Transforming Credit-to-Cash at Cargill

Cargill Inc. is the largest privately-held company in the United States by revenue ($114.7 billion in 2018) and has approximately 166,000 employees working in 70 countries. In addition to trading numerous commodities, the organization supplies food ingredient and bio-industrial materials to manufacturers; processes meat and egg products for food service companies and retailers; offers services and risk management solutions within the agriculture industry; and more. With 60 different business groups spread across five enterprises, Cargill has historically been very decentralized in terms of its processes and technologies. Before the organization began its broader finance function transformation, each business group had its own way of approaching process design.

This write-up summarizes Cargill’s journey toward a global process organization focused on the continuous improvement of its people, processes, data, and technology as the organization matures its credit-to-cash process. While the work remains ongoing, Cargill’s efforts to-date have allowed the organization to achieve more streamlined and efficient collections, invoicing, and credit management processes among other improvements.