Yagnesh Savania of IGNITE CTRM got in touch with us last week and gave us an update on how things are going. “We managed to close deals throughout the pandemic,” he told me. “It was tough though, especially in the late spring/early summer timeframe.” Things began picking up in August, he said and now they are seeing a real uptick in interest and opportunities. IGNITE offer a SaaS/Cloud solution primarily targeted at the oil, natural gas, and petrochemicals side of commodities, and that was a part of the industry that suffered a double whammy with both the pandemic/lockdowns and a collapse in oil prices last spring. “We’ve already signed three times the deals so far this year versus two years ago,” he said. “So there has been quite a recovery.”
Yags told me that they see a lot of mid-sized entities looking at solutions at the moment particularly petroleum companies and North American oil companies, but interest ranges from West Africa to the Asia-Pacific region. IGNITE is also attracting business from start-ups keen to have a professional solution, particularly to attract credit and for governance with investors. “They are looking for quick-to-implement, nimble solutions,” he said. “Increasingly, IGNITE is being seen as a valid alternative to other often larger-scale platforms on the market.” Yags also credits its new pricing structure with a lot of the interest. “Many smaller companies use Excel or similar still, but the attraction of an affordable, out-of-the-box solution from deal capture to settlement has helped create an interest to move,” he says. Of the customers signed to the newly packaged versions, some are already upgrading to the Enterprise version, he said.
Yags sees a combination replacement/virgin market at the moment and reiterated that many were not initially considering a system as they sought instead to cut costs and preserve headcount to stay operational during the downturn. With packaged pricing and remote implementation and training, many are adopting solutions now.
IGNITE is also growing and adding people in India and Ukraine in particular, as it builds a follow-the-sun support infrastructure. It is currently looking for additional staff in the America’s and Asia-Pacific regions. It has also upgraded its website in recent months.
