Nicola Marcheselli
Head of Cash Management
Barilla SpA, the multinational pasta maker, has a long-standing tradition – founded in 1877 by Pietro Barilla in Parma, Italy, it remains privately held by the fourth generation of Barilla family. The company’s portfolio includes Barilla, Mulino Bianco,
Pavesi, Voiello, Alixir in Italy, as well as the Wasabröd (Sweden), Misko (Greece), Filiz (Turkey), Yemina and Vesta (Mexico) trademarks abroad. The consolidated revenue of the Barilla Group – which includes Barilla and Lieken – increased by 2% in 2012 to €3.996 billion.
Italian pasta maker Barilla identified several important elements when it began its SWIFT project. Security and control were two main reasons justifying the effort and investment, and treasury optimisation was another important consideration. The new set-up allows central treasury to decide the time and the size of the payments. In addition, Barilla was able to significantly reduce its cost associated with maintaining dozens of local set-ups, each one with its own fee and related maintenance costs, by implementing a central infrastructure.
Unified standards, a clear division of responsibilities between corporate and financial institutions, full scalability and resilience of the infrastructure complete the full picture of why Barilla chose the SWIFT solution.
For this group – which wants to be global but with strong roots in Italy; open to the future but linked to strong family traditions – SWIFT connectivity seemed to be the perfect mix to allow the maintenance of all these elements in a homogenous, harmonised mix where tradition and the smartest treasury management tools survive together.
SWIFT infrastructure
Barilla began its SWIFTNet project in 2012, following a six-year programme implementing a single version of SAP in all its subsidiaries across Europe, including Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and
Switzerland. “We wanted