A CommodityPoint Technical Briefing Note
capSpire's Gravitate Web Portal Extending and Enriching E/CTRM System Capabilities
COMMODITYPOINT a division of UtiliPoint International, Inc. 19901 Southwest Freeway, Suite 121 Sugar Land, Texas 77479 www.commodity-point.com August 2012
capSpire Gravitate Web Portal
Introduction Most bulk product and commodity suppliers, such as those that sell crude products, natural gas liquids, grains, or agricultural products, have traditionally relied on custom-built transaction management systems for managing their business. However, within the last several years, many of these companies have turned to vendor supported commodity trading and risk management (CTRM) systems to manage the entirety of their businesses, from production/supply aggregation through sales and distribution to regional or local markets. While the movement toward supported CTRM systems has brought these companies a number of functional and business process improvements such as improved data integrity, supply aggregation risk management capabilities, and better accounting and controls; there still exists a number of issues that are unique this market segment are not fully addressed with tools that were designed to service wholesale commodity trading organizations. Given this genesis in wholesale trading, CTRM systems do a very good job of managing the aggregation of supply for these marketers/distributors - capturing trades, both physical and financial, tracking and managing logistics and supply Copyright 2012
CommodityPoint, a Division of UtiliPoint International, Inc.
capSpire Gravitate Web Portal chains, and aggregating and valuing the portfolio of products. Many are also effective at capturing the sale side of transactions, the sale and distribution of commodities and products associated with a rack or terminal oriented business. Unfortunately, these systems are simply internal business management tools – they do not effectively interact with the marketer's customers as they have no client facing capabilities. Even for a marketer or distributor using a sophisticated, market leading CTRM system, such as those from Allegro, Solarc (now OpenLink) and Triple Point, downstream client interactions are still most commonly conducted via phone, Instant Messenger (IM), email or fax. Transactions with these customers are usually captured in the CTRM system via manual input, and those customers have no visibility into their data held within that system, other than via invoice or other statements and notices provided by the marketer/distributor. Customers must still contact by phone, IM, fax or email, the supplier's personnel for critical data such as deliveries against contractual volumes, price information, or information needed to resolve invoice disputes. All commodity marketers/distributers, whether they be national, regional, or local in scale; selling petroleum products, natural gas, grains, or edible oils; rely on high value interactions with their clients - value added services will improve customer retention and loyalty. Poor customer interactions and bad service, whether at the products rack, grain elevator, rail terminal, delivery meter or in the back office, will most certainly drive those customers to alternative sources of products. Unfortunately, CTRM systems are not designed to address these critical interaction points in the marketer/customer relationship.
Recognizing this
shortcoming, capSpire, a US-based software and technology services company, has developed a new product, called Gravitate, which has been designed specifically to extend the capabilities of traditional CTRM solutions in order to improve these high value client interactions.
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capSpire Gravitate Web Portal Web Enabled Client Interactions Having worked with many of the largest commodity supply companies around the globe, the founders of the capSpire recognized the inefficiencies inherent in the traditional methods of interaction between suppliers and their customers. They also recognized that these interactions not only lead to poor client relations, they also slowed cash flows due to delays in answering customer questions or resolving invoice disputes. capSpire's head of product
marketing,
Trent
Amos,
describes their solution this way, "The Gravitate Web Portal is a customer engagement platform that fundamentally changes how commodity suppliers and marketing companies interact with each other." At its core, Gravitate Web Portal is an interface via which the marketer/distributor's customers can access their key account information held within that company's E/CTRM system, 24/7, enabling rapid resolution of contract or invoice issues and questions, and decreasing the burden of manual reconciliations on the part of the distributor's personnel. The portal also provides value-added capabilities such as historical market prices, news and marketer/distributor announcements, including the ability to embed
video-based
market
commentary. The product automates distribution of critical notifications (via email or SMS) which would have to be otherwise manually initiated, including:
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•
Product lifting or delivery events
•
Issuance of invoices CommodityPoint, a Division of UtiliPoint International, Inc.
capSpire Gravitate Web Portal •
Invoice payment reminders including past-due notices
•
Requirements to take or lift product as required by contract terms
•
Contract lifting or delivery fulfilment notices
•
Price information, including any location-specific discounts that may be available.
Within many of the Gravitate screens, customers have drill-down capability, allowing them to view all transactions against individual contracts and view deal level detail within their on-line invoices. As the system is a clear extension of the producer/marketer's identity and brand, the portal has been designed to be easily configured to match the producer/marketer's corporate look and feel, including configurable screen colors and logo-ing. The pluggable architecture allows the operator to add their own grids, widgets and new pages to the site to meet the needs of their specific markets. Additionally, the company has developed a number of preconfigured integration schemas to multiple CTRM systems, enabling rapid "off the shelf" implementation.
