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How much is geopolitics now driving commodities and what additional software requirements are people looking for to cater for all forms of geopolitical drivers?

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How much is geopolitics now driving commodities and what additional software requirements are people looking for to cater for all forms of geopolitical drivers?

Throughout the last couple of years, ComTech has noted a considerable shift in terms of drivers from purely that of fundamentals of supply and demand to geopolitically-driven factors. That not only includes wars, tariffs, trade bans, and other politically-motivated trade barriers but also politically-driven regulatory issues like net zero, climate, sustainability and other social and environmental initiatives. Whether you agree with these or not, they are political as opposed to things that naturally might impact supply and demand like consumption and production trends or forecasts. Take a look at Reuter’s commodities page as an example – how many stories there are really about fundamentals versus politics and narratives?

So, we asked our thought-leaders what they thought about this shift and what it’s impacts might be. Unfortunately, it got a rather muted response however, we thank those that did respond.

For ComTech, these trends are key to the future of CTRM and related solutions as they make everything so much more volatile and introduce many more layers of expensive bureaucracy to deal with – things that fankly, under normal circumstances would not be the focus of a producer or consumer of commodities or raw materials. As Rob Pringle points out below, these trends can introduce significant volatility and that then requires a greater focus on things like risk management, the supply chain in it’s entirety and so on.

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