Digitising Cash Flow Forecasting for Balfour Beatty within three weeks

Balfour Beatty is a leading international infrastructure group with 25,000 employees across the UK, US, and Hong Kong, split through three primary divisions: infrastructure investments, construction services and support services¹. An HSBC client for over 30 years, Balfour Beatty has continued to partner with HSBC across 13 markets, through Asia, Europe, North America, and the UK, as they continue to deliver complex and innovative infrastructure projects.

Balfour Beatty conducts cash flow forecasting on a rolling basis to ensure the business has enough liquidity to meet its future obligations and support growth aspirations. Balfour found it increasingly challenging to rely upon a manual process to forecast 13-week cash positions. Balfour Beatty spent a significant amount of time in cleaning up the data extracted from the in-house systems and applying manual adjustments. Producing accurate cash flow forecasts and generating insights from data in an efficient and timely manner became increasingly challenging.

Balfour Beatty recognised that a more efficient, digitally automated solution was needed to gain an accurate view of the company’s global cash position and improve data led decision-making.

As one of Balfour Beatty’s Global Banking partners, HSBC was already providing the firm with traditional cash and liquidity management, cards, and FX. HSBC worked closely with the UK-based treasury team to design a customised forecasting model suited to the business’ unique needs. Balfour Beatty was looking to expand their forecasting horizon from a traditional 13-week to a 52-week model and forecast at bank account level to improve the detail in the forecast.

HSBC’s Cash Flow Forecasting (CFF) solution provided Balfour Beatty with the simplification, integration, and automation of their CFF process utilising one globally connected platform, resulting in near real-time visibility to Senior Management. Balfour Beatty benefited from a simplified onboarding process, that enabled activation of service within 72 hours of signing the legal documentation. From day one, Balfour Beatty had access to 12 months’ worth of preloaded historical banking data, along with a built-in integrator which allowed automated reporting of HSBC accounts.

Balfour Beatty also benefitted from the CFF Best Practice Guide drafted by HSBC’s Treasury Solutions Group (TSG) which expedited key design considerations. Within three weeks, HSBC have successfully transitioned Balfour Beatty from excel based manual forecasting to automated forecasting using the CFF platform.

Treasury operations at Balfour Beatty are increasingly becoming data driven and the team prides itself on being a frontrunner for digital innovation. The HSBC CFF solution has helped Balfour Beatty to achieve its core objectives:

• Greater efficiency due to automated processing. Balfour Beatty are now able to expand the forecasting horizon from 13-week to 52-week and refresh their forecasts seamlessly on a weekly basis, enabling the team to spend time on more value-add activities.
• Improved visibility through an intuitive dashboard displaying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), graphical representations of future cash flows, and analytics tools providing insights into the drivers behind the forecasts.
• Facilitating data led decision-making using the advanced data analytics within the platform. Granular data and built-in reporting capabilities have empowered Balfour Beatty’s treasury team to focus on cash flow analysis and take data led decisions that make a strategic impact.