Photo of Sasa Wang, GLP Iowa Supply Chain Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd.
Sasa Wang
China Treasury Director
GLP is a global investment manager and business builder, focused on logistics real estate, digital infrastructure and renewable energy under the global macroeconomic trends like e-commerce and the demand for data storage.
The challenge
A central pillar of GLP’s business model is advancing sustainable projects (eg green energy warehouses, AI database, robotic factories and food security etc) which engage owners, core buyer partners and suppliers across China and globally.
GLP collaborates with over 1,000 industrial, technology and raw materials, small and medium suppliers. Globally, GLP collaborates with overseas suppliers in Latin America. To fuel the growth of these small and medium‑sized enterprises, GLP sought to build a secure, efficient, transparent, cost-effective and digitalised ecosystem for management and operations.
However, the high volume of counterparties created significant inefficiencies, risking eroded sustainability of customer and supplier relationships, rising administrative costs and constraints on business growth.
The company’s key pain points included:
Group core business units increasingly called for improved supply chain efficiency and quality alongside stronger quality control and ESG-aligned ecosystem development.
Sluggish collections and delayed accounts payable damaged suppliers.
The distributed, multi-tiered supply chain featured suppliers with weak credit ratings but urgent financing needs.
Suppliers required faster financing approval from GLP’s captive financing arm with full invoice coverage.
Strict oversight of bank account numbers for core group entities.
The solution
Citi partnered with GLP and its captive financing arm and supply chain company to develop a fully digitalised solution that empowers its external suppliers. The solution streamlines access to timely non-bank financial institutions [NBFI] e-trade loan via supply chain and factoring company channels, eliminating the need for supply chain demand, payment delays, financing gap, turnaround pressures and regular control. In addition, core buyer entities and their suppliers don’t need to open additional bank accounts.
GLP factoring business process map
GLP supply chain business process map
Best practice and innovation
Economies of scale – the programme was implemented expeditiously and has successfully onboarded a substantial number of buyers and suppliers. The aggregated drawn amount percentage reached 90% in three months. GLP is also in the progress of further expanding the programme. In the coming months, the company expects to onboard hundreds of domestic and international suppliers. Moreover, it plans to increase the programme size to US$100m.
Quick implementation – time-to-market was critical to the success of this transaction. GLP swiftly identified the opportunities and implemented the innovative solution in just one month. The initial discussion started in December 2023 with the first batch of funding released March 2024.
Automation and visibility – leveraging Citi’s Trade Account Payable Finance (ARDF) platform, clients can automate and accelerate financing needs – from initial online submission to final settlement. The entire ARDF programme is digital, which helps optimise and streamline end-to-end workflow across various ERP systems and enable efficiency account payable management activities.
Outstanding collaboration – every stage of the implementation resulted in improvements, showcased best practices in navigating the complexities of treasury operations and country-specific legal frameworks. A strong partnership was forged rapidly, building on an excellent collaborative working relationship across the project team including GLP’s treasury, sales, client credit risk teams and Citi’s digital trade loan solution implementation team.
As this was a brand new solution involving numerous counterparties, the GLP treasury team, acting as the project lead, faced significant challenges in communication and execution. Disciplined project management principles and cross team collaboration ensured tight monitoring of programme progress. The robust partnership and regular reporting mechanisms guaranteed the achievement of GLP’s initial KPIs. All complex discussions encompassing structural design, business alignment, core buyer analysis and legal clause reviews were completed within one month – faster than the timeline originally planned.
Key benefits
Cost savings.
Headcount savings.
Process efficiencies.
Increased automation.
Risk mitigated.
Improved visibility.
Errors reduced.
Number of banking partners/bank accounts reduced.
Manual intervention reduced.
Increased system connectivity.
Future-proof solution.
Exceptional implementation (budget/time).
Improved key performance indicator (KPI) metrics.
“It’s an honour to be a key member of the GLP China treasury team, I led the implementation of an innovative digital trade financing solution in collaboration with Citi to address complex working capital challenges across the country,” concludes Sasa Wang, China Treasury Director.
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