The CTRM Vendor Landscape in Ags and Softs

The Ags and softs CTRM vendor landscape resembles the ETRM vendor landscape of a decade or so ago. It’s pretty crowded with many vendors who either currently occupy or originated in a specific geographic or vertical niche. It has vendors that started in a specific agricultural commodity and it also has those that entered from elsewhere such as energy. Again, this reminds me of energy a decade ago as vendors from financial markets entered energy commodities and competed.

Like energy, while there will almost certainly be mergers & acquisitions and consolidations, there will also be a stream of new vendors emerging too. The reason for this is actually the same whether you look at energy or ags and softs, sheer complexity. Each commodity has its specific add-ons that must be there and each company – trader, producer, originator, consumer etc., has a slightly different set of requirements. Of course, this also varies by geographic location.

What happens is simply that as vendors grow, they have to continually add functionality and depth to their application and, as they do so, they lose their flexibility as a vendor. This means that there is always room for a new entry that can build something more specific for a particular problem. Of course, in order to grow, the new entrant needs to add width and depth too and so eventually they end up with the same issue.

However, the ags space is really exciting at the moment. There are a raft of existing vendors and products, a host of newer solutions both from newer vendors as well as new products from veterans. There are new entrants both from energy and the ERP software category. Buyers are potentially spoilt for choice at the moment. A few months ago, I counted some 27 vendors offering some form of CTRM targeting ags and softs. That number is now in excess of 30 and growing.

One aspect of ags and softs that adds spice to the picture is the supply chain aspect of the physical commodity. Something like cotton or edible oils has to be transported from one place to another, stored, accounted for, it has to meet certain quality and other specifications that can actually change through the journey and hence also need to be tracked. It produces lots of documentation along the way too that all has to tracked. The supply chain can be an area of considerable cost and risk unless its optimized and managed efficiently.

Several vendors have followed Triple Point’s lead in calling CTRM plus the supply chain Commodity Management, particularly in the context of the commercial and industrial segment of the industry where procurement of raw materials involves significant price risk. The Commodity Management software segment is probably several multiples larger than the CTRM software segment (1.6Billion annually according to our estimates).

We will be following the ags and softs CTRM landscape closely in the coming months and years and expect it evolve quite rapidly.

Don’t forget to join us at the CTRM Conference on the 2nd October, tickets are available now from the CTRM Conference website

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