Chris Sass and Martin Hiller (Hosts of the ETRM Mini-Series) are talking to Sunil Biswas (Chief Product Officer) of ION Commodities and André Jäger (Senior Vice President Product Management) of ION Commodities.
"ION Commodities, a division within the ION Group, is the leading provider of commodity management solutions that empowers companies to be in total control of their business operations.
As the market leader, ION Commodities provides holistic portfolio management and next-generation decision support to organizations of any size, in any industry, across any commodity, and in any region.
From a completely packaged multi-tenant SaaS solution, to a highly customized ETRM/CTRM solution, to a platform for advanced analytics and digitalization, ION’s portfolio of solutions supports commodity organizations’ exact requirements now — and as their businesses grow and change well into the future."
To get more insights about all the vendors that participated in the ETRM Mini-Series, check out https://insidersguidetoenergy.com/energy-podcast-education/etrm/
If you want to find out more about ION Commodities, click https://insidersguidetoenergy.com/energy-podcast-education/etrm/ion/
Chris Sass and Martin Hiller (Hosts of the ETRM Mini-Series) are talking to Sunil Biswas (Chief Product Officer) of ION Commodities and André Jäger (Senior Vice President Product Management) of ION Commodities.
"ION Commodities, a division within the ION Group, is the leading provider of commodity management solutions that empowers companies to be in total control of their business operations.
As the market leader, ION Commodities provides holistic portfolio management and next-generation decision support to organizations of any size, in any industry, across any commodity, and in any region.
From a completely packaged multi-tenant SaaS solution, to a highly customized ETRM/CTRM solution, to a platform for advanced analytics and digitalization, ION’s portfolio of solutions supports commodity organizations’ exact requirements now — and as their businesses grow and change well into the future."
To get more insights about all the vendors that participated in the ETRM Mini-Series, check out https://insidersguidetoenergy.com/energy-podcast-education/etrm/
If you want to find out more about ION Commodities, click https://insidersguidetoenergy.com/energy-podcast-education/etrm/ion/
| Timestamp | Speaker | Transcript
| 18:10.47 | Chris Sass | welcome to insider's guide to energy. ETRM Educational Mini-Series this week we're excited to have with us ION commodities and from ION commodities, we have Sunil Biswas and we have André Jäger from ION. Sunil and André welcome to the program.
| 18:39.75 | Sunil Biswas | Thanks you Chris, thanks for the opportunity to talk.
| 18:40.27 | André Jäger | Yep
| 18:44.30 | Chris Sass | So so it may help before we kick off and start talking specifically into what ION springing who are you both and and what are your roles. Maybe you could introduce yourselves to our audience.
| 18:53.83 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah, so um, I'm sitting on business was I'm currently chief product officer for iron commodities I've been with I for 4 years I'm responsible for our portfolio products product strategy product development product marketing m. Ensuring that we provide leading edge world class solutions to our customers in the commodity intensity industry space entree.
| 19:23.38 | André Jäger | A andreagar also work on the product management team I'm actually leading a ah team of Market s mes with responsibility across different products that we have in the portfolio on the commodity side. Nice to me you all.
| 19:38.33 | Chris Sass | Cool welcome both of you. Um, let me explain how we're doing the educational miniistries. Every vendor has their own episode and we start with some common questions and get different perspectives the the first thing that that I'd like to get your perspective on is.
| 19:40.19 | Martin Hiller | And welcome.
| 19:54.67 | Chris Sass | The industry seems to be getting a lot of activity Etherm is a very crowded space from what I've seen.. There's a lot of companies that have started in the space. There's a lot of talk about evolution and changing things. And so what? I'd love to hear is what's ION's perspective of the current state of eterm how how is it going and why is there so much activity in it.
