By implementing a centralized treasury platform, KWS gains full visibility and control of its liquidity, cash and treasury operations. The company can now rely on consistent data-driven insights to manage strategic and operational actions effectively.
KWS is a leading seed company providing innovative solutions to farmers in four main business areas: sugar beet, corn, cereals, and vegetables. The company funds research into a wide range of seeds and provides new varieties each year to its 70+ subsidiaries around the world for breeding and distribution.
Operating in 70 countries involves adhering to different financial regulations and managing many currencies. KWS wanted to eliminate the cumbersome procedures of reconciling financial data using a combination of spreadsheets, emails, and manual reviews, as these tasks are often time-consuming and prone to human error.
As a global company, KWS also needs to tailor its funding streams to different seed growth cycles depending on the geographical location of farmers. Consequently, harmonizing its intercompany financing was essential to improve financial stability across its global operations.
BearingPoint supported KWS throughout the project lifecycle with requirements gathering, fit-gap analysis, solution design implementation, testing, and rolling out of a centralized data platform. The tool was intended for cash management, treasury and risk management, payments, and reporting.
After analyzing key criteria such as features, costs, stability, support, security and scalability, the Treasury Management System (TMS) from SAP was selected as the most suitable solution, tailored to the specific requirements of KWS.
KWS was already converting to SAP S4/HANA, and the TMS implementation on the new S4/HANA system had to be done concurrently, meaning that the TMS had to be configured to connect and feed both the S/4HANA system and the legacy system with general ledger records for the interim period until the full transition to S/4HANA.
BearingPoint then implemented the core TMS architecture and interfaces. Additional functionalities were customized to meet KWS's specific needs for global payment processing, cash management, accounting, reporting and dashboards. To ensure a smooth transition to the new system, BearingPoint trained KWS staff on how to leverage the system effectively.
KWS now benefits from a single point of truth across its global treasury management processes. Automating important functions, such as Forex trading, management of financial instruments, fees and interest calculation, accounting, reporting, and payments has improved time-to-process and significantly reduced the risk of human error.
The company has greater liquidity transparency by having an accurate overview of financial transactions and bank balances. The full traceability of transactions gives KWS visibility into its accounting operations, enabling easy reporting and a safe audit trail.
With the new Treasury Management System, the company can rapidly adapt to the latest market developments by closing and managing transactions easily. Ultimately, KWS is empowered to make strategic business decisions based on data-driven financial insights.
The Treasury department is a dynamic area in which continuous improvement is crucial. I am passionate about working with my team to constantly drive our treasury department forward. Thanks to the Treasury Management System, we have reached a major milestone in terms of compliance, reporting, risk management and transparency. In addition to the Treasury department, various other departments benefit from the implementation. By using S/4 Hana, the KWS Treasury team is future-proofed for the coming years.
Christian Dahlke, Lead of Expert Hub Treasury and Insurance at KWS
KWS is a global leader in plant breeding and seed production, with a history of more than 160 years. The company operates in over 70 countries, offering innovative solutions for various crops, such as corn, sugar beet, cereals, rapeseed, sunflowers, and vegetables. KWS has a vision to create a diverse and sustainable world through plant breeding.
