Client Stories: Treasury transformation delivers improved resilience and flexibility

Headquartered in the Netherlands, Randstad is a global leader in the HR services industry. Listed on the NYSE Euronext, the multinational human resource consulting firm was founded in 1960 and has presence across 38 markets with approximately 40,000 employees.

Randstad has been operating in Australia and New Zealand for more than 30 years and is considered one of the leading recruitment and labour solutions agency in these markets.

Randstad’s core business lies with payroll processing which is heavily reliant upon funds being made available. Challenges were faced in funding critical payroll payments prior to the payment cut-off time as payroll data was not made available until late in the day. Randstad needed to find a solution that provided visibility of liquidity so that payments were funded in time.

As part of Randstad’s global treasury transformation to harmonise processes across 38 markets, the initiative prompted a review of their cash management processes in Australia and New Zealand where they also looked to future-proof and consolidate their payments and collections processes, ensuring that ISO 200022 standards were followed where possible.

Randstad worked with newly mandated banking partner, HSBC, to undertake a large-scale transformation and migration of their treasury processes across 15 entities in Australia and New Zealand that cater to different business segments.

Collectively led by experienced project managers from both Randstad and HSBC’s end, the project team held regular workshops to resolve issues and achieve project milestones under mutually agreed timelines, fast-tracked onboarding and exchanges through a digital platform and ensured centralised decision making, while ensuring minimal disruption to Randstad’s existing business operations that often deal with time-sensitive payroll payments.

• Through a multi-layer liquidity structure, this ensured Randstad’s payments were supported by intra-day overdraft limits which allowed for critical payroll payments to be made without having to wait for prior funding. With the solution, the management of daily funding was simplified for each of Randstad’s participating entities, providing Randstad’s Treasury greater visibility of available liquidity held across the local entities. Automated sweeping to and from the Randstad Treasury entity, ensured that participating entities are always funded.

• Re-engineered payments with the implementation of XMLv3 file development to batch process payments through real time payment networks
• The Trans-Tasman Corporate Card Program provided by HSBC allowed Randstad’s payables team to streamline and control expenses across business functions through real time reporting. The program also enabled Randstad’s employees to self-manage their card program in real time.
• Harmonised collections processes for multiple business entities and consolidated into one account to optimise working capital and improve self-funding. Randstad’s merchant collections were updated to include dynamic virtual terminals that were more fit-for-purpose. The new terminals helped to ease reconciliation and opened another avenue for collections.