For more than two decades, the Treasury & RiskAlexander Hamilton Awards have highlighted the achievements ofinnovative corporate treasury, finance, and risk management teams.The technologies that these organizations utilize have changedpretty dramatically over the decades, but the creativity inleveraging available tools has not.

This year's winners in the Technology Excellence categorydemonstrate the ways in which technology can streamline treasuryprocesses and create dramatic improvements in efficiency. "It'svery important to challenge the norms," says Steve Huse, directorof client reporting for investment firm Baird. "Treasury needs tothink creatively and partner with internal colleagues and internalclients to come up with ideas for better treasury solutions, andthen find a vendor that will help bring those ideas tofruition."

Here's how this year's winners challenged norms to find outsizedtreasury success:

• Bronze Award: The treasury team at Stanley Black & Decker embarked on awholesale overhaul of antiquated technologies and processes. Theybuilt a business case for a new treasury management system andpayment workflow; as a result, they now have far more time forstrategic activities.
• Silver Award: Baird wanted to automate the G/L posting ofcustomer deposits into specific investment accounts. Treasury staffcollaborated with their treasury management system vendor to builda highly customized solution that leverages application programminginterfaces (APIs) to streamline receivables processes.
• Gold Award: Microsoft wanted to expand the geographic scopeof its extended payment terms (XPT) program, while also bringingthe customer experience for XPT participants into line withMicrosoft customers who utilize standard payment terms. Theinitiative undertaken by the Worldwide Payment Solutions team wasinnovative both in the technologies developed and deployed, and ina project management approach that had a brand-new treasurysolution built and in use just four months after the project'skickoff.

"The times have changed," says Catherine Grant-Alston, directorof global cash operations for Stanley Black & Decker."Technology is an enabler, and if you do not automate, you will getleft behind."

Congratulations to all three organizations for leveragingleading-edge technologies to improve efficiencies and effectivenessof their treasury processes—and developing new technologies whereprepackaged solutions could not meet their specific needs.

Thank you to the judges of this year's competition, who selectedthese two projects from an outstanding group of submissions:Jean-Francois Heitz, former deputy CFO and treasurer of Microsoft;Craig Jeffery, managing partner of Strategic Treasurer; MarieHollein, former president and CEO of Financial ExecutivesInternational; and Prashant Patri, a principal in Deloitte's GlobalTreasury Advisory Services practice.

Finally, thank you very much to GTreasury, Citi, and ION forsponsoring this year's Alexander Hamilton Awards program. Staytuned for webcasts and articles throughout the year recognizing thewinners in our other six categories, as well as the winner of the2019 Alexander Hamilton Overall Excellence Award.

• Register now for our May 22 event recognizingthe winners in the Working Capital & Payments category.
• And replay today's webcast honoring the three winning projectsin Technology Excellence by registering to view the on-demand version.