This is a YouTube video titled "What the Future of Treasury Holds with Michael Spieler" containing a detailed monologue by Michael Spieler recorded in June 2023. The content focuses on treasury management challenges, digital transformation in treasury systems, and the evolving skill sets required in the field. It is a single-speaker presentation discussing the impact of digital tools and strategic treasury planning in a corporate context.
I would say especially for companies with a sort of an international footprint with other exposures to manage at a certain point in time. I think you can't do that with Excel or other tools which are not really specialized treasury aspects. So just basically remembering the situation we were in one and a half years ago when had to do all our business from a certain point in time on from home. I was so glad that we just were through with our review and new setup of the treasury system we use. So it really enabled us together with the landscape our IT colleagues put in place and they great job half a year before the pandemic came in to really make us digital in that respect. So we were rather seamlessly in a position where we could basically do all, all our business from home front to end and through the system. We were connected workflow wise with our back office, with our risk management people, in the end also with our payment systems. And that was a great relief and a great help in managing the situation at the time. To be honest, no idea how we would have managed that situation without a system. Looking at the challenges, also looking at the discussions we have in various forums with peers in the industry or in the corporate world next years ahead. I think optimizing cash and liquidity planning is a topic and remains one that needs to be tackled by treasury organizations. Being a partner to the business when it comes to recognizing external challenges and the way we want to manage them is equally important for treasury. We are getting either directly through capital markets but also through the banks. Very often early indicators how the external world is looking at your company and what you are doing. That starts with ESG topics and ends with good governance and reputational topics. Translating this then also into inputs, how a company should develop and where it should focus to is important I think becomes even more important in the future. And then all digital topics which starts with the system that we just touched on, but goes beyond that. I think a lot of what we are still doing, be it in trade finance, but also in the way we deal with banks and with these day to day processes are still regarding their core design from the latest century. In a lot of cases I think this will completely change. It will probably also require a little bit of a different skill set than at least for parts of the team these days. If we do hire someone then we most of the time also check what's the sort of digital exposure that person had. What can it also bring to the party with respect to that? To have a good mixture between people who are there with a banking background, but also others with a more of a digital and native style. That combination is the one that probably makes you better prepared. What is going to come.
