1) Treasury employees need to gather both external information from sources like social media as well as internal data from various business systems to make informed decisions. 2) However, collecting and sharing information across different internal systems is time-consuming, making it difficult to identify all relevant treasury issues. 3) Lufthansa implemented a dashboard solution from Entarena that allows treasury staff to easily customize views of internal bank data alongside external news, and communicate securely about business issues, improving information flow and decision making.

1.
Published on GT News 06 Jun 2012 what ingredients are needed to get the most
out of it?
Benefits of a Connected First, membership of external communities,
Treasurer websites such as gtnews and usage of
discovery tools are still the right starting point.
Second, a treasurer should combine external
By Dr. Dirk Lüth & Daniel Andres, ENTARENA
mission-critical information with their personal
This article looks at how to get the most knowledge and organisation’s data. Third,
they should share their thoughts and data with
out of social networking in a treasury
others. In most cases today, email is used for
context and highlights a case study with this kind of knowledge exchange.
Lufthansa.
The first ingredient (external tools) can rely on
Today, the internet is an endless source of the latest technology of the web. However, the
useful information. Finding what matters second ingredient (gathering and filtering of
becomes easier every day: external information and combining it with
internal data) and the third ingredient
• Google, Bing and other search (communication around the data) are mostly
services are constantly improving embedded in cumbersome software and
their algorithms. The usability gets processes. This is because collecting the
better and better: when you enter relevant data from various systems that are
the first two letters of a query, the spread across multiple locations is time-
engine seems already to know consuming, or sometimes not possible. That
what you are searching for. makes it hard to identify all relevant aspects of
a treasury context and to derive the proper
• Professional social networks such conclusions/activities. Furthermore, by using
as Linkedin or Xing have very email as the main communication tool,
interesting groups around financial organisations do not leverage what works so
topics, where impressive ideas are well in today's social media:
exchanged.
• New smart websites such as • Broadcasting of information to
Trap.IT and smartphone apps like quickly spread knowledge within
Zite find news articles and blogs larger groups (such as Twitter).
that are highly relevant. Just enter • Open and confidential discussions
a topic of interest: new information of multiple participants in a simple
and points of view will be interface (such as Facebook).
discovered within seconds.
The bottom line is that today's treasurers
What these three web services have in
might be connected externally through
common is that they represent external
advanced social networking and data
knowledge. Everyone can access this
discovery tools. But internally, information
knowledge and in many cases contribute to it.
gathering and communication is still on the
But a treasurer would never openly share
level of the late 1990s.
internals or comment on what some of these
insights mean for their organisation. So it is To overcome this situation, organisations
safe to say that, unless it is not confidential, need to introduce new tools that connect to
inside-out knowledge transfer is not any IT system, extract and display the
happening for good reasons. relevant internal plus external data, ideally in
one dashboard environment. To meet the
In contrast outside-in knowledge transfer
different skill set and knowledge base of
should be key for every successful treasury employees, a high degree of customisation
organisation and therefore promoted. But possibilities is needed to better understand

2.
the relevant business context on an individual customise dashboards around each bank to
level. In addition, a simple-to-use interface manage information from different systems on
that allows adding secure, smart and social demand. These dashboards provide
communication directly to mission critical data notifications about important events and allow
points leads to better and faster decisions. filtering and following of mission-critical data
points. Treasury employees can combine
With such as system (dashboard and social internal data from ERP, trading, treasury and
communication), a treasurer becomes a truly banking systems, as well as external data
external and internal connected employee. As such as market news pertaining to their
the number of possible work hours per week banks.
are fixed, such as system assists in coping
better with the ever increasing amount of Additionally, while in the dashboards they can
information. A treasurer becomes more communicate with co-workers directly in
effective and hence contributes to the bottom context of the data, either privately or shared
line of their organisation. with the team. While the dashboards allow
employees to better leverage the data from
How Lufthansa is Improving existing IT systems, the communication
Information Flow, While Connecting features spread knowledge within the treasury
Staff Around Business Issues department more effectively. The lightweight
approach of the new technology aids
Lufthansa, one of the largest airlines in the development and deployment in existing
world, works with Entarena, an Enterprise 2.0 treasury landscapes with a limited budget.
vendor specialising in treasury and other
corporate finance solutions. The airline uses This solution is intended to speed up
many software solutions in the treasury collection of the information by analysts, as
department: from enterprise resource well as providing more accurate and timely
planning (ERP) to reporting tools, from information to the treasurer, the management
liquidity planning solutions to trading software, or their designee when negotiating with the
from treasury workstations to fuel bank’s new conditions on credit lines and
management systems. One problem the fees. Furthermore, through mobile solutions
company had for many years was the ability treasury employees are able to access this
to monitor and control banking fees and data when they are away from the office.
commissions that it pays its banking partners. Lufthansa is now able to discuss banking
This used to be a manual, and therefore relationships with its partners using more
cumbersome process to find out what was the accurate data and achieves better results in
total cost of doing business with each of its its review meetings. At the same time,
banking partners. treasury employees have more time for
qualitative work.
Before each meeting with a bank, treasury
staff would spend several days per bank
researching and collecting relevant
For more information:
information from multiple IT systems in
ENTARENA, Inc.
preparation for its bank review meetings and
negotiations around price, terms and
Daniel Andres
conditions. With dozens of banking partners
Business Development
worldwide, this was a laborious and cost-
daniel.andres@entarena.com
intensive process.
www.entarena.com
In order to speed up this process and to have
more relevant and actual data when entering
meetings or in telephone discussions with a
bank, Lufthansa has installed the Entarena
service. It allows treasury employees to