gtnews Commends 2011 Global Corporate Treasury Awards Winners
The second annual Global Corporate Treasury Awards, sponsored by Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA Merrill), are dedicated to those treasurers that have proven their contribution to the success of their corporate’s business. The winners are an outstanding cross-section of all that’s best in treasury. Paul Simpson, head of global transaction services, BofA Merrill, opened the ceremony by welcoming everyone to the event and congratulating all that had submitted an entry for the awards.
More than 60 corporate treasury departments from across the world entered the awards, including two new categories – Trade Finance and Green Treasury.
Figure 1: gtnews 2011 Global Corporate Treasury Awards Winners
Winners (from left to right): Conor Leydon, Managing Director, Omnicom; Ed Scott, Corporate Treasurer, Caterpillar; Richard Moore, Manager, Commodity and Supplier Risk, Caterpillar; Hany Naguib, Corporate Sales Executive – Canada, BofA Merrill; Jean Furter, Vice President Treasurer, Brocade; Svend Mejdal, Director, TMT Client Sales Management, Citi (on behalf of Belden); and Deirdre Stokes, Manager, Corporate Treasury, Kellogg.
The winners and highly commended in each category are:
The development of the Global Cash Control System (GCCS) has been a ‘game changer’ for Omnicom. The GCCS has brought the company’s cash and bank account management the best practice level of highly centralised companies. The workflow processes enabled this in a systematic and rapid manner that would have been impossible otherwise in such a large and decentralised group.
Belden successfully shifted from a regional to a global forecasting platform that is centrally controlled but regionally executed. This has improved its visibility into, and access to, each subsidiary’s excess cash. Its cash reporting accuracy rose from 80% to 99% by the end of 2010, and accuracy has been sustained at a level of 99% or better during 2011.
Caterpillar achieved several important benefits that went beyond the original scope of the project. This initiative allowed treasury to develop closer working relationships with business units across the enterprise, placing a stronger focus on working capital and cash flow improvement. Equally important, this initiative helped suppliers finance increased production while Caterpillar met its number one cash deployment priority – to fund growth.
Brocade Treasury team did more than implement a foreign exchange (FX) risk management programme. It initiated and implemented a transformation programme to revamp its FX-related business processes and ownership. The sheer scope and magnitude of the transformation spanned strategically to tactically – re-engineering business programmes and cross-functional processes to major technical treasury and systems improvements.
The ‘Go Green’ efforts by Kellogg’s treasury and accounts receivable (A/R) teams have delivered tremendous results for the company. The reduction – and in some cases complete elimination – of paper has dramatically reduced the organisation’s environmental impact. Beyond protecting the environment, the company has improved processes, reduced costs and gained important efficiencies. Improved visibility and access to documentation saves time and increases productivity.
Led by Edward Scott, Caterpillar (Cat) has embarked on a series of cash management initiatives widely considered among the most effective and innovative strategies in the market. One of the key initiatives of Scott’s efforts – a multi-year global supply chain finance (SCF) programme launched in 2010 – has been an unmitigated success in its first year and promises to yield continuous benefits going forward.
This award was given to the corporate treasury that received the highest marks across the other project categories. The judges said this about Caterpillar’s trade finance project:
gtnews would like to thank its expert panel of judges, who enthusiastically worked through many best practice case studies.