TOMATO CATCH-UP - Newsletter Issue 198 – January 2017

Your monthly resource on working capital, process optimization and issues relating to the world of corporate treasurers, IT professionals and bankers!

This newsletter is bilingual, English or German according to the source.

 

Introduction:

Let’s start 2017 by focusing on the big issues. If you have things on your desk that feel more and more like a chain around your neck, ask yourself for each one if it still needs doing, and if it does, if you can solve it within a reasonable amount of time; or evaluate if you can delegate it or need help. Any energy you spend unnecessarily takes away from doing what’s important and matters.

If you need help deciding, feel free to share it with Martin. He will be happy to discuss it with you; and as usual, the first hour is free of charge. Contact martin.schneider@tomato.ch or call 044 814 2001.

Enjoy the variety of topics!

Regula Spottl and the Tomato Team

 

Topics

 

Tomato’s 2016 Highlights and Trends  

  • Similar to 2015, we assisted several corporates in replacing, updating and writing new treasury manuals/policies. This is still the result of the Swiss National Bank’s decision of January 15th 2015 to release the Swiss Franc from being pegged to Euro.
  • Many of our projects involve payment gateways and global corporate group-wide payments in general, so by now corporates and their partner banks know us as experts in the field.
  • Another of our main consulting activities involved testing new formats such as XML Files, searching for errors, and testing these ISO files successfully during implementation.
  • TMS evaluation and/or proof of adding payment modules to an existing TMS became another big topic in 2016. Following that, clients need to deal with the implementation of payment gateways between the ERP such as SAP and TMS.
  • Gateway implementation of German EBICS and Swiss FTX systems are relatively easy solutions if the corporate works only in these countries. Our clients do this mostly on their own. Having said this, our consulting and implementations involved all the network solution including middle Europa and then also gateways to Asia and the Americas as well as Eastern Europe. We have extensive experience in this area and in these countries. Such projects involve evaluating bank connections (gateways) on their longevity, cost and user-friendliness and then choose the gateway itself (SWIFT, EBICS, or maybe Host-to-host.
    The evaluation also involves gathering information from the involved daughter companies about their management of vendor-, client- and HR-payments in volume, transactions, banks and costs. Our questionnaire helps pinpointing key variables and decision-making throughout the process.
  • Trends are continuing to replace local e-banking with one central e-banking solution where all corporate entities have access and all bank signatures are held in one system. This frees up a lot of manual work by internal audit. It make it possible for a corporate treasurer to keep track of apx. 1,500 banking rights in the central e-banking system and by demand of the audit, the bank signature report can be delivered with a mouse click.
    See our link to  Decentralized Payment Factory (E) or Dezentrale Payment Factory (D).

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Changes on Our Website

The latest changes on tomato.ch include:

  • Link to newsletter and opportunity to signup is now in the right column on top
  • Link to our Twitter posts are in the right column at the bottom. We post news and retweet posts of companies that are of interest to our clients almost daily.
  • Link to our videocasts on YouTube also in the right column at the bottom.

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Swiss CFO Day, 16.1.17, Zürich

Der diesjährige Swiss CFO Day stand unter dem Thema “Navigating through Disruptive Financial Technologies – Der CFO und sein Geld im digitalen Zeitalter”.

Dr. Markus Gisler, Präsident CFO Forum Schweiz – CFOs, stellte das Thema eloquent in der Einleitung zur Tagung vor. Danach stellt er die Referenten und ihr Themen vor. Details….

Martin Schneider nahm an der Tagung teil. Hier sein Eindruck:
Alle Themen waren sehr interessant und für CFOs wertvoll. Für mich war der Vortrag von Dr. Markus Seiler, Direktor Nachrichtendienst des Bundes NDB, sehr interessant. Sein Referat: “Was bedroht die Schweiz und inwieweit betrifft das den CFO.”

Bedrohungen von Fehlinformationen sind Tatsache. CFOs müssen sich dauernd fragen, welche Informationen man trauen kann. Z.B. dient das Mobile Telefon immer mehr der Spionage und um Informationen zu sammeln. Trailer zu «Im Visier» – Wirtschaftsspionage in der Schweiz ist ernüchternd. (1:40 Min.) Ganze Länge. (20 Min.)

Handys werden vor allem im Flughafen geortet. Sein Vorschlag, aktivieren Sie Ihr Handy erst wieder einige Kilometer ausserhalb eines Flughafens. Weiter, in wichtigen Besprechungen legen alle Teilnehmer ihr Handy im Sitzungszimmer in ein alt bekanntes Einmachglas und schliessen den Deckel des Glases. Nach der Besprechung nimmt jeder sein Handy wieder zu sich. “Kleine neue, wichtige Gewohnheiten“.

