Treasury Strategy & Transformation
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Benchmarking Treasury Operations – A 360 Degree Perspective

Today’s corporate treasury is being challenged in unprecedented ways. Complex factors, such as global growth, changing regulations, and advancements in technology are impacting treasury management, putting increased pressure on organizations to ‘do more with less.’ At the same time, the role of the treasurer has expanded to meet the evolving responsibilities of funding and raising liquidity, understanding and managing risks, and supporting business units as successfully as possible. In order to effectively navigate this dynamic landscape, corporate treasurers must leverage meaningful intelligence to improve performance and enhance results.

Benchmarking has become an invaluable means for treasury to gain an objective perspective of the current state of operations relative to similar companies and in absolute terms of liquidity and risk. However, effective benchmarking isn’t simply about comparing a handful of functions and companies – it should provide a 360 degree treasury perspective, offering a broad baseline and insights into best practices across all dimensions of treasury management. While benchmarking practices have continually evolved over the years, the ways in which it can create value for a firm have remained constant. Typically, organizations will leverage benchmarking for one or more of the following reasons: 

(1)       improving productivity;
(2)       setting effective goals; and
(3)       driving continual improvement.

Taking a broad benchmarking approach 

Citi Treasury Diagnostics (CTD) is a proprietary, award-winning benchmarking tool that takes a broad benchmarking approach, designed to help companies assess treasury and working capital management practices, and identify opportunities for treasury departments to deliver more value to their firms. Through mid year 2014, CTD surveyed nearly 500 CFOs, treasurers, assistant and regional treasurers, and other corporate decision-makers from companies representing a diverse range of sizes, industries, and geographies across the globe. Benchmarking results from CTD provide a clear indication as to what is most important to treasury practitioners, as well as insights into both emerging and existing themes within the treasury management space.