DOES YOUR TREASURY HAVE A DIGITAL MINDSET?
This article is written by Pecunia Treasury & Finance B.V. In an previous article I have talked about the IT changes that make life easier for a treasurer in the future (or now already). In this article I want to talk about the digital mindset of the person using the IT – the treasurer. Treasury is a numbers game. We treasurers use these numbers to optimize the cash or risk of the company. We make money with money. These numbers have to come from somewhere in the organization and it is usually never treasury itself. BIG data Big data is a hot topic in treasury but for treasury it was around longer. The treasurer needs to get their input information for all over the company. Cash inflow from sales, cash outflow from procurement and investment teams, HR etc. All this data needs to be gathered. The digital minded treasurer thinks about optimal ways of gathering this data: automatically. The treasurer starts its day with the actual cash balances and then looks forward. They basically need to predict the future. How great would it be if all this data would be available with the push on a button. An ideal world ? Maybe, but it is possible. Bank statements can be automated to be loaded collectively or in a Treasury Management System. The treasurer starts the day with up to date cash balances, and he has not started working yet as this was automated. He then updates the cash forecast. How? By pushing update in his cash forecasting system. Sounds too easy? True, it took weeks to find out where to find the needed input information and to automate getting this data grouped together and in a structured way. But a digital minded treasurer knows that the data is somewhere in the organisation; it only needs to found and linked to the treasurers information recourses so it is always available. The treasurer only has to check the validity and the quality of the data and see if it needs improvement. In this way the digital minded treasurer can automatically create a cash forecast and continually improve it. A cash forecast should be ready before the second morning coffee. In an ideal world it would be ready with a push on a button. Artificial intelligence makes it possible. The digital minded treasurer is steering it. Process improvements The digital treasurer looks at ways to improve its document flows and payments. Not only looking at costs but also looking at how many (manual) interventions are needed. FX deals can be setup to straight through processed (STP) while blockchain would make it possible to improve the speed of payments or document flows globally. Everything is connected, as payments go from a process to straight through and instant it has an immedicate effect on the cash availability and forecasting. While now the bank is the place to go for bank accounts and payments this might not be the case in 10 years. The digital treasury might be able to setup his own bank in the future. By using technology. The future The treasurer makes sure that he is on the steering wheel while technology makes it possible for him/her to check his surroundings so he does not crash. A bigger front window makes for a better view forward (forecasting), a higher max speed makes for quicker travel (updating changes in forecasting), adaptive cruise control saves effort on speeds control (automatic updating and AI, STP). The treasurer knows he needs to keep the engine running to keep moving. He also realizes that he does not need to be a mechanic to do this; however he needs to be able to tell the mechanics quickly why the car is not moving as the treasurer wants it to be so the mechanic can fix this. Or maybe the digital treasurer might change the car for a plane in the future, or even a rocket? It is clear that technology and treasury are interconnected. Already now and even more in the future. A treasurer therefore needs a digital mindset to survive and keep up with the information needs of his department and the company as a whole. And it’s not rocket science (yet). Also Read Join our Treasury Community Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click [HERE] or fill out the form below to get more information.
Franklin
How to Explain RPA To Your Granny
This article is written by: Automation Boutique Remember when children used to believe that there was a tiny man inside the radio speaking? Or when they checked the back of the TV looking for the show host? We are back to those days, and again, it is due to a new technology: Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Where is the robot in robotic process automation? The robot is not a physical one. There is no metallic little man walking around and clicking buttons inside the computer. The “robot” is just a set of instructions that the computer follows on its own, without the need for a human to do it. Your granny will surely remember when people used to grind corn into flour by using water mills propelled by a nearby river. That is automation. The movement of the mill (whose energy was supplied by the passing water current) could be called a robot. You see, the robot is not the mill itself, which would be equivalent to the computer (as the water current would be to electricity). The robot is the virtual (not physically existing) “executer” of the automated action, in this case, milling. We could imagine a little man pushing the mill incessantly. In the RPA world, we call this imaginary man a robot. What does this “automation” thing mean? Automation consists of mechanising actions so that they can be executed without the need for a human to be present or to spend time and effort on them. Put simply, automation is making someone or something else do it for you. Remember when previous generations built a scarecrow using straw and their granny’s hat to keep birds and wild boars away from plantations (as grandma can tell you, birds and wild boars love to destroy grain fields)? Imagine having to do that yourself: being out all night posing in the darkness to keep those naughty beasts away from your corn! That is not what the old generations did. Instead, they automated animal scaring. After understanding who the “robot” is and what automation means, we can move on to the only word left: process. What is this mysterious process that is being automated? In the case of a watermill, the process is grinding corn into flour. In the case of a scarecrow, the process is, you guessed it, standing in the field day and night while looking scary. In RPA, the process could be typing (writing on the computer, in case grandma is giving you a funny look) to send an email (a letter sent over the internet), or it could be going to a website (a website is like one of those internet places where your teenage grandson appears on pictures sticking his tongue out) and finding some information in it. All of this, or any other pre-defined, repetitive, and rule-based computer tasks, can be automated, just like previous generations automated grinding and scaring animals away. In automation, rules can be as complex as needed, but must leave no room for ambiguity. If ambiguity cannot be avoided, hyper-automation is required, which is, judging by Granny’s face (see picture above), best left for after naptime (and a whole other article). So here we have it. Robotic Process Automation: We use a robot (imaginary little man or, more seriously, a set of instructions given to a computer) to take a process (some work to do, usually divided into discrete steps) and automate it (do the work for us). Also Read Join our Treasury Community Treasury Masterminds is a community of professionals working in treasury management or those interested in learning more about various topics related to treasury management, including cash management, foreign exchange management, and payments. To register and connect with Treasury professionals, click [HERE] or fill out the form below to get more information. Notice: JavaScript is required for this content.