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Umsatzerfassung nach Swiss GAAP FER

Umsatz ist ein immer wichtigerer Indikator der unternehmerischen Performance. Der von IFRS und US GAAP grundlegend überarbeitete Standard “IFRS 15 – Umsatzerlöse” hat auch die Regelungen in Swiss GAAP beeinflusst. Details on Swiss standards in fer.ch.

Details zu IFRS 15 im von KPMG publizierten Artikel von Prof. Dr. Peter Leibfried, Universität St. Gallen, Präsident der Fachkommission Swiss GAAP FER. Link zum Artikel…

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Risikomanagement in Schweizer Unternehmen: Studie von HSLU

Obwohl die Mehrheit der Schweizer Unternehmen das Risikomanagement fördert, vernachlässigen sie jedoch ihre Risikobereitschaft.

Im ihrem Blog weisen Prof. Dr. Stefan Hunziker und seine Kollegen am Institut für Finanzdienstleistungen Zug IFZ auf die Studie Enterprise Risk Management 2016, die die aktuellen Risikomanagementaktivitäten in Schweizer Unternehmen analysieren.

Details zu den fünf grundlegenden Risikomanagement Komponenten, Resultate der Analyse und Link zur Studie…

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The Most Important Risks for Businesses in Switzerland

The 6th Annual Allianz Risk Barometer, which polled 1,237 experts from 55 countries, found that losses from business interruption (BI) topped the list for a fifth successive year.

However, the most important risks for businesses in Switzerland lists market developments (volatility, intensified competition, market stagnation) ahead of business interruption. In third place is cyber incidents and fourth macroeconomic developments. Full list..

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Three Payment Trend Predictions for 2017

In 2017 the payments industry will be influenced by three emerging trends according to SIX Payment Services. The trends are:

  • The fusion of all channels by Unique ID
  • Full checkout in e-commerce
  • Payment through marketplaces

Details on trends and ramifications in a GTnews blog…

 

EU’s Payment Services Directive (PSD2) Countdown

The European Union’s (EU) new Payment Services Directive PSD2 will go into law on Jan. 13, 2018. PSD2 is a regulatory framework addressing the ambiguity in the current PSD1 and also covering newer services.

The Fintechnews.ch article EU’s Payment Services Directive (PSD2): What It Is And Why It Matters nicely summarizes what you need to know.

The GTNews article PSD2: dull name, but seismic effect is direct and to the point and worth reading.

 

The Problem Trying to Read a Co-Worker’s Mind

We all tend to believe that we understand others’ behaviors, perspectives and experiences. It’s in our nature to predict, infer and assume. Doing this, we unknowingly distort reality and create fictions. Instead of clarifying something, we make bad decisions. The solution is effective communication, which is easier said than done. It’s worth thinking about this! The examples in the article illustrate the point well!

The author of the NYTimes article The Pitfalls of Trying to Read a Co-Worker’s Mind, Isaac Lidsky, is CEO of ODC Construction in Orlando, Fla..and the author of the forthcoming “Eyes Wide Open: Overcoming Obstacles and Recognizing Opportunities in a World That Can’t See Clearly”. Mr. Kidsky is blind!

My Tip: In some situation, if someone tells you what to do, say "Just to make sure: You want me to do x, y, and Z, right?"

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Developing Good Habits: Reduce Decisions to Important Ones

Mark Zuckerberg wears only grey T-shirts and hoodies and President Obama wears only grey or blue suits. Both have a reason for this. A in a recent Vanity Fair profile of Barack Obama, the President explained his relationship with habit,  especially his optimization of everyday actions so that they require as little thinking as possible. That’s how he can focus entirely on important decisions, “the stuff of excellence.” Mark Zuckerberg uses the same argument for his clothing habits.

So the lesson is: Remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb meaningful parts of your day. Focus your decision-making energy by routinizing yourself.

I personally like the idea. Not having to think everyday what I’m going to wear and eat will free up time for more important things. You believe it can work for you too?

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From the Desk of Regula Spottl, Greensboro, NC, USA

If you were to visit in Greensboro, I’d take you on a haunted houses tour. A midnight watchman walks his guests to various haunted houses downtown. For example, next to the Carolina Theater used to be an insane asylum and a patient kept threatening she’d burn the theater down. Well, one day, she went in there, rummaged through a room full of fabric, it caught fire and killed her. Ever since, horribly cold drafts blow through the theater. Entertainers are warned ahead and you can see them searching up on the balcony for signs of the haunt. An Irish pub used to be a brothel and every time the owner is pregnant, she encounters a ghost that haunts the place. Also, the Biltmore Hotel has one room that’s haunted. The night watchman has slept there several times and each time he got goose bumps all over as the ghost rocked his bed. Details on the haunted tour…

There are plenty of haunted places closer to you. Check for example some in London. How about the Haunted ghost walk in Zurich! Or simply watch the video HAUNTED HOUSE in Switzerland #1

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