Three CTRM Software Puzzles
Sometimes things bother me a lot and I just have to fathom them out. Here are three conundrums that bother me at the moment in terms of the CTRM Software Industry. It’s firmly tongue – in-cheek so please don’t take me too literally……….i.e please, no nastygrams!
1 It’s all about awards?
We get a lot of press announcements as you might expect but over the last few years there has been a spectacular increase in announcements about awards. Now, I have been a VP Marketing for a software firm in the space many Moons ago and I was always keen to get the brand out there especially if it was good news. Back in the late 1990’s, I would have considered an award good news I guess. Of course, now I’m an analyst and we do the Vendor Perception study every couple of years – something we have resisted turning into yet another award at least so far … though we are considering promoting it via some ‘badges’ that vendors could use to tout how well they may have shown up in said study……
When there were one or two awards for vendors, it was sort of fun and seeing who won the EnergyRisk award or the Commodities Now award was always interesting. That was enough right! Now, it seems every one is doing awards – there are just so many of them! Suddenly, every man and his dog is giving an award for the best CTRM software solution and Im sorry but it has become even more meaningless than ever before. After all, this is not based on a performance in a movie or an act of bravery – it’s usually based on how much advertising they did if the truth be told (but shhhh, I didn’t say that!). So, enough awards OK! The EnergyRisk awards are enough and perhaps the only ones with any track record left but other than that – enough already!
The only awards that really matters are happy customers, on time and to budget implementations and ones that delivers what it said it would and adds business value. Am I wrong?
2. In CTRM why is there an R?
Let’s face facts – and I know I have written about this before – how many CTRMs are actually great at risk analysis? How did the R standing for Risk – ever get into the acronysm that we use to describe the software category? Now, things are changing I know, but in reality CTRM systems are trade capture systems and include processing of the trade through to invoice settlement usually. When it comes to really providing world-class risk, I’m not so sure. Most older CTRM’s could barely handle price curves very well never mind stress testing, VaR and so on. It should have been CTM – just saying….
So, I got that off my chest…. hope I didn’t offend anyone…..
3. The Meaning of Cloud
In the last few years, CTRM in the cloud has become the thing. The problem is what exactly does cloud mean? The devil, it seems, is in the detail. There is hosted in the cloud of course but which cloud? Private, public…. and is it really cloud or is it actually just screen scraped which honestly isn’t really cloud – is it? Then there is cloud-native…. and multi-tenanted. Some vendors would claim its only cloud if cloud native. It all seems rather … cloudy.. to me. Since, CTRM in the cloud is the thing, everyone wants to suggest theirs is cloud ready… even if well, it isn’t – not really anyway.
So, cloud is now really just a marketing term in my opinion. The idea being that if you are getting left behind by your competition, you just claim the same thing… that way, you freeze the market right and at least give yourself a chance. So, buyers beware. There is cloud and well, cloud. Is that clear?
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