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Amphora Looking for Alchemists

It’s not that often that existing vendors build new solutions so when Amphora announced a new metals CTRM called Alchemy, I was all ears and obtained a briefing and early demo. With an initial focus on concentrates, Amphora had a seed client for the product, and that customer went live with Alchemy last year. At this point, as Amphora’s David Glasspool told me, both companies have got through the issues and bug fixing stage. and the product is now ready for the broader market. In fact, Alchemy handles not just concentrates but refined metals as well.

CTRM products develop over time with adoption by customers. There is no standard solution or standard business process in this industry and so each added customer is expected to bring with it additional requirements. By customers three to five, the product starts to become more rounded and as further customers are added, enhancements are more often simply about specific reporting needs. David is keen now to get Alchemy adopted at customers two and three and hopes to flesh out the Alchemy development plan for 2025 with these customers, he told me. He also notes that Alchemy with its modern architecture can be used as an ‘add-on’ product in an ecosystem of solutions.

In terms of where he sees Alchemy’s strengths, he believes its contract management functionality to be extremely strong as well as its P&L functionality that he describes as ‘the best out there’. Of course, to handle concentrates, it also needs a flexible, configurable and robust pricing/valuation engine and David also sees that as a major strength and differentiator. “Alchemy handles the specific complexities of concentrates and metal trading, allowing full front to back management of a trade lifecycle making it a game-changer in the industry,” he said. “If you trade in oil, the contracts are very similar, but for concentrates there can be differences. So you have to be able to capture and display all these nuances within the CTRM system. And if you have a system that’s not specifically designed for concentrates, it’s impossible. Alchemy’s focus from the beginning has been on user experience – ease of use means businesses can train users within half a day and be assured of the quality of the output.”

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Just recently, many of the vendors are reporting a surge of interest in metals solutions and David has several ongoing prospects for Alchemy as well, which have all started with an initial 15 minute demo to see whether Alchemy could offer an improvement over current processes at the prospect.

These days, there is a larger choice for buyers in the metals commodities world with quite a few newer entries and these can be found in the CTRM Sourcebook and in the CTRM Center online directory for those looking.

 

 

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