Tax impact gets balanced with liquidity needs. The numbers get crunched to arrive at the best course of action for the global company, and everybody wins, both tax and treasury. No rookies work in the department. The benchmark data reveals that top-performing, centralized treasury and finance organizations employ staff with different levels of experience from a variety of backgrounds. In international treasury and finance, the average employee has a minimum of 11 years' experience and has held at least one other professional, corporate, position in the international arena, usually in funds trading or accounting.
Constant improvement is sought.
Choosing and re-evaluating financial partners is always high on the corporate improvement list. Proposing and evaluating shared service centers, EDI utilizations, Web interfaces and integrated, enterprise wide systems enhancements are also worthy of attention. A three-phased approach, involving setting the direction, working out the details, and realizing the benefits, has proven to be most effective. But it works only when the team wants that first quartile status.