| 20:13.98 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah I'll take double and chris so um, you know etrm is a space that that I am got into you know back in 2013 you know as a company we've we've grown through a series of of acquisitions adding solutions like. Open link right? angle a leg road triple point and aspect into our portfolio products. So so eter m is is our bread and butter. Um, you know I would say in the last you know 4 or 5 years we've seen some radical change in the in the etrm um space as the. The industry has evolved with the introduction of of newer technologies sas technology is 1 ah new user experience. So what? what base technologies the growth of data and and insights. Um. Ah, all areas of of intense focus and so when we look at the space. It's really exciting. There's a lot of opportunity for participants in the market and the market itself has started to fragment into you know needs of top tier firms needs for entry level firms. And if you look across the different asset classes in energy whether it's in the hydrocarbon space power renewables space. Those needs are constantly changing and the recent cop Twenty six is only a catalyst for for more change and so it's a very exciting space and 1 that we compete in. Ah, to service the the needs of our customers.
| 21:46.10 | Martin Hiller | So thanks anilil you mentioned actually quite some interesting buswords like changes I think the whole industry is changing rapidly. You also mentioned c o 2 and also renewals. Let's talk. Ah let's talk a bit about those areas because I see that clients are. Need to react strongly to the changing market and renewables which are coming more and more predominant in terms of a source of energy throughout europe but also globally in that context how important is the energy transition for your clients and what do you specifically offer. Manage this transition for them.
| 22:24.83 | André Jäger | I can speak a little bit to that Martin so I think the energy transition is a big topic for for existing client base and with that kind of how to utilize our solutions. Um, so we have on 1 hand. Kind of clients that maybe focus initially on bulk commodities crude oil natural gas and they're kind of adopting power because they just see kind of electrification happening across the board. So they're moving on from other commodities into the power space. So this is 1 end of the client base then of course we have a lot of existing client business in the utility and power space. So there's all about kind of working and get all the ppa contracts. So the power portche contracts that they have in their portfolio into the ctm. Kind of ensure that they can manage the volumes model the payout have the rated risk analytics is all about kind of getting the certificates. Um, organized and this is not just the carbon piece I think carbon is very established from a kind of certificate trading perspective. So what's actually a little bit more interesting is kind of what we see on the green certificate side. So that means wrecks on the North american side or goals here on the on the european side. We definitely see in relation to kind of that additional. Um, kind of renewable generation. Trading volumes increase significantly for our players. It's quite the norm that the big players do fifty sixty cells in trades a day that need to be kind of ah digested by the cgm we're looking into storage technology how that is reflected on the etm um side. Ah, how can you utilize that for optimization purposes. Um, and then last but not least similar compared to what we see on the power side is all about renewable fuels how you manage the related certificates like rinse. Ah, but also how you kind of manage the physical position the scheduling where you kind of have to track the combination of the physical product as well as the certificates itself. So definitely a big topic and key for the clients is to kind of combine um, that kind of new business areas or new. Kind of neat areas with some of the traditional kind of etm um capabilities that they used to using doesn't matter if it's the hatching or some of the other trading activities not that everybody is from 1 day to the other 1 hundred percent completely focused on power is usually still kind of a Multi -commodity um
| 25:01.95 | Andre | Ah, usage with some additional kind of focus around power based on renewable transition.
| 25:07.40 | Martin | Okay, that sounds or that rises some more questions I have to admit and you mentioned ppa is which is I think a very interesting and also very relevant topic for many traders here in Europe and potentially I guess Also globally. You also mentioned risk analytics and pricing I see this is not a standard business. Definitely not so it's probably not something that an etm solution offers out of the box and to give trade as a pricing model and a risk model on hand to. Prize or evaluate their ppa positions and also have an overview on the daily volumes or positions as you mentioned in that context is there new developments coming up from from from ion in terms of their different Etm solutions or maybe. You offer already something in terms of pricing model and risk analytics.
