A treasurer’s guide for technology adoption

A treasury team’s degree of technological adoption generally correlates to their role within an organisation: from an emerging treasury function within a finance team, to a more mature unit that is proactively contributing to strategic business initiatives.

As the treasury’s role expands, technology becomes increasingly important in orchestrating processes and decisions between accounting activities and banking operations. This is most often driven by a need for improved efficiency, data-led insights, and enhanced controls across core treasury management duties.

These tasks are generally supported by three types of solutions: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Treasury Management Systems (TMS), or specialist products.

While an ERP is most often the initial platform leveraged by treasury teams, the growing complexity of needs necessitates further development of functional capabilities within the existing ERP, or the implementation of a dedicated TMS, potentially supplemented by specialist products from software vendors and banks. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and the diverse landscape of solutions adopted by corporates demonstrates that it is best to evaluate solutions thoroughly and perform vendor due diligence based on a company’s own operational context.

Therefore, the technology adoption journey typically begins with an assessment of current processes, and the definition of a future vision to build a compelling case for change. The target operating model outlines the necessary structural changes needed to achieve the desired outcomes, such as reducing costs, increasing revenue, and mitigating risks. Well-developed business cases that can enable business strategies are more likely to succeed in getting buy-in, and lead to the selection of the most appropriate solution.

Selection processes may be impeded by challenges, including project resistance, incomplete vendor responses, inconclusive demonstrations, system limitations, timeline delays, and legal hurdles. Organisations mitigate these issues through comprehensive stakeholder engagement, realistic timelines, clearly defined and detailed requirements, structured product demonstrations, internal resource planning, and early involvement of legal teams.

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To mitigate issues arising during implementation, treasury teams govern and lead the process with direct contributions. These include sharing specific expectations with providers, discussing required internal resources in project committees, becoming self-sufficient on the new system, and phasing the implementation with successive “wins” and continuous improvement. These proactive measures all contribute to a successful implementation, allowing for long-term value to be gained from the implemented technology. Along the journey, banks can assist clients by providing insights on industry best practices, rationalising banking relationship structures, enabling clients’ systems with integration and overlay solutions, and offering technical expertise and project resources.