Newly established BenQ Mobile needed to implement a cash management system in less than three months, including a complete accounts, payments and electronic banking infrastructure. The company found that Deutsche Bank was the only bank that offered to create the new cash management structure in a short enough timeframe.
Manfred Eisenhuth
Head of Treasury
BenQ Corporation is an international producer of consumer electronics, mobile phones, computers and digital storage technology. In October 2005, BenQ acquired Siemens Mobile Devices and set up the Munich-based company BenQ Mobile, which is licensed to use the Siemens brand name until October 2010. BenQ Mobile has over 7,000 employees worldwide and has R and D facilities in Brazil, China, Denmark, Germany, Mexico, Poland and Taiwan.
Problem…
Following the acquisition of Siemens Mobile Devices in October 2005, BenQ Corporation set up a new company in Europe called BenQ Mobile. As the company was to be established in less than three months, a new cash management system needed to be implemented in a short space of time, including a complete accounts, payments and electronic banking infrastructure.
This task was particularly daunting due to the sheer number of countries involved in the process. “Because the acquisition deal was an asset deal, in every country BenQ bought the assets of the business and not the infrastructure. We had to open up a new company and a new accounts structure behind it in 25 different countries,” explains Manfred Eisenhuth, Head of Treasury at BenQ Mobile. The task of setting up the new accounts structure was further complicated by the fact that BenQ Mobile did not yet have employees in all the required countries, while the existing Siemens Mobile Devices employees were not allowed to act on behalf of BenQ Mobile.
…Solved
Eisenhuth studied the market and found that Deutsche Bank was the only bank that offered to create the new cash management structure in a short enough timeframe. “Deutsche Bank managed to open active accounts in all those countries within a few weeks, including all legal documentation,” says Eisenhuth. “This was very important because we had to be able to make and receive payments and provide our customers with the new account information. Deutsche Bank was very aware of our time constraints.” Deutsche Bank managed the process of opening the accounts by providing points of contact in the countries in question, as well as a central point of contact at Deutsche Bank Frankfurt who liaised with the local contacts to ensure that the accounts were opened on time.
Eisenhuth also wanted to achieve a centralised cash management structure, including a cross-border cash pool and a local cash pool in Germany. BenQ Mobile’s transactions are processed via finavigate®, the central platform provided by Siemens Financial Services. Deutsche Bank (DB) enabled this by integrating BenQ Mobile’s payments into db-worldPAS, which converts payment files into the appropriate local domestic formats. “If Portugal wants to pay something from their local account, they send us a payment file out of their SAP system and we process it via finavigate® and send it to DB. DB then executes the payment out of DB Portugal,” explains Eisenhuth. “For the whole organisation in Europe there is a single point of entry for DB and their system. Everything is processed internally, so we can process every kind of payment within DB via one access point.”
Above all, Eisenhuth was impressed with the speed at which Deutsche Bank implemented the new structure. “They were very helpful, very fast and very creative. They did a good job on their side and we’re very happy about that.”
