Automation will have a big impact Treasurers expect to be doing a lot less back-office work by 2025. This is where they see the biggest decrease in importance—it’s expected to fall by 24 percentage points by 2025. This shift is likely to be facilitated by greater automation of routine tasks. From accounting and netting, to reporting and structured trade finance, the treasury expects automation to increase significantly by 2025. Technologies like the cloud, machine-learning and robotic process automation (RPA) could have a significant impact on internal efficiencies—helping to speed up reconciliation, data retrieval and reporting. Automation will also enable better fraud detection and help to minimise the risk of human errors. But it’s possible that treasurers are actually underestimating the extent of automation. By 2025, could it take over more strategic parts of their roles? There’s a danger the treasury is too focused on using automation to meet its immediate challenges, and isn’t fully appreciating its future impact. They hope to be a strategic partner Today, the key areas where the treasury engages with the business are around risk analysis and mergers and acquisitions. But by 2025, it believes it will be more engaged with the business across the board. It expects to be doing more of everything—managing working capital, entering new markets, driving sales and procurement, and supporting business development. Technology will no doubt play a role in helping the treasury expand its remit. Not only can technology reduce the amount of time spent on back-office tasks, it can also provide deeper insights enabling treasuries to support business objectives. Big data and analytics could help treasurers provide the business with valuable insights about risk, consumer payment behaviour, supply chains and liquidity. They’ll play a leading role in digitalisation To fully leverage the potential of technology and become strategic business partners, treasurers realise they’ll need to take a leading role in digitalisation. Almost three-quarters (73%) say the group treasurer has the main responsibility for digitalisation of the treasury. By 2025, the treasury expects to be far more engaged with the business in supporting digitalisation. Accounting 2018 2025 Netting Intercompany funding FX Reporting Cash positioning Cash forecast Internal limit management External limit management Bank account management Structured trade finance Traditional trade finance None Partial High Total Figure 2. The level of automation of treasury tasks in 2018 and 2025. Support digitalisation Strategic partner for management Managing corporate working capital Sales Entering new markets Business development Procurement Advisory IT infrastructure Advisory in regulatory/ compliance processes Risk analysis Merger and acquisitions 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Figure 3. The expected change in the treasury’s engagement in key areas, 2018–2025. Treasurers also expect to take on a bigger role providing advice on IT infrastructure requirements—which goes hand in hand with their ambition to drive digital innovation and the adoption of new technologies. But is the treasury doing enough today to take a lead on digitalisation? And what is the treasury doing to achieve its vision of Treasury 2025? 10 / Future Treasury / 9 / 2018 49% The expected increase in the level of automation in accounting by 2025. 78% The expected increase in the level of automation in reporting by 2025. 96% The expected increase in the level of automation in cash positioning by 2025. 73% say the group treasurer has the main responsibility for digitalisation of the treasury.
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