Current Research Agenda

Commodity Technology Advisory is currently busy working on, or readying, a number of research projects.The initial two are already underway and more details may be found below.

European Regulatory Study

The first research project is in progress and is our European Regulatory Study conducted in association with ETR Advisory and  kindly sponsored by TriOptima

Increased regulation of commodity trading in Europe has well and truly begun as various aspects of EMIR (European Market Infrastructure Regulation), REMIT (Regulation on wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency), and  MiFiD II, and other regulations start to bite. These regulations are already changing commodity trading and risk management practices and might have far reaching and even un-thought of consequences for the industry. Unfortunately, the authorities have yet to define much of the detail and clarity needed to determine this.

This research, conducted jointly by industry leading analysts and experts, Commodity Technology Advisory and ETR Advisory, aims to help to clarify the issues and to examine the impact of regulation on software requirements in the trading and risk management business function. It will look at the current implementation schedule of the regulations and examine some of the implementation impacts of the yet to be defined details of the regulations. In a second phase, it will review the software, services and platforms available in the market to support aspects of the European regulatory environment and establish the readiness of European traders for operating under the regulations

The research will focus on understanding:

• Implementation time frames and what this means to traders,

• The unknowns and yet to be defined details and their implications

• A review of solutions, services and platforms in the market designed to support these regulations

• Readiness of trading organizations from a business process, technology and holisitic standpoint.

Commodity Technology Advisory and ETR Advisory will conduct the market research via a web-based survey instrument, direct interviews with market participants, and other standard research channels. There will be an initial report that covers many of he topics above followed by a later report that outlines the results of our survey.  Those reports will then be made available for download to industry professionals via our various websites.

CTRM Market Sizing Study

An analytically derived and reliable market size estimate is a key indicator for any market participant, though particularly so for product vendors, services companies, and investors.  For very dynamic market such as commodity trading and risk management (CTRM) technologies arriving at that reliable sizing number is challenging and requires substantial market experience and insights.

Commodity Technology Advisory analysts, with more than 60 years of experience in commodity trading and technology, will undertake this exercise utilizing rigorous methodologies developed in providing similar market metrics for almost a decade.  We will utilize rigorous top-down and bottom-up methodologies to measure current market activity rates and will validate those findings against historical trends, leveraging market data from a variety of sources including our own proprietary deals databases and research studies.

Upon completion, this research report will provide a comprehensive view of not only global sizing for the broad CTRM category, but it will also provide a granular view of a number of market sub-categories and segments.  The outline of the final report is as follows:

• Total global market size for CTRM software
• Market size for the virgin and replacement sides of the market and for alternative delivery mechanisms such as SaaS, hosted and leased
• Break outs of market size for:
  • Commodities and commodity groupings
  • Industry segments
  • Major geographic regions
• Market size growth trends over the next four years.

Opportunities

ComTech Advisory funds its research efforts through sponsorships and advertising in the body of the resulting reports – which are available for free. If you have interest in sponsoring or participating in either of the above projects please do contact us at gvasey at comtechadvisory dot com.

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