In today's topsy-turvy regulatory and market environments, agility can be key to corporate survival. Likewise, a willingness to fundamentally rethink corporate treasury can be key to the treasury function's success.

Big innovations have certainly proved a critical success factor for the three winners of the 2015 Alexander Hamilton Awards in the category Treasury Transformation. All three envisioned better ways of running the treasury function, and as a result they improved not only their internal processes, but also the prestige of the treasury function within the broader organization.

Starbucks is a cash-intensive business. In-store sales are generally low-dollar transactions, and many are paid in hard currency. Several years ago, Starbucks store managers would make regular trips to a local bank branch to deposit their store's cash. The corporate treasury team saw room for improvement—the opportunity to improve both the productivity of store managers and the efficiency of corporate cash management and bank account management. Thus, treasury embarked on a wide-scale initiative to revamp the company's handling of cash.