Executive summary

When Canadian visionary Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase, “The medium is the message,” in the 1960s, he didn't know about Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology–at least as it is understood today. He didn't have to. Rather, he understood that a medium itself can have a transformative effect on 'human association and action.' The light bulb, for example, transformed human activity because it no longer restricted activity to daylight hours. The automobile spawned suburbia, highways and the extension of time and space between work and home life. In the world of treasury and risk management, SaaS is a medium that has the transformative power to break down barriers and change the way groups across and beyond the enterprise share information and create intelligence. Taking a closer look at medium, we can explore how the shared nature of SaaS technology, while not new, is enabling an evolution that will take the management of treasury in directions not yet thought of.

From Shared Data to Shared Services