Today’s businesses do not look or act like the leading firms of even a decade ago. These companies evolve faster thanks to innovations in fintech that provide performance-based analyses and intelligent processes. Companies are no longer stuck managing day-to-day manual operations because new technology is offering a truly digital and automated experience. This, in turn, helps treasurers become more strategic and deliver decision support that impacts business value. While innovations in fintech have improved across a wide range of areas for treasury, those that have the most promise for corporate treasurers include Kyriba’s new fully integrated solution, Business Intelligence.
CFOs are demanding more from treasury and yet their candid views of high-performance treasury teams, and expectations of them, show there is room for improvement. According to a new survey with CFO Research, which spoke to more than 150 senior financial executives across multiple industries in North America, 40% of respondents currently consider their treasury operations better than average, but the majority (45%) ranked them as average. Only 8.1% consider them “best in classâ€, the report states. The report is entitled “3 Key Areas Where CFOs Say Treasurers Need to be More Strategic.â€
Enabling business performance with Business Intelligence
One area that can help treasury become more intelligent is data visualisation. CFOs see this as an area that needs substantial improvement. According to the survey, 28.5% of senior finance leaders call for better reporting, with cash management in the top position at 34%.
Today's reporting is often carried out within a row-and-column format, requiring treasury to manually scan for exception and meaning. There is typically no drill down and no ability to change the report on the fly to suit the CFO's revised needs. Analysis is further complicated when there are large volumes of data from which to draw meaning.
Newer solutions, such as Kyriba’s Business Intelligence launched on Monday, November 5 2018, offer significant advantages, delivering visual dashboards, multiple drill downs, and interactive analyses. This business intelligence will lead treasury to drive new conclusions as the dashboards adjust in real time based on queries and filtering of data. Completely visual and highly interactive, this new standard of reporting is completely oriented towards performance and KPIs. With Business Intelligence, the report itself becomes the answer.
To rise to a best-in-class treasury operation and enable finance leaders to achieve business objectives, treasury requires better information, delivered more easily, with a greater range of visualisations and interactivity.
CFOs who embrace the strategic role of treasury and desire improvement in cash and risk management are also asking more of treasury. CFOs expect analysis of information rather than reporting of data; and they want this insight faster despite the increased burden of bigger data sets. These requirements are compounded by the impending introduction of robotics and artificial intelligence, which are further enabled by increased data access and analysis. Treasury can meet this challenge by effectively managing more data, analyzing more quickly, and offering more informed recommendations and decisions to the executive level.
Treasury technology continues to evolve and will only simplify our lives, paving the way for efficient and effective treasury teams. The key is to select the right technology providers which embrace innovation and strive to match new technology with the emerging needs of treasury.
Â
