Omnicom, Brocade and Republic Services Win AFP Pinnacle Awards
Omnicom Group, Brocade Communications and Republic Services are winners of the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) 2010 Pinnacle Awards, which recognises excellence in treasury and finance.
AFP selects annual winners in three categories – innovation, risk management and strategy – and then picks a Grand Prize Winner. This year, Omnicom Group won for innovation, Brocade Communications for risk management, and Republic Services for strategy. The organisations will receive their awards on 7 November at the AFP Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas, where AFP will announce the Grand Prize Winner.
“AFP is extremely proud to honour the 2010 Pinnacle Award winners,” said Kaitz. “The solutions presented by Omnicom Group, Brocade Communications and Republic Services demonstrate transformation of the treasury function as well as forward-thinking in a year of great change.” Wells Fargo & Company sponsors the Pinnacle Awards.
Omnicom Group Wins for Innovation
Omnicom Group’s treasury department moved all client receipts from 141 distinct US operating units to an electronic-based process by implementing remote deposit and electronic receipt capture, a process that covered 130 separate deposit accounts and 29 lockbox accounts. The entire progression – from planning, to request for proposal (RFP), to conversion – took only six months to complete and resulted in a standard for best practices. In the end, Omnicom saved more than US$1m in annual fees.
Brocade Communications Wins for Risk Management
Brocade Communications’ treasury and risk management team developed a method for converging strategic liquidity planning with enterprise risk management (ERM). In the course of disaster recovery planning, the Brocade team went into great depth to calculate the impact of prioritised scenarios and to incorporate that information into its long range liquidity planning. Brocade’s approach was comprehensive and first of its kind.
Republic Services Wins for Strategy
Throughout the integration of its merger with Allied Waste, Republic Services’ treasury and risk teams maintained their investment grade rating, issued new debt, and integrated the processes and infrastructure of the two organisations. They reduced the cost of their debt, integrated two technology platforms into one new web-based system, and consolidated treasury functions into a centralised unit.