Corporate Innovators

The Best and the Brightest of 2021

2021 was arguably one of the most innovative years on record in the world of corporate treasury, based on the standard of entries to the TMI Corporate Recognition Awards. Here, we present a brief overview of the winning projects – which cannot possibly do justice to the magnitude of these initiatives, but nevertheless provides a flavour of the level of innovation and excellence happening in the treasury profession.

The TMI Judges had one of the hardest years deciding which projects to acknowledge in the 2021 Corporate Recognition Awards, given that there were so many outstanding solutions in the mix. Even those entrants that were not ultimately rewarded should be proud of their efforts, as some of the categories were extremely hard-fought.

Another competitive Award category was Best Accounts Payable Solution. Despite the tough competition for this Award, US-based high-tech manufacturer Jabil was able to pip any rivals to the post. Jabil worked with Serrala to digitise and automate its AP processes to ensure better control and visibility of outbound cash flow – and the results have been eye-opening.

Moving from payables onto the Best Accounts Receivable Solution, this was another popular Award category. Ultimately, the win was awarded to Coca Cola Beverages Pakistan Limited (CCBPL), which worked with Standard Chartered and fintech Haball to implement an innovative solution that digitises the order-to-cash life cycle. The solution also consolidates information across all omnichannel end points into a single window, and has revolutionised the receivables process for CCBPL.

Meanwhile, the competition in the Best Cash Pooling Solution category meant that the judges picked two Highly Commended winners and an overall winner. The first Highly Commended goes to CRRC HK Capital (CRRC), which embarked upon a project with Bank of China (Hong Kong) to establish an innovative three-layered cash pool, enabling global account information to be gathered into a single platform in Hong Kong.

The second Highly Commended in the Best Cash Pooling Solution is taken home by Qualcomm. The treasury team at the wireless technology and innovation giant worked with Bank of America to implement a cutting-edge multi-currency notional pool. This has not only provided Qualcomm with full visibility and control of the group’s liquidity but also resulted in cost significant savings.

As outlined, the competition in this Award category was extremely tough but the overall winner of Best Cash Pooling Solution is PayPal. After the acquisition of Zettle, the treasury team worked with J.P. Morgan to implement a two-phased state-of-the-art notional pooling solution, with innovative sweep functionalities. The migration was successfully enacted, prioritising speed and efficiency, and resulted in: full concentration of liquidity across PayPal and Zettle in a single-currency position for efficient onward deployment; reduced idle cash/liquidity buffers on Zettle accounts, pooling 99% of all cash across participating Zettle entities; and an efficient and fully automated funding mechanism for the newly acquired business leveraging PayPal balances as required. Read more in the case study featured on TMI’s Innovation Lab, which is supported by J.P. Morgan. 

The next Award category is Best In-House Bank Implementation, which goes to Atlas Copco. As part of its digital transformation journey, the company established an IHB , which involved restructuring the company’s 22 cash pools and rolling out FIS Treasury and Risk Manager -  Quantum Edition to the group’s entities. As a result of the project, the treasury team has increased the speed and efficiency of treasury processes and reduced the need for external banking services.

Another hotly contested category for 2021 was Best Investment Strategy, with the Judges Awarding a Highly Commended to India Grid Trust. The team wanted to focus more on strategic decision-making, rather than completing the transactional activities relating to their investments. As such, India Grid worked with IBSFINtech to implement its Innovative Treasury 6i -  Investment Module and has since benefitted from improved returns, as well as significant process improvements. The TMI Judges were particularly impressed with the team’s willingness to think outside the box and their close partnership with IBSFINtech, which resulted in a highly fruitful partnership.

Meanwhile, the winner of Best Investment Strategy 2021 is Spotify. Working alongside J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Spotify’s treasury team created a ‘step-out’ short-term investment structure. This approach incorporates a diversified investment portfolio, which helps to shield the company’s cash investments from market volatility – which is the goal of every treasurer. The Spotify team’s investment approach is complemented by benchmarking, RPA, and of course, great cash visibility to start with – all essential ingredients in this winning solution.

Another clear winner in 2021 emerged in the Best Payments Innovation category, which goes to L’Oréal for its pioneering work with BNP Paribas to develop a system called BENEtracker to alert its suppliers of incoming payments. The solution pinpoints the exact location of every payment at each point of its journey, removing all uncertainty for suppliers, and reducing the manual workload for both L’Oréal and the bank. This solution is a shining example of co-creation leading to innovations that are ahead of their time.

