Making Treasury Extraordinary: ZEE’s Superstar Transformation

To support annual growth of more than 20%, Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE) needed a treasury function that was automated, efficient, and future-proofed. Here, Rohit Kumar Gupta, CFO, ZEE and Rupa Balsekar, Managing Director & Head Transaction Banking, BNP Paribas India, explain how a bespoke end-to-end cash management solution provided by the bank has transformed ZEE’s treasury function into a digital and sustainable role model.

A global media and entertainment conglomerate with a presence across television broadcasting, movies, music, live entertainment and digital platforms, ZEE provides content to more than 1.3 billion people in 173 countries worldwide. Already a leader in the traditional television entertainment industry in India, ZEE’s vision is to become the number one digital entertainment provider in the country, through its new ZEE5 offering, and to be the world’s leading media company from the emerging markets.

As Gupta explains: “As a corporation, we are driven by innovation and creativity. Our motto is ‘Extraordinary Together’ – and our focus is on growth, while delivering exceptional value to our customers, viewers and stakeholders. From a finance and treasury perspective, that means we need to act as enablers of business growth, allowing the company to stay at the cutting edge of evolution in the industry. We need to have the right technology and funding in place to support the business and its dynamic needs. In addition, treasury must reduce any financial barriers for creators and providers of content to enable them to do the best possible job.”

Against the backdrop of a rapidly growing organisation – in excess of 20% per year – and a relatively lean finance function, Gupta knew that processes needed to be automated and streamlined to enable treasury to do more with less. With this in mind, he turned to long-term banking partner, BNP Paribas, for support in transforming ZEE’s treasury function. “Both ZEE and BNP Paribas have a passion for digitisation and automation, so our goals were, and are, very much aligned. This made BNP Paribas the natural choice of partner for our transformation journey – we also knew that they would come to the table with innovative ideas and solutions,” Gupta notes.

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