The Strategy of Liquidity: From Treasury Silos to Industry Levers

Manufacturing finance leaders operate in a volatile environment. Supply chain disruptions, fluctuating demand, and rising material and labor costs can quickly erode margin and diminish working capital. As global competition intensifies and geopolitical risks mount, manufacturers must find new ways to protect profitability and ensure operational resilience. One powerful lever is liquidity and optimized working capital programs that can unlock trapped cash to reinvest in growth.

Many manufacturing companies struggle to manage liquidity effectively. The agility finance leaders need to proactively act often disappears behind fragmented systems, manual processes, and a lack of visibility across global entities. Working capital suffers from challenges with supplier relationships, inventory cycles, and customer payment terms. However, the ability to free cash, manage foreign exchange risk, and support supply chain partners in real-time can help overcome such challenges by optimizing cash and unlocking liquidity.

The liquidity challenges faced by manufacturers are unique. Optimizing cash conversion requires balancing choices between external financiers and internal liquidity. These decisions are made in a challenging work environment. Manufacturers require both a unified financial strategy and technology that empowers them to break free from:

• Production cycles that are long and cash that gets tied up in inventory holding costs.
• Negotiation strategies hinged on supplier concentration risks and impact payment terms and discounts.
• Lack of real-time cash visibility across subsidiaries and banking partners.
• Manual and siloed treasury operations hinder strategic decision-making and forecasting.

An Integrated Approach to Liquidity Performance

Finance leaders in manufacturing must integrate disparate systems to achieve the control and visibility they need to better manage margin and create a single cohesive optimization strategy. Kyriba’s liquidity performance platform is cloud-native and trusted by over 3,000 customers – including many manufacturers around the world – to connect, protect, forecast and optimize liquidity across the enterprise. The platform’s SAP-certified integration also supports ECC and SAP S/4HANA to unify liquidity operations and help manufacturers achieve operational strategic excellence. On average, Kyriba manufacturing customers have saved an average of 137 hours per month on daily cash positioning, with an average payback period under four months.

Kyriba is also a leader in the secure, compliant use of AI. The platform’s architecture is API-first connections to banks, ERPs, trading portals, and market data providers. It supports multi-bank connectivity via SWIFT, host-to-host, and bank APIs, and includes 24/7 cybersecurity, disaster recovery, and compliance with SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOC 3, ISO 27001, and CSA CAIQ.

Working Capital Solutions

One way manufacturers can drive bottom line value and unlock trapped cash is with Kyriba’s comprehensive and bank agnostic working capital platform built on seamless SAP ERP connectivity. SAP supplies invoices, terms, and receivables data; Kyriba then turns it into action across payables finance, dynamic discounting, receivables finance, and hybrid buyer/bank‑funded programs that optimize DPO, DSO, and free cash flow. Built-in analytics and packaged SAP integrations help identify eligible suppliers, offer early payments without using the buyer’s cash, lower suppliers’ cost of funds, and post all activities back to SAP for integrity, audit readiness, and faster time‑to‑value.

Cash & Liquidity Management

Another valuable feature for manufacturers is Kyriba’s ability to pull bank balances, cash positions, and forecast data from SAP to create a centralized liquidity dashboard. This gives manufacturers real-time visibility into global cash positions, enabling better decisions on funding, investing, or borrowing. Forecasting models can be enriched with SAP data on payables, receivables, and payroll, improving accuracy and agility.

Payments & Connectivity

To ensure manufacturers stay ahead of local, national and global regulations and standards in all markets where they operate, Kyriba’s payment engine eases compliance with local regulations and supports multi-entity payment centralization. The engine acts as a payment hub, integrating with SAP to automate payment workflows across multiple banks and geographies. It supports secure payment formats, bank connectivity, and fraud detection, reducing manual effort and risk.

Treasury Management

Kyriba integrates with SAP to track foreign exchange (FX) exposures, debt, and investments, enabling manufacturers to hedge risks and optimize returns. Intercompany netting is automated using SAP data, reducing the need for external funding and improving internal liquidity. Treasury teams can manage bank accounts, signatories, and financial instruments in one platform, streamlining operations.

Kyriba’s integration with SAP gives manufacturing finance and treasury leaders the tools they need to remain flexible, adapt quickly, and continue to drive performance.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

• Kyriba’s SAP integration gives manufacturing finance and treasury leaders the ability to take an integrated approach to driving liquidity performance that accounts for the unique requirements of the industry.
• Manufacturers can gain tools to balance internal and external finance strategies and overcome challenging production cycles and supplier risks.
• Through their seamless integration, Kyriba and SAP unite treasury, forecasting, foreign exchange, and supply chain finance to deliver the control and visibility treasury teams need to better manage margin and optimize cash.