Speaking of solutions that are extremely advanced, Highly Commended in the Best Supply Chain Solution category is Barry Callebaut. The Swiss cocoa processor and chocolate manufacturer worked with Standard Chartered to implement a digital cross-border supply chain solution in Malaysia, which is truly cutting edge. The set-up not only leverages SWIFTNet and includes a netting ability  but it is also structured under an innovative Islamic format.

Among tough competition, Alibaba emerged as the overall winner of Best Supply Chain Solution. The TMI Judges were extremely impressed by Alibaba’s project to mitigate the financial and supply chain challenges being faced by its 150,000 suppliers due to the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical trade tensions. In partnership with J.P. Morgan, the e-commerce giant deployed a SWIFT gpi for Corporates (g4c) and API-based solution that enables suppliers to be updated on payments in real time. In turn, this helps suppliers to improve the efficiency of their working capital – and to stay a step ahead of global headwinds.

While a handful of winners in 2021 deployed SWIFT gpi as part of their solution, the overall Award for Best SWIFT gpi Implementation goes to Naval Group. The company worked with BNP Paribas to deploy SWIFT g4C, with a special focus on the bank’s Pay and Trace capability. This provides complete transparency over gpi payments at any point in time – without the corporate needing to contact the bank, and has resulted in significant working capital benefits.

Elsewhere, the Best Trade Finance Solution saw record nominations in 2021, but there was a standout winner, namely Indian energy company Apraava. Together with its partner bank, Standard Chartered, the company developed an innovative transferable LC structure to enable onward procurement of wind turbine components by an Engineering Procurement Construction contractor. The solution has been a huge success and demonstrated numerous areas of innovation.

Another hotly contested category was that of Best Treasury Transformation Project, with many treasury functions leveraging the pandemic to enact change. Given the standard of entries in this category, the TMI judges had a hard task selecting winners, but the first Highly Commended is Ant Group. This extensive project involved, among other goals, collaborating with J.P. Morgan to build a global FX and liquidity centre by connecting five global treasury hubs covering more than 40 currencies across 60 entities. Impressive indeed!

The second Highly Commended in this category goes to Sanofi. Together with partners Intensum and SAP, Sanofi embarked on an ambitious three-year treasury transformation project, which it has now achieved on time and in line with all objectives. Overcoming challenges along the way, Sanofi has reached numerous milestones through this project, including: the deployment of an IHB; a fully automated daily FX exposure risk management programme; end-to-end treasury deal management integrated with the trading platform and including counterparty risk management; and robust and highly secure bank agnostic connectivity. The company also now has one version of the truth and can spend more time in analysis and strategic tasks than in crunching numbers – a true win for all involved.

Taking home the ultimate Award for Best Treasury Transformation Project is Hitachi Energy. This project involved the creation of a largely standalone treasury for a global $10bn company. This meant carving out legacy decentralised business models, while implementing a fit-for-purpose global treasury operations infrastructure and organisation. With the support of FIS, the company has also taken advantage of the latest cloud-based technology to modernise and scale treasury in a groundbreaking way.

Meanwhile, the level of competition in the Best Working Capital Solution category merited a Highly Commended accolade, which goes to Kohler. In partnership with Bank of America, Kohler implemented Intelligent Receivables (IREC), which leverages AI and ML, to automate cash application. In a pilot in China, Kohler achieved an STP application rate of 85% and has since rolled out IREC in nine other APAC markets – to great success.

The overall winner of Best Working Capital Solution is Kellogg’s –  which worked with Cashforce to connect to the company’s granular ERP data and build a forecast based on working capital insight. As a result, the company was able to engage its Order to Cash and Purchase to Pay departments to decrease working capital levels, while at the same time improving the cash forecasting process. This led to greater transparency as well as significant time and cash savings.

In the Best Risk Management Solution category, there was a clear winner, making the Judges’ job easy. The hands-down victor is Danone’s treasury team in Asia. Over the past 12 to 18 months, accelerated by the onset of the pandemic, the team initiated an ambitious multiphased project with a view to transforming its treasury and risk management in the Asia region. This extensive project has transformed risk management in the treasury function, enabling faster processing and greater proactivity, and making for a more resilient and agile operation.

Technology drives treasury forward

2021 also saw a slew of tech-focused corporate Awards, starting with Best AI Solution. Highly Commended here is ACCO Brands. After completing an acquisition of a company with operations in 22 European countries, reconciling accounts was a challenge for ACCO. As such, the well-known manufacturer of office products worked with Bank of America to roll out an AI-based reconciliation solution, of which ACCO is an early adopter. Before this project, circa 70% of payments needed manual intervention to be correctly matched, today that figure is down to 10% and may fall even further.

