Tomato Newsletter Nr. 145 - January 2012
- Netting Workshop Geneva March 15
- IT von Banken entscheidender Treiber von Innovation
- IT Development: The Future of Testing
- Pressing Issues in Risk and Compliance in 2011
- GTNews: Key Industry Trends in 2011
- CFO.com’s 2011 Top Technology Issues
Tomato’s Key Activities in 2011
What concerns did our clients approach us with most in 2011? Which software did they ask us to evaluate, select and implement?
KEY PROJECTS that involved some pioneering and large-scale investments included:
- Setting up a decentralized payment factory to facilitate host-to-host connections from a corporate to a bank.
- Installing new treasury software that allows monitoring the daughter companies’ bank accounts with the goal to make a central use of the overall liquidity and reduce bank loans. The pay back for this project was less than 6 months.
- Evaluating Liquidity Planning software, selecting and installing it, as well as training all daughter companies’ staff before going live.
- Evaluation of a netting system, selecting the best one, installing it and going live.
Risk Management: In the second half of 2011 when the financial debt euro crisis hit hard, risk management took on new urgency. Together with the treasurer, we developed in teamwork from scratch a simple tool to monitor the corporate bank risks, showing the CDS and the
invested amount of the corporate at his house banks. The data are being updated bi-monthly.
Bank relations: Corporations and individuals demand better technical solutions from banks. As result, corporations work only with banks that meet their requirements. The advantage is that they don’t need to monitor as much and they profit from optimized electronic access. However, these new arrangements make them more dependent on the few banks they work with.
Online Credit Card Payments: Most of our projects involving credit card payment involved primarily Swiss telecoms. In 2011, we worked on two projects that were much more complex as they were in euro zone countries and involved the evaluation of European cross-national and cross-currency solutions. Building online credit card tools for various languages, and dealing with national or local behaviors and sometimes language barriers was much more challenging and difficult but interesting.
These projects demanded participation with all project participants including the sponsor CFO, group treasury, the cash managers of the central treasury and the group companies. Also all the local financial officers needed to deliver details of their daily financial transactions. Their reports helped us in the Group Treasury and Tomato to choose effective tools for reducing financial liquidity at the periphery, to repay bank loans and to monitor financial risks in foreign exchange and interest rates.
As you can see, our 20-years of expertise in financial flow management, bank relations, IT etc allows us to respond quickly to traditional and new issues our clients face. We love challenges and unchartered territory! And we enjoyed passing on our expertise at the Hochschule Luzern and at local client presentations in Switzerland and abroad. We connected people worldwide with our network, knowledge and expertise.
Netting Workshop Geneva March 15
Coprocess SA, a Geneva-based netting provider with over 100 corporate netting clients is recognized as world leader in corporate multilateral netting solutions.
In 2011, Coprocess and Tomato worked together on a project to implement a receivable-driven netting with matching with a common client. Working together with Coprocess, we were impressed with their product and service and would welcome working with the team again.
Netting involves settling all inter-company flows, netting within a certain time period (often monthly) with one payment and/or recurring supplier invoice.
Coprocess is offering a Netting Workshop at the Starling Hotel, Geneva (Airport) on March 15th 4pm - 6pm followed by aperitif. (Details... )
If netting could be an answer for your intercompany flows, contact roger.joerg@coprocess.com or pass the workshop details on to a colleague who would profit from this information.
IT von Banken entscheidender Treiber von Innovation
Im Kampf um Kunden bei Banken sind Front Office, Kernsysteme und das Risikomanagement die „wirksamsten Hebel beim Optimieren von IT-gestützten Geschäftsprozessen im Bankensektor,“ erläutert Mark Schröder im Computerworld.ch Artikel Banken: Der Kampf um Kunden an der IT-Front.
Mark Schröder zeigt anhand von Beispielen auf, warum die Erwartungen an verbesserte Prozesse im Front Office durchaus realistisch sind. Ausserdem illustriert er, in welcher Weise Handy-Offerten eines der stärksten Kundenbindungsinstrumente sind.