| 26:03.93 | Andre | Yeah now I think what's what's very specific around the ppa is like is a couple of aspects and this is something that we have been discussing with the existing clients as part of our user groups already for a decent amount of time so there is kind of a lot of incremental kind of improvements to better. Kind of model and reflect kind of the needs of those type of contracts and a couple of things I want to call out the 1 is to kind of have sophisticated way to kind of manage volumes around this contract so you have on 1 end. You have a long-term duration you have 10 to 20 years duration of delivery you need to kind of ah. Handle frequent updates of those volumes you need to manage low granularity of data. So. It's really important to have kind of some dedicated time series capability to manage that aspect on the other end you need to be able to kind of price and model the agreed kind of. Pay out formulars and this is all about kind of being flexible to model. Um some of the Shortfalls access penalty payments to link some of the pricing to the forecasted volumes trek forecast at minus actual volumes because there's some imbalanced charge. So it's all about kind of being able to reflect those specific ah pricing terms that are when negotiated over multiple weeks as part of that contract and then of course since we have with those pricing terms some nonlinear components is all about having kind of the right analytics. Kind of play them through what happens in different volume scenarios. What happens in different price scenarios and be able to report those contracts in relation to kind of ah what else is happening in your portfolio that might be part of the hatching that might be still kind of some other multi. Ah, commodity activity that you have and then of course there's all these standard um kind of output that you expect from an etm that's also applicable to the ppa contract was my positions on the power side as well as on the certificate side I need to calculate settlements I need to send invoicing I have some accounting requirements. So it's all about kind of having the standard etm um capability combined with some additional kind of ppa specific capability to handle the specifics from the long term to the nonlinear pricing components itself.
| 28:26.74 | chrissass | Well so so I think we went from 1 hundred thousand feet to deep down very quickly here and and what I heard sneil say in the opening remarks was that there's a lot of change coming in the industry. There was the cop agreement then and there was all these things taking place that that took place. Martin brought on some questions and we suddenly got into renewables and got very deep. Um, but I also heard in the introduction that you have a number of platforms different than some of our other guests here that that you you cover everything from different segments of the Market. So 1 of the challenges I would think. From the market changing and you gave great feedback as you said you have a user group that gives you feedback and you you got very specific. What's changing. So so you've got a large install print right? Your footprint is large you you have folks, you know if you're at the high end you're probably someone in openlink you may have someone in triple point you may have someone allegro you may have someone you know right? angle doing. Um, hydrocarbons you you have people in different places but what systemically is changing what's driving your change right? So you said that there's renewable soil you you talked about that so maybe help me get a little bit more from before we get back into the detail if.
| 29:31.67 | Sunil Biswas | If yeah, you let let let me pick up on on that and then we can hand over taree for a little bit more color but you know given us our size our our scale and Breadth and depth of product and coverage. You know we we span the. Full gambit of energy trading customer base and you if you look at the the top of the the food chain the tier ones the national ah oil companies. The multinationals. Um, they recognize the industry around them as changing right? and. You know you only need to to look at ah 1 of them and see how they're moving away from being pure hydrocarbon based to power generation and whether it's through direct partnership or direct investment. You know more of their business investment is moving towards power. Right? That's a journey that we go on with our customers right? and we're fortunate enough to have platforms and solutions that can span from crude and refined products into power and renewables. Let's say. Ah let's look at another customer ti base. Um, you know operators in in the mass market of utilities and power. Ah, you know they'll have generating assets. They'll they'll be marketers of power. Um, you know they'll they'll connect to the grid and be transmission players as well. If you look at their generating assets that generating assets maybe have moved away from being pure gas or or gas and l l and g to now having renewable generating sources as well now the the profile and generation of of those assets is quite a different profile from from what they're used to again having. Ah, going on a journey with a vendor that can support that change. You know is is something that we we can do and and bring an offer and then you look at sort of like ah ah a third type of customer who's who's coming to the Market. You know governments around the world are investing in in clean cleaner energy and and renewables. Ah, the market structure is evolving we have um you know a certain segment of the market that's trying to arbitrage between ah the day ahead market and the Intraday market and they have tools as as well in needs. And you know that's an area of the market that we can talk to as well. Um, provide solutions as Market structure evolves and this is just purely on on what's happening in in power markets. We could be looking at other dynamics just as the the technology of cloud that maybe we'll talk about later. Um.
