HP Inc reinvents their regional cash flow forecasting with HSBC

HP Inc is a leading global provider of personal computing and other access devices, imaging and printing products, and related technologies, solutions and services. They enjoy an extensive presence across Asia Pacific across several business lines.

Economic uncertainty, stubborn inflation, and elevated costs of capital has made it extremely important for HP to focus on liquidity management, cash forecasting and working capital management. Cash has become a more valuable resource, making centralised visibility and control on enterprise cash essential to ensure its optimised utilisation.

The challenge

HP’s regional treasury team in Asia had an existing Treasury Management System (TMS) for several cash forecasting methodologies, such as company-wide short- and long-term forecasts.

For entity-level cash positioning and forecasting, however, the treasury team still relied on manual processes. As the TMS could not integrate all necessary parameters to automate the generation of a cash flow forecast, the treasury team had to consolidate transaction flows across all bank accounts in the region with Excel spreadsheets. These statements were then manually reviewed, and categorised by transaction types, business lines and intercompany activities for better analysis.

Forecasting typically took up three to four hours per legal entity. Given HP’s extensive presence in Asia Pacific, this amounted to hundreds of manhours dedicated to cash positioning, cash flow analysis and forecasting, with less time and resources for higher value-added tasks.

In addition, manually-produced forecasts are often assumption-based, as they reference static historical data from a specific point in time. This subjective approach led to forecast inaccuracies even before cash managers began incorporating current or real-time changes into their analysis.

The solution

HP’s treasury team constantly sought ideas to automate their cash flow analysis and forecasting processes across the region. They adopted HSBC’s Cash Flow Forecasting (CFF) tool, with whom they worked on finetuning the platform’s configurations, functionalities, and capabilities for a pilot market. Once the first prototype was successfully implemented, this has since been extended to five other markets as of August 2024, with plans for further expansion.

As an integrated module within HSBCnet, HSBC’s proprietary platform, the CFF tool requires minimal IT resources to adopt. It is easily enabled through HSBCnet, after which a one-time transaction code configuration is needed to ensure the automated feed of transactional information. Once completed, the system provides real-time visibility on cash positions, analysis and forecasts. Third-party (i.e. non-HSBC) bank accounts in various markets can also be included for more comprehensive, automated cash forecasts on the platform.

The CFF module provides HP with a suite of powerful analytics on an intuitive user interface. Treasurers can access key cash metrics at the group, market or account level, with the flexibility to drill down into more detailed information as needed. The module features automated visualisations in the form of interactive charts which display actual versus forecasted cash positions, enhancing visibility into current and for future cash positions decisions.

HP also collaborated with HSBC to comprehensively customise the CFF module to achieve the forecast objectives in line with HP’s business needs, while significantly reducing the time and errors associated with manual compilations.

Benefits

• Moved from 100% manual process to 100% automated process in 5 markets in just a few weeks per market
• Minimal IT or financial resources needed
• Fully automated forecasting for 30+ accounts belonging to 16 entities
• Easily scalable solution to additional markets as needed
• Significant time and cost savings achieved through automation and optimised use of internal cash
• Real-time insights and analytics to optimise cash flows, manage risks, and improve financial performance

HP Inc was named the Overall Winner of the 2024 Treasury Today Adam Smith Awards Asia in the Best Cash Flow Forecasting Solution category, and the Best Cash Flow Forecasting Solution in the 2025 Treasury Management International Awards for Innovation & Excellence.