Trésorier/Treasurer magazine - N°94 - Juil/Août/Sept 2016 - (Page 58)

15 MINUTES WITH... O Finance 2 - Could you please introduce O2 Finance ? Olivier and I worked for more than 20 years for PwC where we held leadership roles in the Corporate Treasury consulting practice. We had the dream of creating our own consulting company to be able to serve clients in a different way, with a focus on providing experience and expertise at a reasonable price. We created O2 Finance 18 months ago. We are now 6 consultants and aim for 10 in one year. O2 Finance Olivier Cattoor Partner LE MAGAZINE DU TRESORIER / TREASURER MAGAZINE - N°94 - JUL / AUG / SEP 2016 - Which topics are keeping Treasurers busy? 58 There is of course no need for new challenges to keep Treasurers busy given the limited size of their team and the operational and business demands they are confronted with. Treasurers constantly seek to improve and optimise. It takes a lot of energy to run the show and deliver projects at the same time. We have a lot of admiration and respect for that. We are working on large Treasury re-engineering and re-design projects on the back of M&A deals or ERP implementations. There are of course also projects in the cash management and the payment factory space, in treasury systems selection and implementations. Finally, we see treasurers assessing the need to put in place centralised commodity price risk management approaches. - How do you measure success? Our absolute priority is client satisfaction and building strong relationships for the long term. We want our relationship with clients to be a true win-win. Our objective is to give a fresh and creative perspective to client challenges and to build together pragmatic solutions that truly fit the size and the environment of the company. Olivier and I are now much more on the field than before and are totally focused on helping clients. We measure success by the confidence that clients put in our relationship and the fact that they come back to us when needed. O2 Finance Olivier Kaczmarek Partner - What challenges will Treasurers be confronted with over next years? There is no doubt that the key focus will remain on increasing efficiency through further centralisation and extension of the scope and the reach of the in-house bank services offered to business units. This can only be delivered via integration of Treasury system with ERP platform. This is a very difficult challenge in view of the ever-changing consolidation scope, the complexity of this type of project and limited resources available. We are also concerned by the low if not negative interest rate environment, which artificially inflates equity and bond prices. We are concerned about the impacts this will have on financial institutions should the situation last for a few years. This comes on top of the difficulty of meeting ROE targets as a result of the solvency requirements. This is likely to affect how Banks and Corporates work together. We observe a growing interest for commodity risk management, and reflections about what companies should do in this respect and how far they should go. We have led several successful projects for leading multinationals in this area, capitalising on the complementary expertise of procurement, sales and treasury teams. The challenge of this type of project is for Procurement and Treasury to speak the same language and for Procurement to understand what financial risks are, where they are embedded, and how they can be managed. Change management and education are essential in this type of project. O Finance 2 We see also growing interest for a meaningful implementation of Enterprise Risk Management and for the opportunities offered by the replacement of IAS 39 by IFRS 9 as from 2018. - How can O2 Finance help? We would be pleased to discuss any of those topics with Treasurers and assess if and how we can help. There is no standard approach that fits every company. We are strong believer in approaches tailored to the needs and the environment of the company, although tools and methodologies are of course reused. Our interventions can be very focused and strategic or be of a long-term nature for large change projects.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Trésorier/Treasurer magazine - N°94 - Juil/Août/Sept 2016

Cover
Table of contents
EDITORIAL
FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS Luxembourg Tax News
INTERVIEW Philippe Gelis - Kantox - Fintech and the future of banks
FOCUS
Lost in transformation
Everything has a price – a transfer price
Treasury Survey - an unprecedented picture of treasury activities in Luxembourg
FORUM
The impact of negative rates on Treasury and Risks Management Systems
Towards reporting harmonisation?
Understanding the Treasury impact of BEPS
Impacts of Single Resolution Mechanism and Bail-in for European Banks
Supply chain? Not concerned?
Collateral management and the Corporate Treasury function.
Efficiently Managing Cross-Border Payments in Turbulent Times
CORPORATE FINANCE
How Mid-Market Companies Can Efficiently Manage Enterprise-wide FX Risk as they Grow
Investing surplus cash in repos
A wind of technology changes in the treasury management world
Invoicing can be fun….?
Comment améliorer la performance des fonds de pension européens
15 MINUTES WITH O2Finance
THE FINANCIAL RISK OBSERVATORY
NEWS
LIFE BEYOND NUMBERS

Trésorier/Treasurer magazine - N°94 - Juil/Août/Sept 2016