As part of the recent ETD x DigiCom online event, Gen10 CEO & Founder Richard was invited to speak on a panel discussing Digital Strategy: Aligning business goals & IT set-up to achieve success in energy & commodity trading.

Along with several other experts in commodities digitalisation, Richard discussed a wide range of topics relating to digital strategies, including translating business objectives into an IT strategy, and how strategies have changed in the past few years.

The panel session began with a question around whether technology is a value and growth driver or a cost centre. Richard pointed out that if you don’t adopt technology front and centre then this in itself rapidly becomes a cost centre. Not investing in technology leaves trading firms lagging behind, with costs in terms of lost dollars, inefficiencies, errors and missed opportunities.

The experts also discussed how the role of technology within the organisation has changed in recent years. Technology now needs to be strategic, and its function is no longer just in supporting operations. This is also creating a change in the role of technology leaders as they are becoming business leaders, contributing to the overarching business strategy by leveraging technology to generate more value.

Discussions then turned to evolving technology architectures, particularly the importance of security, flexibility, and scalability. Cloud technology was also highlighted as this has made it easier for all trading companies to test and implement new technologies. The Cloud benefits both organisations with established systems and smaller companies as it enables them to try new solutions without investing too many resources. This also enables a more agile implementation strategy, as organisations can look to their immediate pain points rather than implementing one fixed system for the entire operation at once.

The closing thoughts included the importance of leveraging agile integrations to make the most of the information that’s out there but not necessarily within your systems right now. And the importance of finding a technology partner who understands your business and can advise and adapt as the technology changes is more important than ever.

Watch the full discussion now:

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