An outlook piece for 1995 shows treasury looking for a little appreciation.
Back in January 1995 many US corporate treasuries found themselves the Rodney Dangerfields of the corporate hierarchy, scrambling for respect. With apologies to Mr. Dangerfield: “The other day I asked my board for a capital improvement loan, it gave me a thousand bucks and told me to quit!”
“Few corporations appreciate the large positive impact a strong professional treasury can add to their bottom line. They hamstring their treasuries with debilitating headcount restrictions, salary caps, and refuse investment requests for systems. Then in a classic Catch-22, the little apparent value added by treasury justifies the low allocation of resources,” iTreasurer observed in a January 1995 outlook story.
Today of course that mindset has changed and most treasuries have a seat at the table, helping with the company’s strategic goals and reporting to the board itself. Nonetheless, some departments are still subject to “debilitating headcount restrictions” – leading to the familiar “do more with less.” Fortunately this is being compensated for by the advances in technology. In 1995, this was just being realized:
“Everything that can be automated should be automated, eliminating the “paper interface” between one system and another,” iTreasurer wrote. It was also suggested that once the implementation process was complete (whether it be TMS, ERP module or software, etc) “show the savings in staff time and increased efficiencies both in your department and elsewhere.”
Treasury’s come a long way since then.