| 32:14.64 | Sunil Biswas | You know, as as all dynamics sort of forcing this this change in in in the marketplace and I think working with with iron. You've got a trusted partner who can be with you on that journey of transformation and and change.
| 32:32.80 | Martin | You mentioned already a very interesting and topic to elaborate a bit on move to the clouds is se so coming to your to your solution space where you have ah more than obviously 1 Etm solution to offer. So. How does the the Cloud strategy look like in terms of your Etm solutions.
| 32:52.11 | Sunil Biswas | Yes, yeah, so that's that that's a great question I think this is 1 of the key differentiators of ion as a solution provider. So I own commodities is actually part of a much larger. Ah, portfolio company that that spans capital markets and and and analytics and and and data and we as a company got into the cloud about 13 years ago we had our own private cloud set up. We provide a managed hosting service to to our customers. And at this stage we have over 1000 customers sort of like on the cloud um, be they um ah private cloud solutions public card solutions or or even saas solutions that that operate and we developed ah this managed service. And center of excellence around that that operating model. So given that we're we're generally a lot further ahead in this space than the than the rest of the industry. We're able to ah partner with our customers and take them on this journey of transformation as they come off on-prem. And move to the cloud and pick up total cost of ownership advantages and then secondarily our solutions scale on the Cloud. There's a degree of elasticity which is increasingly important because you need your systems to be able to scale and expand out. And peak times of of volatility and and trading so you know those are the type of capabilities that that we bring and we have a whole methodology around how we would work with a customer on an implementation as they move. Ah, from on-prem into the cloud. That's so a well codified methodology that we we work with customers on.
| 34:48.90 | Martin | Okay, you mentioned now you have about thousand clients that are on on cloud already and help me out a bit there I would assume that's not just clients that use your etm solutions right.
| 34:54.58 | Sunil Biswas | Yes.
| 35:02.67 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah, so we we are as I said part of ah, a larger division right? and our cloud offering is more than just a a service unique to to etrm. Um, so I would say at this stage probably about thirty percent
| 35:06.80 | Martin | Um, yeah.
| 35:20.76 | Sunil Biswas | 35 percent of our overall etrm. Um base is is on cloud um, more broadly we service the needs of corporations and so many of our customers entrust us with that their treasury business. Why is treasury important because that's the part of. Ah corporation that actually funds commodity trading operations quite often. We see that part of their business on the on the cloud as well. Um, but you know the the skill and the expertise required to run mission-critical enterprise class solutions on the Cloud. That's. That's part of our out core dna and the the service that we we offer and quite often when we get into a migration project. It's not just ah what we call ah a lift and shift. It's an opportunity for customers to reassess. You know their technical landscape quite often. They are coupling with. Um, a a change of database. For example, they're quite often coupling with an upgrade of system along with those those upgrades quite often comes a degree of business process reengineering to take advantage of enhanced workflows. And also quite often. What we find is the technical teams look for performance and stability type optimization. So there's there's quite often a a multi-year program to move to the cloud to yield substantial end business benefits.
| 36:52.60 | chrissass | So so that's that's very it's it's some of that's probably surprising to me right that they hear that you have a thousand customers on the cloud I wouldn't have expected that before for our conversation today. Um, but go back to my opening question i. I do notice in the space that there's a lot of competition today that probably wasn't there a number of years ago. So so why the startups so you've got ah you've you've already made the migration to the crowd from ion right? You're moving to the cloud already. Um, what? what is what are people perceiving is Miss missing or why? Why do you think there's so much going on why there's just so much smoke you know of of people starting things trying to start these cloud startups and things like that is it that they're trying to serve an underserved part of the market are they trying to go after the eight hundred pound gorilla what's what's happening
| 37:33.24 | Sunil Biswas | Well, but no, what? yeah that that I think that chris I think that the 2 dynamics here right? So with the rise of amazon web services and and as youre in the the movement to the cloud.
