Kati Vellinki BNP Treasury 360 Stockholm

Humans at the center in SSAB payments makeover

A home-styled ”payment factory” became the answer as Sweden’s steel giant was becoming ever-more global. Kati Vellinki, group cash manager of Swedish steel maker SSAB presented her account of the change process at Treasury 360 Stockholm.

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“It only takes five minutes.” Or does it really?

Trying to get an overview of the small tasks that we perform most often was a key approach as SSAB tried to get its payments handling more automated and efficient.

For Kati Vellinki, the core of digital transformation is actually in human behaviour and preferences, and coming to grips with the fears invoked by digital innovation was important as she led the makeover of her company’s cash handling.

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“Some worry: ’why are you questioning what we are doing’ – but questioning is very important for continuous improvement.”

1.262 days of ”five minutes”

By multiplying the time for each five-minute loss in potentially unnecessary manual processes, with their vast number, a total estimate came out at 1.262 working days per year – or the complete work of several employees.

Kati Vellinki points out that automation and other improvement initiatives can be introduced gradually. As new technology becomes available it will then be easier to implement along the way.

“It doesnt need to be a big bang when you make these changes, but it can be smaller things”

On the organisational level it became important to challenge the concept that ”this is how we have always done”.

After launching the new solution in the Nordics in 2018, SSAB’s payment factory has now grown to the rest of Europe and North America, with the rest of the world up for later.

The agenda for Treasury 360 Stockholm, at Epicenter on 27 November can be found here, and our editorial coverage is gathered here. A week after the Stockholm event, Kati presented her project also at Treasury 360 Helsinki, agenda here.  

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