However, the overall winner of Best AI Solution is Etihad for its pioneering work to leverage Microsoft AI as a means to identify supplier payment anomalies, thereby strengthening controls and saving time. In fact, the significant reduction in false positives, and a corresponding workload review, has saved more than 600 hours per year. This is a superb achievement that demonstrates true innovation and excellence in treasury – with the team looking to leverage emerging technology as a means to tackle age-old challenges.

 A sign of the treasury times, the Best API Deployment Award category was another with many nominations. However, Unilever is the hands-down winner. Working with J.P. Morgan, Unilever deployed the bank’s Insight API in just 10 days to garner access to constant, real-time information across each and every business bank account. The benefits include accurate cash management decisions, reduced risk when forecasting, and opportunities to make more effective, timely FX trades.

Another exciting category which reflects the level of treasury innovation in 2021 is Best Blockchain Solution, which goes to PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC). In partnership with Standard Chartered, PTTGC has deployed a blockchain-based solution that improves the procure-to-pay cycle. PTTGC is among the first major corporations in Thailand to use blockchain technology and API connectivity to address inefficiencies in supply chain management and is a more than worthy winner of this Award.

Yet another tough category in which to be a corporate contender, Best Cash Visibility Solution, produced two Highly Commended winners, the first of which is Saudi Telecom Company (STC). The communications giant embarked on an ambitious project to centralise its treasury processes and data, to help improve cash visibility and control, with the support of FIS. Thanks to this overhaul, the company now benefits from a single source of truth, with numerous process efficiency advantages relating to cash visibility as well as improved cash flow forecasting and reporting.

The second Highly Commended is Zimmer Biomet. Following the acquisition of Biomet, the company wanted to ensure a successful integration and the treasury team reviewed banking arrangements in order to enhance yield and improve cash visibility. Working with HSBC, the company has now achieved enhanced visibility over accounts in each region thanks to a sophisticated project involving a multicurrency notional pool and the roll-out of HSBC’s Liquidity Management Portal, resulting in better deployment of cash and significant benefits not only for treasury but also for the wider organisation.

Among this stiff competition, the overall winner in the Best Cash Visibility Solution is CEVA Logistics. Throughout 2021, the treasury team at CEVA implemented a wide-reaching cash flow management and cash flow visibility transformation project. This has since reaped numerous high-value benefits for the $7.4bn global logistics company, not least in terms of its forecasting capabilities. At the heart of the project was an implementation of the CashAnalytics cash reporting and forecasting platform, which was a game-changer for CEVA.

A stalwart in the corporate treasury tech scene, the Best TMS Implementation Award category was extremely popular, with many treasury functions having undertaken projects throughout the pandemic. In 2021, the Highly Commended accolade goes to Velcro. With a complex and decentralised structure including 26 subsidiaries and 74 banks, the treasury team did not have full visibility into their global financial information. To remedy this, the Velcro treasury team embarked on a project with Coupa. The results of this collaboration include 100% visibility and control of cash 24/7/365. This proved to be mission critical during the pandemic when future cash flows were uncertain and the project is a great example of best practice.

The overall winner of Best TMS Implementation is Asyad Group. Asyad has undertaken a successful TMS implementation in partnership with Bottomline TreasuryXpress to bring visibility and confidence to its financial metrics following a major group restructuring. Thanks to the best-in-class implementation, treasury’s status as a cost centre is now a thing of the past and Asyad is looking to leverage even more advanced technologies via the system in due course, with AI being a particular focus.

Another innovative category, Best Virtual Accounts Solution is won by AirAsia India. The company was looking for a more efficient way to manage its workflows with travel agents. In partnership with Standard Chartered, a solution was conceived that combines virtual accounts with API-based credit notification to simplify collections, receivables posting, reconciliation, and systems reporting. The solution makes life easier for the travel agents sending business to AirAsia, and by refreshing credit limits more quickly, supports AirAsia in growing its sales – a win for all involved.

Last, but by no means least, the Editor’s Choice Award for 2021 goes to Achmea – the largest insurance company in the Netherlands - thanks to its proactive and forward – looking approach to sanctions screening. Achmea has a constant watch on sanctioned parties, and has worked with TIS on smart use of data, automation and collaboration across departments to develop an efficient and reliable method of transaction screening in a short time. The solution prevents the need for extra deployment of FTEs and protects Achmea and its customers against financial crime. Moreover, this solution is a powerful tool in risk management – and represents the leading edge of best practice in this area.