On Stage at EuroFinance: How Treasury Leaders Are Using Supply Chain Finance to Navigate Volatility

Key Takeaways:

• Treasury’s role is expanding beyond cash management – Modern treasurers are taking on more strategic responsibilities, including enterprise risk management.
• Supply chain finance enhances working capital efficiency – By improving cash flow without increasing balance sheet leverage, supply chain finance gives treasury leaders a powerful tool to manage financial uncertainty.
• Cross-functional collaboration drives success – Effective supply chain finance requires treasury to lead alignment across procurement, finance, IT, and their own team.
• Don’t scale too fast, start small to avoid internal process complexity – Implementation takes 60 days to two years, depending on the supply chain complexity and regional regulations. Begin with one geography. Prove its value, then expand.

Economic uncertainty has created unprecedented pressure on treasury leaders to demonstrate strategic value across the company. At EuroFinance, PrimeRevenue’s Mark Douglas, Managing Director of Funding and Sales for EMEA, joined Arçelik’s Mine Şule Yazgan, Executive Director of Finance and Enterprise Risk, to explore how treasury can meet this challenge.

Titled “Weathering the Storm: How Treasury and Working Capital Leaders Manage Through Volatility,” the session showcased how forward-looking treasurers use supply chain finance to drive measurable impact across their organizations.

Here are the highlights of the panel:

The Evolving Role of Treasurers

Success these days requires treasurers to work closely with procurement, finance, and IT, breaking down traditional silos to deliver concrete business outcomes. This cross-functional approach has significantly broadened treasury’s scope.

Mine explained that modern treasury now includes risk management: identification and mitigation of financial and operational risks throughout the business. This shift moves treasury from reactive problem-solving to proactive anticipation, enabling teams to navigate market disruptions with greater confidence.

The Strategic Opportunity in Supply Chain Finance: A Case Study

In today’s complex landscape, SCF transforms treasury from a cost center into a value creation engine by giving treasurers direct control over working capital optimization.

By closing the gap between buyers and suppliers, SCF delivers a range of advantages:

• Financial flexibility: Extends payment terms without straining suppliers.
• Liquidity management: Offers access to alternative, diversified funding sources.
• Relationship building: Strengthens collaboration and trust across the supplier base.

For corporations managing multiregional operations, these advantages become even more critical. Mine illustrated this through Arçelik’s experience with SCF.

Arçelik is the leading appliances company in Europe with €12 billion in revenue and operating across 45 countries. Over the past decade, Arçelik has pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy, merging diverse cultures and currencies. This created complex liquidity and visibility challenges. They found that reliance on traditional short-term credit loans only compounded these issues by impacting leverage and credit ratings.

Partnering with PrimeRevenue, Arçelik has been implementing an SCF program to improve working capital control and transparency across the globe. With stronger, centralized visibility across geographies, Arçelik can optimize payment timing and forecast cash flow needs more accurately. “Supply chain finance is beyond traditional financing tools because it gives you a more data-driven approach,” Mine pointed out.

The program has also proven highly scalable. A pivotal moment came after a major acquisition when they discovered the acquired company already operated an SCF program with some overlapping suppliers. Integrating these suppliers into Arçelik’s program was a quick win.

Collaboration is the Real Currency

The session highlighted how SCF success depends on cross-functional leadership. Treasury may design the program, but they have to align with procurement, finance, and IT who all have a unique role in the process. Once the benefits of the program are clear – discounted rates and extended payment terms – adoption quickly follows.

“Procurement can be an extremely powerful part of an organization,” Mark emphasized. “As a treasurer, you really need to understand that, and you need to understand how to get results in that part of the organization.”

Implementation: The Long Game

Both panelists acknowledged that implementing SCF takes time. Depending on geography and the regulatory landscape, timelines can range from 60 days to two years. This is why it’s important to have banking partners who understand local regulations and data management.

Mine explained that European countries tend to move faster, while emerging markets often face longer set-up times due to compliance challenges or IT integration hurdles. Once teams see the program’s impact on the company’s financials, procurement and IT quickly buy in. The key is in clearly demonstrating these gains.

When it comes to the success of the implementation, Mark noted the benefit of platforms that support seamless integration with existing ERP and financial systems. Minimal, light-touch data extraction helps organizations avoid delays and keep implementation on track.

Final Thoughts

As the session wrapped up, Mark emphasized that volatile markets present a leadership opportunity for treasurers – especially in areas they can directly influence. SCF sits at the center of this, offering a controllable, high-impact lever for improving working capital. He encouraged treasurers to proactively engage with banking partners and SCF platform providers to explore their options.

Mine echoed the importance of starting small and strategic. Rather than implementing SCF across all subsidiaries at once, she recommended piloting in one region or business unit. Establish a repeatable model, prove its value, and scale from there step-by-step.

Ultimately, the session made one thing clear: for treasury leaders navigating volatility and uncertainty, SCF is more than a financial tactic – it’s a strategic imperative when many other variables remain out of reach. Those who embrace it signal agility, resilience, and foresight in equal measure.