HiveDome’s ITAS Services Help Unlock New Opportunities

A couple of weeks back while in London, I met with Sean Milton who covers business development and client support for Hivedome. Hivedome markets and supports ITAS, a commodity management  platform primarily in the ags & softs space in commodities like sugar, cocoa, coffee, nuts and dried fruits, grains and liquid products (molasses, oilseeds etc.), but it has also moved into metals & minerals in recent years. Boasting around 30 large- and medium-scale customers using its software in more than 50 countries, the company has grown largely through word of mouth. Sean told me that Hivedome has recently enhanced its website which focuses on its expanded array of ITAS Services and capabilities, as part of broader program of marketing to continue the recognition of its name, products and reputation in what is increasingly a competitive market.

With a 35-year history in the space,  as part of its modernization program, Hivedome is currently engaged in transitioning most of the commonly used functionality within the ITAS platform to .Net. As Sean explained, this is being done methodically to ensure  that the functionality of the ITAS Heritage code is fully protected and that the new/extracted (i.e. transitioned) .Net code can be released to its clients via quarterly updates. Importantly, Hivedome has also been hard at work developing a suite of ITAS components (Trader Desktop, Reporting database, APIs, Workflow Framework and an Events Engine) and in developing a range of subscription-based Services to unlock and expose the operational data in ITAS. These subscription-based Services are available to allow clients to leverage or extend the ITAS platform to the wider corporate landscape. In addition to the core Trader Desktop modules, other ITAS Services now include: Document Management, Data Query, Modify and Processing Services, Client Services and Process, Web Portal, Alerts & Notifications, Data warehouse, as well as offering a Reporting Dashboard development services. The idea is that,  via the ITAS Components and APIs, users can extract more value from the ITAS solution in terms of data analysis, workflows, integration and so on. For me, it is an example of how modern tools and technologies can be applied to help access more monolithic architecture solutions and add incremental value and functionality to them. Hivedome is also working on a new UI for ITAS as well.

Sean explained that that the new ITAS Services have helped Hivedome by enhancing its abilities to integrate with ERP solutions like SAP where ITAS is used as the front end (contract administration and P&L, pricing, risk, logistics) and then seamlessly integrate with an ERP back-end (inventory, sales, distribution). This also opens up origination markets where ITAS data can be fully integrated with an ERP  via ITAS Services. As a result, ITAS services are allowing Hivedome’s  customers to find new ways to utilize both the operational data within the ITAS solution as well as in deploying the solution further along the Supply Chain, he told me. The ITAS Services also allows Hivedome to move to subscription pricing for parts of its offering and this provides users with more flexibility and provides the vendor with a steady and predictable income stream – a trend we have seen across the industry. More information on the company and its ITAS Services can be found at its website.