Corporate treasurers have been enjoying the increased operational and risk control that today’s TMS offer, but, at the same time, they are also complaining bitterly about suffering with:

• lengthy implementation times, e.g. Merck have publically complained about their FOUR years implementation time for WallStreet Suite
• poor support: it is has been so bad that some corporate treasury departments have employed own TMS systems support staff
• long times between updates
• the resources and energy required to keep their TMS running.

But the business model for many TMS providers is not really viable as corporate treasury departments don’t have enough funds to resource their TMS suppliers effectively. This is shown by the success of ION’s business model in taking over other TMS providers and then paring back on marketing, support and new development to make the business profitable, see.

What corporate treasury department’s want

Corporate treasurer’s are sure they want:

• The latest technology that “just works”, e.g. the Apple type model
• Short and simple implentations
• Regular updates
• New functionality added quickly and easily 
• Easy to support and run systems.

But to achieve this, corporate treasury departments are starting to realise that they need to work out what is the core functionality they need, i.e. what system does 85% of what they need. Then separately identify and choose what are the other specialist niche applications they want? The new API technology opens the door to what is possible. 

New TMS model - demands more from suppliers and corporates 

Using the new technologies, a new TMS model that is starting to emerge:

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This means that TMS providers are going to have to work out exactly what is core to what they do, and what could and would be done more effectively by partners. This discipline of NOT covering functions is going to be vital in making the new TMS model work.

Corporate treasury departments are also going to have to be ruthless in choosing what is core and what is non-core. The ability to make these choices is going to be a key skill in a corporate treasury department

The impact

We are nowhere near to having this new TMS model established, however the impact is starting to become clearer:

• Implementation times are coming down dramatically, e.g. TreasuryXpress’s implementation times are already measured in weeks and are predicting that they will become days
• Integrating systems amd making them work together is getting easier and qucker all the time
• System solution providers are no-longer trying to provide their own solution for all functions and activities in the corporate treasury department.

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CTMfile take: Both the TMS providers and their users will become happier, as the TMS providers become more profitable and users get what they really need. However, there is a lot of work to be done by corporates and TMS solution providers.