Fendahl Looking at a Record Year
Fendahl sees a very hectic market for CTRM and related software now, says Henry Thornalley of Fendahl. “There are some very large RFP’s doing the rounds at the moment and there was no summer slowdown in activity this year,” he told me. However, what I found interesting was Henry’s view that sales cycles are not decreasing. In an era where many opt for cloud-based solutions, you might have expected sales cycles to decrease as firms adopted more of proof-of-concept approach to procurement. “In certain regions, sales cycles appear to be increasing and quite often decisions get deferred,” he told me. “Having said that, we are involved in larger deals as well and these naturally tend to take longer to close.”
He went on to say that in certain regions outside of the US, sales cycles seem to be more complex generally. This may well be due to the increased amounts of types of due diligence required because of various regulations. Politics are not just making traders lives more difficult and riskier but vendor’s too it seems as they are questioned over issues like where date is stored, whether they have customers in certain countries and so on. Henry says that this has had a beneficial impact on Fendahl as it has sought various ISO and other certifications that now allow it to automatically tick off many boxes during the process.
Irrespective of that, the market is very active, and Henry hopes that 2024 will prove to be a record year for Fendahl exceeding the previous record year in 2022. There are potentially half a dozen more deals that could close this year and we have already had a great year, he told me. Highlights include three new deals in India including one he described as huge all in oil, gas and petrochemicals. In fact, the activity Fendahl has seen is mostly in oil and gas, he said. It has also seen a few metals and ags deals that tended to be very large as well. “In part, our success in oil and gas has been down to our expansion in the US and our base in Houston,” he said. Indeed, Fendahl has also seen success in US gas closing two deals this year with a few more in the pipeline to come.
The activity has been pretty much global except perhaps for Europe. “We have been busy in the middle East, Asia – Singapore and Australia, and in the US. Europe however has been more problematic. It’s been quite quiet with quite a few projects put on hold,” he told me. It seems that increasing regulation and difficulties doing business in the EU as compared to other regions may well be driving companies to locate elsewhere and defer decisions in the short-term.
Interestingly, Fendahl did its first deal in cheese he told me and is now seeking additional opportunities in the cheese market. ComTech sees quite a lot of non-listed commodities like cheese driving CTRM software deals as firms seek to modernize and get on platforms that offer proper risk management, security and audit trails because of increased vigilance by regulators and stake holders.
Keep in touch and sign up to our Newsletter
