Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Bridgestone Corporation is the largest tire manufacturer in the world1 generating global sales revenue of $32.8 billion in 2018. Its subsidiary, Bridgestone India, has been operating in India for the last 20 years, developing a network of 3,000 dealers across the country. The company also has two manufacturing facilities in Indore and Pune.
As a leading supplier of tires, Bridgestone imports majority of its raw materials from global suppliers and distributes final goods to its wide network of local dealers in India. However, prior to August 2018, the company’s cash management processes were extremely manual.
In order for import payments in India to be processed, all corporates are required to submit physical supporting documents to its bank for every transaction – in the form of invoices, shipping documents and payment request letters – to comply with regulations by the Reserve Bank of India. For Bridgestone, which receives 1,800 invoices from overseas suppliers each year, this meant putting in 2,260 man-hours a year for the paper-based process, which impacted the firm’s overall efficiency and translated into higher processing costs.
Separately, Bridgestone also faced challenges in optimizing its cash domestically. The company processes its collections from 3,000 local dealers across a range of traditional payment methods such as cheques, and also had to reconcile each collection against the outstanding invoices in its SAP system. Moreover, the firm needed to reconcile a large number of bank statements across different banks and file formats. The entire process was extremely manual, often resulting in delays in collection and longer order-to-cash cycles that impacted its working capital efficiency.
Bridgestone needed a comprehensive solution to manage invoices and reconcile its receivables efficiently so it can better manage its liquidity in India.
Bridgestone partnered with its global banking partner J.P. Morgan to implement a comprehensive cash management solution to effectively digitize the company’s end-to-end process for cross-border payments, domestic collections and reconciliation.
Cross-border payments
The firm implemented J.P. Morgan’s paperless imports solution where payment instructions can now be transmitted digitally to the bank via host-to-host integration with Bridgestone’s ERP. The solution also fully integrates J.P. Morgan’s online banking platform with the Reserve Bank of India’s Import Data Processing and Monitoring System (IDPMS), where Bridgestone can provide the bank access to the relevant imports trade data on IDPMS by simply submitting two data points from its invoice and shipping documents through J.P. Morgan’s Virtual Branch platform to validate and process Bridgestone’s cross-border transactions. Bridgestone is also able to pay the invoices via the Virtual Branch to completely digitizing the cross-border payment process.
With access to information on IDPMS, J.P. Morgan is also able to ascertain the FX exposure of Bridgestone’s cross-border transactions. By combining the information with Bridgestone’s FX hedging policies, J.P. Morgan is able to apply them to import payment instructions, strengthening Bridgestone’s controls to manage FX exposures.
Domestic collections and reconciliation
To better manage its domestic collections, Bridgestone implemented J.P. Morgan’s innovative invoice reconciliation solution. The cloud-based platform facilitates the electronic sharing of invoices, handling of payments and comprehensive management of transaction information between B2B buyers and sellers. The fully-automated self-service portal allows dealers to pay invoices directly via the portal’s web or mobile platforms, while also enabling dealers to use incentives such as cash discounts and credit notes against outstanding invoices. Bridgestone on the other hand can get sophisticated analytics and detailed insights into its receivables collection at a granular level to help optimize working capital.
To ease reconciliation, Bridgestone tapped into J.P. Morgan’s Treasury Services application programming interface (API) solution to retrieve bank statement reporting in real-time directly on the firm’s own platform. The firm also piloted J.P. Morgan’s Virtual Assistant, a bot-based and artificial intelligence (AI) enabled tool that facilitates queries around daily treasury operations like transaction status, cash positions and other account and banking activities. The combined solutions provide Bridgestone with increased transparency and real-time view of its treasury data to facilitate better cash management decisions.
The comprehensive cash management solution has delivered significant benefits for Bridgestone. The paperless imports solution has enabled Bridgestone to:
At the same time, the automated invoice reconciliation solution allowed Bridgestone to:
“J.P. Morgan has been instrumental in helping us centralize control and gain full visibility into our global liquidity; allowing us to optimize cash to meet working capital needs in our growth markets.”
Nitin Sethi
Treasury Head, Bridgestone India Private Limited
Bridgestone is an overall winner of the Treasury Today 2019 Adam Smith Awards Asia in the category of Best in Class Solution in India.
This material was prepared exclusively for the benefit and internal use of the JPMorgan client to whom it is directly addressed (including such client’s subsidiaries, the “Company”) in order to assist the Company in evaluating a possible transaction(s) and does not carry any right of disclosure to any other party. This material is for discussion purposes only and is incomplete without reference to the other briefings provided by JPMorgan. Neither this material nor any of its contents may be disclosed or used for any other purpose without the prior written consent of JPMorgan.
J.P. Morgan, JPMorgan, JPMorgan Chase and Chase are marketing names for certain businesses of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its subsidiaries worldwide (collectively, “JPMC”). Products or services may be marketed and/or provided by commercial banks such as JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., securities or other non-banking affiliates or other JPMC entities, and such affiliate or entity may or may not be the JPMC entity operating and regulated in your jurisdiction locally. JPMC contact persons may be employees or officers of any of the foregoing entities and the terms “J.P. Morgan”, “JPMorgan”, “JPMorgan Chase” and “Chase” if and as used herein include as applicable all such employees or officers and/or entities irrespective of marketing name(s) used. Nothing in this material is a solicitation by JPMC of any product or service which would be unlawful under applicable laws or regulations.
Investments or strategies discussed herein may not be suitable for all investors. Neither JPMorgan nor any of its directors, officers, employees or agents shall incur in any responsibility or liability whatsoever to the Company or any other party with respect to the contents of any matters referred herein, or discussed as a result of, this material. This material is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, accounting, legal or tax advice or investment recommendations. Please consult your own tax, legal, accounting or investment advisor concerning such matters.
Not all products and services are available in all geographic areas. Eligibility for particular products and services is subject to final determination by JPMC and or its affiliates/subsidiaries. This material does not constitute a commitment by any JPMC entity to extend or arrange credit or to provide any other products or services and JPMorgan reserves the right to withdraw at any time. All services are subject to applicable laws, regulations, and applicable approvals and notifications. The Company should examine the specific restrictions and limitations under the laws of its own jurisdiction that may be applicable to the Company due to its nature or to the products and services referred herein.
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, the statements in this material are not intended to be legally binding. Any products, services, terms or other matters described herein (other than in respect of confidentiality) are subject to the terms of separate legally binding documentation and/or are subject to change without notice.
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., organized under the laws of U.S.A. with limited liability.