Web Enabled Trading While many of the product's capabilities previously described are designed to improve client access to information - decreasing invoice disputes and improving customer relationships - CommodityPoint believes that the most intriguing capability of Gravitate is what the company
calls
"order
execution
module"
its
which
effectively transforms a CTRM system into an Copyright 2012
e-commerce
CommodityPoint, a Division of UtiliPoint International, Inc.
capSpire Gravitate Web Portal platform. Gravitate enables the distributor/marketer to post product or location specific offers and allows customers to purchase product via the web interface, transactions which are in turn captured and updated within the distributor's CTRM system. Offer prices posted through the module can include spot deals, fixed forwards, stop limits and index pricing. Customers can execute purchase transactions for a one month basket of products, or for a single product for multiple months based on a forward strip. Additionally, the system provides for exchange-based real-time pricing (net of any seller determined basis adjustments or discounts/premiums). As deals are done, customers can see an updated accounting of their transactions against one or more contracts and online views of each underlying contract/agreement are available to the customer.
Technology According to capSpire, the system has been developed using the latest Web 2.0 Rich Internet Application technologies, including ASP.NET, WCF, MVC HTML, CSS, jQuery and AJAX amongst others. All client facing technologies are compatible with the major browser vendors, as well as smart phone browsers, facilitating access in any environment. The middle tier leverages a robust, fullfeatured .NET 4.0 platform and it services its content by utilizing a very reliable and scalable IIS 7.5 web application server. The middle tier utilizes a robust Object Relation Mapping framework, allowing quick and easy access to 3rd party data API’s and interaction with the persistent data store, which resides in SQL Server 2008. capSpire also notes that Gravitate adheres to all relevant security standards for delivering web-based sensitive data. Users' credentials are stored using a oneway encryption algorithm and the application supports delivery of the content over HTTPS protocol using SSL certificates. In addition to the appropriate web
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capSpire Gravitate Web Portal securities, the system confirms each user request to ensure the logged-in user has the appropriate credentials and roles to access the requested content.
Conclusion Though Gravitate is a new product with a limited number of live implementations specific to the crude products and NGL markets, it is finding considerable interest in the market. In addition to those current installations, the company indicates they are currently working with additional clients and other market participants to extend the market coverage to address additional commodities, including natural gas and agriculturals.
Not only does Gravitate extend and enhance CTRM system capabilities, bringing counterparty information and data to customers and improving relationships with those customers; it also enables web-based deal capture, transforming an otherwise cloistered CTRM solution from an internally focused transaction management system into a functionally rich e-commerce platform. Given these capabilities, this new offering from capSpire is clearly an innovative and unique solution for the energy and commodity markets.
Please Note: CommodityPoint Technical Briefing Notes are intended to inform readers about products that CommodityPoint believes to be technical innovations and advancements in CTRM systems and related software. WHILE THIS DOCUMENT PROVIDES COVERAGE OF A SPECIFIC VENDOR AND PRODUCT, IT IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT OF THAT PARTICULAR VENDOR OR IT'S PRODUCTS; rather it should be viewed only as an informative analysis of that innovation.
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CommodityPoint, a Division of UtiliPoint International, Inc.
capSpire Gravitate Web Portal
About CommodityPoint CommodityPoint is the industry leader in providing Commodity Trading & Risk Management (CTRM) research, analysis and advisory services. Our services bring insight into business issues, trends, processes and technology, to utilities, energy companies, banks, brokers, funds, investors and vendors that enhance their competitive position and support critical business decisions around the wholesale commodity trading markets. Our team provides expert analysis of market trends and, in particular, the technologies and applications supporting those that participate in regional or global commodity markets. With offices in Europe and the US, and backed by an experienced research team, our organization provides an unparalleled view of the marketplace. CommodityPoint is a division of leading energy and utilities analyst and consulting firm, UtiliPoint International, Inc.
Other Resources The CTRM Blog – http://www.ctrmblog.com CommodityPoint – http://www.CommodityPoint.com TRM Products and Services Online Directory – http://www.trmdirectory.com
Other CommodityPoint Reports CommodityPoint research reports are available at http://www.Commodity-Point.com For additional information regarding this report or any CommodityPoint product or service, please contact Patrick Reames at preames@utilipoint.com or Mark Tredway at mtredway@utilipoint.com.
CommodityPoint Locations: The Americas 19901 Southwest Freeway, Suite 121 Sugar Land, Texas 77479 USA Phone: 281-207-5440 Europe & Asia/Pacific International Business Center Prikop 4 602 00 Brno Czech Republic Tel: +42 0 533 433 658
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UtiliPoint International is a wholly owned subsidiary of Midas Medici Group Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB:MMED).
CommodityPoint, a Division of UtiliPoint International, Inc.