US pharmaceutical services company Ardena won the Best Cash Forecasting Initiative award for rapidly transforming a set of fragmented and largely manual processes into a well-structured and fully automated Treasury function with robust forecasting capabilities and real-time visibility over cash positions.
After implementing the Cobase treasury management platform, Ardena can now seamlessly manage the financial risks, liquidity and capital of its multi-entity global operations with just a one-person Treasury team.
Manual and fragmented
Before implementing the Cobase solution, Ardena had little group-wide visibility over cash. This severely restricted its ability to analyse, forecast and optimise cash flow.
Despite running six facilities spread across Europe and the US and having a scattered value chain comprising multiple small biotech firms and academic research teams, the company had no corporate treasurer and relied heavily on clunky manual tools to perform treasury processes.
For example, the CFO’s visibility over Ardena’s cash position was limited to weekly cash balance reports prepared by the Accountancy team on Excel spreadsheets. No daily cash position or clear forecast was produced. And the company used multiple banking systems to process large volumes of relatively small payments to suppliers.
Focus on transparency
When Ardena’s first corporate treasurer was appointed in 2022, his first priority was to embed transparency into the company’s Treasury operations. His mission was soon inadvertently supported by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which triggered a liquidity crisis and highlighted to companies and financial institutions the importance of robust risk and cash management.
This encouraged Ardena’s UK private equity owner, GHO Capital Partners, to establish cash visibility as a strategic goal for the company and approve funding for a treasury upgrade.
As Ardena’s new treasurer starting scouting for a new treasury management solution, he in particular wanted to address the company’s limited cash visibility, inefficient forecasting and fragmented payments processes.
Based on recommendations from his treasury network, he settled on the Cobase platform, which promised to help Ardena achieve treasury transparency, automate its cash flow forecasting and reporting, centralise and streamline payments across multiple entities and reduce operational risks associated with manual processes.
Immediate impact
Implementing Cobase has dramatically strengthened Ardena’s ability to forecast and manage cash across its global business in real time. The solution has reduced the company’s operational risk and streamlined its processes, and it is future-proofed to support Ardena’s future global growth.
Perhaps most importantly, Ardena now has real-time visibility over its cash positions, allowing it to manage risk more proactively.
Time-saving automation
Judges were particularly impressed with how the solution has automated Ardena’s Treasury operations within a single, scalable platform. This has helped remove the need for time-consuming manual processes – a change that is particularly important for a one-person Treasury team like Ardena’s.
For example, the company’s cash forecasting is now automated, with balance forecasts automatically generated based on its current cash balance and scheduled payments. This enables Treasury and Finance to make faster, better informed decisions.
The platform also automatically optimises balances across accounts based on pre-set parameters, initiating transfers within the in-house banking module to ensure Ardena has cash where and when it needs it.
Structured and scalable
The company’s Treasury operations are better structured, with centralised policies reducing inefficiencies and risks associated with manual processes.
The Cobase solution will also support Ardena’s future growth through acquisitions – a common strategy for private equity-owned businesses – as it can seamlessly integrate new entities and bank accounts and manage them within the platform.
Collaboration
The project also stands out for the high levels of satisfaction reported by stakeholders, with GHO Capital Partners and Ardena’s internal teams all benefiting from the company’s improved oversight and reporting capabilities.
This is partly due to their strong buy-in from the start as well as close collaboration before and during the initiative, which was led by Ardena’s Treasurer but also supported by the CFO and Finance team and GHO.
“With its rapid implementation of Cobase, Ardena has gone from having no formal Treasury function to boasting state-of-the-art cash forecasting capabilities,” said Mike Hewitt, CEO of Working Capital Forum. “By gaining real-time visibility over its cash positions and automating time-consuming processes, it has truly transformed its working capital management and positioned itself for growth.”