Thanks to a joint venture of IBM, the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) and Deutsche Bank, treasurers may soon to be able to answer that question–with metrics to prove it. In response to demand from finance professionals, the three have launched a multi-year benchmarking study of treasury practices–Deutsche providing the underwriting, IBM providing the consulting expertise and AFP supplying its membership base as potential participants.

Among the key topic areas and metrics that the survey will measure and delineate: treasury policies and procedures; management of cash, debt and financial risks; the degree of systems integration; statistics on full-time equivalents; and the number of relationship banks. All corporate financial professionals may participate at no cost and then will be provided with a customized benchmark report that compares companies to relevant peer groups. The results of the first year's survey will be made public at AFP's annual conference in October 2008.