional IT support Before Kyriba Partners HealthCare was growing through the addition of new affiliates and required a central treasury platform. Partners had in the past decided to use various software solutions to address different functional needs. At the time, Partners maintained several disparate systems, including a legacy in-house cash management system, a bank-supported Treasury Workstation for cash reporting, positioning and accounting, a server-based intercompany netting solution, and a web-based solution for cash forecasting. None of the systems talked to each other and the bank treasury workstation could not incorporate their proprietary money market pool’s historical balances, nor could it automate the reconciliation of bank-to-book. Partners had to create extensive Excel macros that combined balances from multiple sources to ensure the subledger agreed to bank reported balances. Why Kyriba? Kyriba’s comprehensive solution was high on the list as it included all of Partners’ functional needs on one platform. Another differentiating factor was the price as the SaaS subscription model pricing is very affordable. The fact that Kyriba is a true SaaS solution met Partners requirements to eliminate the need for internal servers, improve contingency plans, and provide access for affiliates from any office location. Finally, Partners felt the expertise and “can-do” attitude of the Kyriba consultants, support personnel, and product specialists made an excellent fit with Partners. After Kyriba Partners moved its cash forecasting needs over to Kyriba early in the implementation process. It was impressed by Kyriba’s new recurring cash flow feature which allowed it to quickly create detailed forecasts for their affiliates. It also liked the customized cash position worksheets which delivered consolidated forecasted cash positions. There were many viewing options, allowing Partners to slice and dice the information in many different ways. Variance analysis of actual versus forecast was also important to it and this feature replaced cumbersome Excel reports that previously manipulated data exported from the legacy systems. Kyriba’s solution aided Partners’ Sarbanes-Oxley compliance by streamlining workflows and standardizing processes. This made life easier for them in terms of contingency planning, maintaining procedure manuals and easier cross-training of their staff. During the annual audit process, Partners was asked to test certain payments and transactions. Kyriba’s query and large historical storage capabilities made this process much easier to complete. Partners Healthcare has found Kyriba’s solution to be feature-rich, making the user “feel empowered”. Partners also appreciated the opportunity to work with Kyriba post-implementation to create a wish-list of interesting enhancements, and were pleased to see their input reflected in new releases. ABOUT PARTNERS HEALTHCARE Partners HealthCare, headquartered in Boston, MA, is one of the largest charitable diversified health care service organizations in the United States, with annual revenues of $8.1B.

"Kyriba has improved the efficiency of our cash operations and provided the tool to help us forecast cash more accurately and effectively. We have been very happy with Kyriba’s implementation and support teams and...

"Kyriba has improved the efficiency of our cash operations and provided the tool to help us forecast cash more accurately and effectively. We have been very happy with Kyriba’s implementation and support teams and we’re pleased to be a part of their growing customer base." A Company Financial Officer Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey   Objectives The treasury workstation that Horizon BCBSNJ used was no longer supported and the company needed a solution to replace their system while meeting their functional requirements and ideally improving efficiencies in their cash operations. Horizon BCBSNJ’s primary objectives were to: Improve the forecasting of cash flows Automate internal and external reporting Automate the generation of accounting entries Before Kyriba Horizon BCBSNJ had been using an installed treasury workstation but wanted to move to an on-demand system that better suited the company’s needs for IT support, disaster recovery, and performance. The company was also not satisfied with the reporting and forecasting capabilities of the previous system and looked to Kyriba to make improvements. Why Kyriba? The main reason Horizon BCBSNJ chose Kyriba was for its feature rich forecasting tool. Not only did Horizon BCBSNJ prefer Kyriba’s forecasting and reporting capabilities over other options, they also noted that Kyriba’s support was a key factor in their decision. Another critical factor in switching to Kyriba was the company’s Software-as-a-Service delivery model which virtually eliminated IT resource requirements. After Kyriba Since implementing Kyriba, Horizon BCBSNJ’s main goals of improved cash forecasting, automated reporting, and automated GL posting have been achieved. Kyriba has made Horizon’s cash management operation more efficient and enabled them to spend more time on analytics and less time on transaction processing. Kyriba was also able to convert their historical information into the new system, which made the implementation significantly quicker and easier.