Impact of corporate treasury transformation on controllership

December 7, 2018

A blog post by Niklas Bergentoft, principal, Deloitte & Touche LLP.

Digital transformation, shifting talent demographics, and world events such as tax cuts and geopolitical volatility are disrupting the treasury function and will likely reshape the function as we know it today.

This battleground of disruption and transformation is evolving the expectations of treasury, even as core challenges remain constant. However, with these challenges come opportunities—for treasury, controllership, and the possibilities for a more strategic partnership between both functions.

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Key drivers of treasury’s transformation

While treasury traditionally focuses on capability, builds and automation to drive transformation; recently, cost containment, technology innovation, resource enhancements, and the strategic drive around growth initiatives have fueled a new transformation of the function from a tactical treasury to a more strategic treasury.

Many treasury organizations are tasked to drive cost containment initiatives, which is prompting a shift to higher investments in technology and the creation of a digital workforce to achieve more automation and analytics throughout the function. These digital treasury solutions are positioned to transform the organization and provide new opportunities for treasury to engage the broader organization with greater efficiency and effectiveness.

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What to know about the impact of treasury transformation and opportunities for controllership

Controllership is a critical enabler and business partner to treasury and its transformation journey—which is rarely successful without the right involvement and partnership from controllership.

Controllership is a critical enabler and business partner in treasury transformation
It is vital to understand treasury’s dependency on the partnership and resources that controllership provides on the transformation journey. Clear dependencies, ranging from joint solutions and interdependent resources for transformation execution to the alignment of treasury solutions within the broader finance landscape that can support controllership’s evolving expectations, show that time spent on initiatives that empower this strategic partnership is time well spent.

Keys to an effective partnership through transformation and beyond:

• Engage in joint opportunities across controllership and treasury. Organizational synergies and benefits can be achieved by establishing a centralized and integrated operating model whereby both partners work together to align on strategy and drive change.
• Think holistic and futuristic. Be willing to start with core capabilities and then augment with emerging technologies.
• Remember talent is crucial in the transformation journey. Drive a talent strategy that is focused on achieving a balance between digital and business skills within the organization.

Controllership is a major beneficiary of the treasury transformation
Controllership tends to be one of the biggest beneficiaries from digital treasury transformation when the partnership between the two functions is leveraged by the right resources, investments, and talent.

• Opportunities abound for shared investments. As both treasury and controllership move toward the digital landscape, there are opportunities to share digital talent and technology platforms, including data lakes, robotic process automation (RPA), and visualization tools.
• Automation can reduce cost. Automation of accounting capabilities can reduce processing time for financial closes and other activities, and can also reduce the cost of human capital and a full-time workforce.
• Analytics offer insights for optimization. Key data gleaned from analytics platforms shared between treasury and controllership can enable both functions to enhance working capital, liquidity forecasts, and banking spend with a higher level of insights and data.
• Connectivity hubs drive efficiency. Leverage bank connectivity hubs across finance, such as enterprise resource planning tools and treasury management systems, to further reduce expenditure and automate cash application and reconciliations for improved efficiency.

Stay tuned for continued exploration into the relationship between controllership and treasury, with discussions and insights into achieving effective partnership on the transformation journey.

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