IT Development: The Future of Testing
Optimizing testing organizations used to mean optimizing processes, tools, and costs. The rise of cloud technology is changing not only business and IT sourcing models but also testing.
The article “The Future of Testing” by Klaus Haller, Swisscom, addresses CIOs and managers in larger IT testing organizations. Haller, who worked with Martin Schneider on several Bank IT projects, explains what it takes for testing new environments and new software and how to prepare for the future. (Full story...)
Pressing Issues in Risk and Compliance in 2011
CFO.com staff followed the unfolding of risks throughout the year and provided strategies to CFOs for improving their risk-management work from headquarters. At the end of the year, they assembled a list of articles that dealt with pressing issues in 2011 that threatened to distract them from their core business.
(Best of 2011: Risk and Compliance...)
GTNews: Key Industry Trends in 2011
In 2011, a fundamental change that started several years ago involves the role of the corporate treasury marked by expanding responsibility, increasing importance and becoming the strategic center for many financial decisions. Treasury has become “the beating heart of most corporates,” suggests Lynne Peachey, deputy editor at gtnews.
GTNews’s review of 2011 features the top ten articles which illustrate industry trends and hot topics that concerned gtnews readers. Key areas included
- Cash management and how to improve cash management forecasting was a primary focus for treasuries in 2011. Options for improving cash management included enhanced reporting and controls, policies and payment factories. The key question: “Is it simply a process re-engineering project, or is technology crucial in the quest for visibility and control of cash?”
- "Cash is king” and will be even more valuable in the future.
- Centralization and Standardization: The trend towards centralizing payment processes continued in 2011 and remains popular in 2012.
- Regulatory Landscape: Upcoming regulations have captured the attention of treasury on “improving and centralizing payments in the eurozone and improving internal financing efficiencies”
Details on these four overarching trends and the 10 most read articles (registration required, free)
CFO.com’s 2011 Top Technology Issues
In 2011, the Cloud presented a huge number of questions that will occupy CFOs again this year. CFOs were urged to take advantage of cloud’s cost savings while at the same time being confronted with highly publicized cloud outages and data breaches.
Developments included
- The emergence of smart phones and tablets which created support, government and security challenges
- The volume of information that companies collect
- The increasing exploitation of social networks and media
- The relationship between CFOs and CIOs, which ha become more crucial than ever.
In Best of 2011: Technology, CFO.com’s staff compiled articles they published that dealt with these issues.
(Full story and list of articles...)
Switzerland Ranks 12th in IT Industry Competitiveness Index
The IT Industry Competitiveness Index compares 66 countries on the extent to which they are capable of supporting a strong IT production sector. The Index and analysis were created by the Economist Intelligence Unit for BSA.
The categories used to rank countries include: Overall business environment, IT Infrastructure, human capital, R&D environment, legal environment, and support for IT Industry development.
Top 12 Ratings: United States, Finland, Singapore, Sweden, United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, Ireland, Australia, Israel, Netherlands, Switzerland.
Switzerland ranks very high on Business Environment and IT Infrastructure but low on human capital and R&D environment.
(Index including links to country specifics and interactive map...)
From the Desk of Regula Spottl, Greensboro, North Carolina
My personal tech experience during 2011 and prediction:
I’ve had the iPad for about eight months and, in the meantime, also have a keyboard for it. Still, I depend on a laptop for writing and editing text and for and excel and powerpoint, but prefer using the iPad for doing emails, browsing the web, reading papers and books and the GPS. I don’t foresee that the iPad will replace my laptop in 2012.
I have just purchased an ultrabook, the Acer Aspire S3. See Computerworld.ch's review. I’m impressed by how “intelligent” this machine is. It identified the printer as I plugged it in (no need to install hardware). Also, there seems to be little need for tech support over the phone; all the help is built into the computer.
Computerworld criticized it for the high price. I paid $800 and it has Microsoft Signature installed and comes with a two-year warranty. I’ve always paid much for my computers. I predict that people who contemplate buying a tablet will compare it with ultrabooks before choosing a new new tool.
Regula Spottl