Trading faster may allow commodity businesses to generate greater returns from a wide range of assets – not only physical commodities, but counterparty relationships and their employees’ valuable time. Completing each trade faster allows these resources to be used to trade more volume; for example by freeing up credit lines to enable more transactions with…
Digital transformation has been identified as one way to help improve profitability in commodities trading, where profit margins have been squeezed since 2015. In fact, digital transformation has become a trend in the industry and at least part of the digitalisation effort often takes the form of big data projects, which analysts claim are the…
Utility companies and power generators have access to a wide range of software solutions that can help them improve operational efficiency and process data faster, from generation optimisation to logistics scheduling. With many software products offered by a wide range of vendors, and new options emerging regularly, it can be difficult to know which technologies…
With the Covid-19 (coronavirus) situation changing daily, businesses are being reminded to review their business continuity plans and ensure these are flexible enough to address a range of possible effects from the pandemic. As lockdowns and quarantine measures become more common, working from home is being promoted by many as a way to slow the…
In today’s highly competitive environment, metals traders are fighting against “the relentless erosion of profit margins”. To add to these systemic challenges, geopolitical risks such as trade wars, sanctions, tariffs and the ongoing impact of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), are increasing uncertainty, reducing demand for some materials, supply for others and creating longer-term logistics issues that will…
Inefficiencies cost trading companies time and money. Over the years, many different technologies have been used by commodity traders to improve their efficiency, just consider the fax machines that revolutionised contract turnaround times! These have since been replaced by even more efficient and better-traceable electronic communications. And as technology advances further, emailed pdf attachments that…
Collaboration is an essential ingredient for success in the digital age, as we explored in a recent whitepaper. But for the business to work better through collaboration between teams, their technology also needs to be collaborative. With many different business functions all using technologies that meet their specific needs, and every organisation using unique processes,…
In commodity markets in general and biomass in particular, change is the only constant. With pressures on margins, tighter and more comprehensive legislation and faster trading, to name a few challenges, companies, their business processes and systems, need to be agile and that agility needs to be embedded across the organisation as well as the…
Commodity Trading Risk Management (CTRM) software was originally used to record transactions after they had been carried out and to report on activity. However, in the decades since the original CTRM systems were created, technologies and the business itself have undergone massive and dramatic change, meaning that traditional legacy CTRM systems are now very limited…
Corrie MacColl is a group of Natural and Synthetic Rubber growing, trading, storage, distribution and technical support companies, with plantations in Cameroon and Malaysia, and owned by the Singaporean conglomerate Halcyon Agri. The Halcyon group is the leading natural rubber supply chain manager in the world, supplying 1.6 million tonnes annually, or 12% of global…