| 37:48.20 | Andre | Um.
| 37:52.41 | Sunil Biswas | Ah, you know what? what? Um, the technology companies have done is they have leveled the playing field right? and they've reduced the barriers to entry for solution providers to to really come forward and provide desktop solutions need departmental type. Type solutions to customers. So the barriers to entry to to get a solution up from running ah a much lower than let's say they were 15 years ago ah the second dynamic that you have is as there's a greater understanding of this business. It becomes more complex. More technology comes into play. Um, and with commodity prices where they are right now. There's a lot of interest to to get into the commodity space. You've got firms coming off of spreadsheets looking for their first solution right? and this gives rise to the what I would call the the entry level solution the basic set of needs. Um, so you're looking for fast time to Market. You're journey looking for a saas solution you you don't have your own I t team and it's ah it's it's ideally suited to what I would call ah a lightweight cloud solution and that's why you've got this grand fragmentation across the industry of. Point solutions on the cloud. Not everyone will be a winner. There will be a degree of consolidation through the industry but this is what I feel is is fundamentally driving the the opportunity in the space and that's a certain market segment. So on Trace I see you nodding and acknowledgment there anything that you you you want to add.
| 00:00.00 | Andre | Ah.
| 00:05.19 | Andre | Now I think the or just 1 thing that comes to my mind is kind of the changing Environment. We talked about renewables and kind of how the market is involving and I think it's for us also interesting to kind of have a close view on that ecosystem and kind of look into. Where are innovative solutions that we want to kind of connect and partner with to kind of um provide that ah community that we kind of assembled with different solutions kind of some additional value of utilizing that capability itself. So Definitely interesting Times. Um. At the moment in the commodity space.
| 00:46.69 | Martin | Yeah that's ah ecosystems that's I think you could password but in general you also said I think it was using new market fragmentation I mean what we can see in the market in terms of vendors is that they offer less I call them mono. Monothelitum systems or solutions. But more like microservice based solutions and in that context, what is your view and and what is moving internally in in iron and in the etm space to. To provide solutions in that context to clients.
| 01:25.30 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah, no thanks for that question Martin that's um, there's 1 key key areas of of focus we have you know 1 of the the fortunate things about working with ion is we have the established etrn brand as as part of our. Ah, portfolio many of those products ah started you know over over a decade ago and were based on the the technology and the design principles at that time which generally you know in in simple layman's terms. You know the system where you book. The trade is is the system where you risk the trade. You know if you were to talk to a a technologist in any form of markets will or trading activity today. You know that that type of principle is just doesn't hold right? You know where where you transaction manager a trade where you risk it. It should be totally separate. 1 ne's a transactional problem. 1 ne's a a computer processing problem and you know so on and so forth we could go across the the full technical stack in commodities. Um, you know the the type of solution you need for handling liquids is quite different from. Um, power and gas sort of like more molecule-based systems dry bulk commodities has its own challenges and you know in today's world you would have a highly modular architecture and be able to put these pieces together. And and beyond that you would be able to do so thinking about systems of engagement and systems of record and you'd be able to partition your your data right from your from your application software and and ah workflow now I'd love to say that we we have. Solved all those problems in in our solutions. We we haven't but we've been working quite diligently over the last 2 to 3 years to start to to lay the foundation and and break away a modular set of services for for our products. 1 area that we focused on was was risk management. So the the valuation the risk the sensitivities the the credit risk the market risk that's associated with a portfolio at this stage is actually totally moddu and were we're in the the process of. Ah, moving clients over to our modular services and once you start to do that more advanced capabilities such as portfolio optimization asset optimization comes to the forefront again sort of like modular solutions.
