JPMorgan Chase: Process, People and Partnerships Help Treasurers Build Business Resiliency

Just as the payments ecosystem is constantly changing, so too must treasurers’ approach to executing transactions and battling fraud.

Arnold Evans, managing director and co-head of Emerging Middle Market at JPMorgan Chase Commercial Banking, focuses on serving companies with up to $100 million in revenue. Evans told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster that these companies are growing in size and complexity as they scale and must build resiliency into their payments processes.

Business resiliency, he said, is all about effective cash flow management, and that boils down to effective administration of what Evans termed the three Ps: Process, People and Partnerships.

The three Ps influence payments excellence while also influencing these companies’ success with growth strategies. That includes traditional growth strategies — introducing new products and services or expanding their geographies in pursuit of organic growth — and acquisition-driven expansion.

Process

Process involves the treasurer’s job’s basic functions — tracking an organization’s cash flows, managing financial reporting and advising company leadership on financial strategy.

Evans pointed out that digitization remains a key undertaking here, as moving away from paper-based documentation and manual workflows means that all of these processes can be synced, ultimately improving the accuracy, security and timeliness of data flows.

People

“This is a place where some smaller businesses can struggle,” said Evans. Having the right staff on hand with the right skill set is critical.

In a world where technology constantly evolves, it’s important to regularly evaluate staff skills and understand potential gaps in capability. This will likely require ongoing training and possibly staff changes, an investment of time and money. However, these activities build resiliency and can contribute to a company’s improved performance.

Partnerships

All treasurers have banking relationships in place, but the strength of those relationships is critical to helping the business identify and land on the right goals that can optimize operations today while planning for tomorrow.

With hundreds and even thousands of clients, banks have insight into the specific challenges and opportunities that confront a wide range of verticals. According to Evans, by “working hand in glove,” banking teams can help middle-market firms work through challenges. Ideally, the business banking team can also stay slightly ahead by surveying what solutions are being developed in the market and how they might ultimately prove useful for clients’ pursuit of business resiliency.

“Understanding an industry and being able to bring that third-party experience to a client is of extraordinary value,” he told Webster. It can help a treasurer remain current on best practices and improve their business.

A strong relationship will also help when having tough conversations about prioritizing activities. Evans said, “an important role that we often play is helping our clients figure out what they want to be when they grow up.” When challenges arise, it sometimes takes an outside voice to sift through the dozens of concerns and disparate objectives a treasurer might have and encourage them to remain focused on their long-term strategic goal. If an initiative doesn’t get them closer to what they want to be when they grow up, is it worthwhile to pursue?

Looking ahead

Evans shared that one of the additional benefits of having a broad set of clients at JPMorgan Chase is that “our team has the opportunity to see how companies of different sizes, industries and geographies interact with our products, services and capabilities.”

The ongoing dialogue between clients and real-time observations help his team tweak product designs, improve services, automate tasks and streamline manual efforts when automation isn’t possible. It also helps them design easy-to-understand and navigate “self-service” functionality, an increasingly important capability for many finance professionals since it allows a company’s staff to take action at their own pace.

“Ultimately, our objective is continuous improvement,” said Evans.