PwC’s 2019 Global Treasury Benchmarking Survey* theme 1 on “Digital adoption’ starts with results from PwC’s CEO survey which found that executives believe there is “no sustainable future without embracing the digital agenda.” The report advises that “Treasurers need to take critical steps to support this priority:

• Make the business case for transformation
• Build a centralised and aggregated data repository
• Incorporate Treasury policies and key performance indicators in the processes
• Determine the technical architecture needed to serve as the digital backbone
• Strengthen technology and digital skills in the team.”

A day in the life a treasury professional in a digital world

PwC believes that the treasury mandate is to “optimise financial assets and liabilities, drive cash flow improvements, process cash transactions, and manage financial risk” and that goal for a Digital Treasury Ecosystem is  “where the CFO or treasurer makes real-time financial decisions utilising interfaces and customisable technology.” So that a typical day in the life in the life fo a treasury professional in a digital world goes like this:

Source & Copyright©2019 - PwC 

Role of RPA 

The role and importance of RPA in automating key parts of the corporate treasury department is the case study of a Fortune 100 MNC who save up to 1.5 hours per day by automating the daily cash positioning of their in-house bank and eliminating repetitive human input.

The key conclusion was that “Developing this process with RPA avoided additional time-consuming and invasive development in the current treasury management system.”

Consultants and corporate treasury department are starting to see a clear role for RPA.

Defining your digital transformation 

PwC ends this section with a plea that “teams should focus on a robust “Digital Treasury platform”, which can host new technologies, Fintech solutions, and can also support future innovation.” and then they give their opinion as to the key steps in this digital transformation.

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*2019 survey contains responses from 238 companies, collected between September 2018 and May 2019. Survey participants were contacted by local Treasury consultants across the PwC network.

The responses represent companies headquartered in 37 countries, across 21 industries, with operations in an average of 30 countries. The average revenue of a respondent was $10.3 billion.

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CTMfile take: The depth of the insights into corporate treasury department operations and how to implement digital transformation is impressive, but it is the depth of analysis and thought in the chart on the impact of technology that really stands out.