Corporate treasury trends: staffing & technology.

• Author: Carmody, Daniel J.
• Position: Treasury - TreaSolution Cash Management Survey

Bigger organizations have more resources and more staff, yet there are certain functions within very large treasury departments that have lower average staffing levels than at smaller companies. This is one counterintuitive finding from the annual TreaSolution Cash Management Survey, which covers treasury technology, treasury staffing, bank relationships and bank report cards.

More than 100 corporate practitioners participated in the survey, of whom more than 75 percent held the title of "manager" or higher; over 50 percent were from organizations with greater than $1 billion in annual revenue. TreaSolution, based in Chicago, serves medium-sized to large organizations nationwide. The following looks more closely at the findings as they relate to staffing and technology.

Treasury Staffing

The treasury staffing portion of the survey asked questions to determine the average size of treasury departments and the amount of staff allocated to certain cash management functions.

Average Treasury Size by Revenue: Survey results showed that treasury departments of organizations with more than $5 billion in revenue were more than 3.5 times times the size of smaller organizations. The $5 billion-plus treasury departments averaged 18.2 people, while organizations with less than $5 billion in revenue averaged 4.97 people.

Average Treasury Staff Allocation by Function: On how many people were being allocated to specific treasury management functions, the survey showed that treasury departments overall allocate the most personnel to daily cash management, investment management, bank relationship management and cash management accounting. The least-staffed functions were collections and pension plan management.

Most functions incurred a steady staffing growth rate as the company's revenues rose. There were two noticeable exceptions to this trend: For organizations with more than $5 billion in revenue, average treasury staffing decreased for both bank relationship management and cash management accounting.

It appears that the decrease in average bank relationship management staffing is due to a smaller pool of cash management banks that can address the complex cash management requirements of very larger organizations. Since there are fewer bank relationships, large corporations have less need for bank relationship management treasury staff.

The second large organizational abnormality is that average cash accounting staff decreased. It is believed that this is...