| 04:02.33 | Sunil Biswas | And another 1 that's quite interesting for us and that we're working on right now you know the systems of of of some years ago were built on the assumption someone sitting in front of ah a screen you know, typing in a transaction and a deal you know in in today's market particularly the sort of like european power markets. Um. You know we're we're executing trades. We've got clips coming back as execution fills happen. Um, you know this these are machine je driven transaction volumes. You know all the the processing. What's on the critical path pre-trade enrichment post-trader enrichment all these type of capabilities need to be. Ah, reimplemented in a service-based architecture to really give you the scale to trade those type of markets and again this is where sort of like the experience of ion as a company having gone through the digital transformation in other markets such as fixed income and and equities. We can start to bring some of those concepts ah that we've seen before and bring them into the into the commodities market I think that's ah another where we sort of differentiate ourselves a little bit from the rest of the plays and in the marketplace.
| 05:15.42 | chrissass | So it sounds like you have a rich set of skills and talent and house. Um, to do this modular architecture. How about ecosystem and you know. Is there a trend to best of breed and maybe building some of these components themselves and integrating into the ion portfolio or is this more that that your experts and your expertise are building the modules for your customers. So are you Andre? you look like you want to answer that.
| 05:44.52 | Andre | Yeah I can I can speak to that I think as as I said earlier as a mix so we we're having a close look at the ecosystem and as we talked about. We have now kind of a decent community assembled and it's all about kind of. Ah, creating additional value for that community and it could be that we're looking to build a certain community service ourselves but might be also that we kind of partner with somebody where we believe that kind of is a vining idea and usually a lot of the challenges that. Some of these ah solutions have or the clients have is kind of connecting their ctm etm um data ah inter those solutions and we have not a benefit that we kind of can do that on an iron commodities level instead of doing that for each single solution itself. So 1 of the examples is here in europe when we look at effort and some of the standards that are coming out. Um, and we recently announced the partnership with fidectus where in this particular case we we saw somebody that's quite ahead from what they're doing on electronic settlement matching. And we just seek kind of the benefit of having that service for the community of iron clients. So this is kind of an interesting kind of situations where we determine is there a win-win for declines for iron for the third party and then go into such a partnership. And this is something similar to kind of what I talked earlier about the user groups. That's that's a topic that we kind of leverage in discussion with our user base where are some of these interesting solutions or where some of the gaps on the on the service. Ah. Capability site that we can fill in ourselves or maybe work with a third party and this is just 1 of the levels where we see kind of here's some value creation for the clients itself by getting access to the ecosystem or by getting a service directly provided.
| 07:46.30 | chrissass | So so in in fairness I appreciate the callout because I I am part of Fidacttis when I'm not doing the podcast so that that I appreciate um, how about some other examples are there other types of value you see in in the ecosystem that either would be today or things you've done in the past or in the near future that you see.
| 07:46.17 | Andre | From iron.
| 08:04.85 | chrissass | Of interest for your customers. So I get post trade processing I heard that 1 loud and clear but any other examples.
| 08:07.63 | Andre | Yeah I think and we definitely look at the various areas where we have some gap on our etm capabilities. So for example for the North american power market we look at Edi connectivity for scheduling. That's where we establish the partnership to kind of really. Automate that whole scheduling and data exchange we're looking at the moment at something similar for the North american power market especially on the physical side. There's a couple of players um that are very focused on that market and there's some capability that we would kind of provide. Um. Automated integrated to our existing clients as well as new clients. So there's a couple of um areas that we're looking in into to kind of determine. Do we have that win-win situations situation available in this case. But yes, definitely kind of finding more of those opportunities itself and then on a similar angle. Not not really ecosystem related but similar on the connectivity side when we think about some of these market exchanges or Market data. Um, to kind of provide more connectivity again. We have to do it now kind of on the iron level and then distribute it in our different solution but we can kind of deal with 1 external connect connector to kind of ah connected iron community itself and then of course. From a future perspective is also about kind of getting more shared data type of services shared Market data shared reference data and to kind of just increase standardization to make it even easier to integrate with some of these ecosystem providers in this context.
| 09:53.39 | Martin | Interesting when when I hear Andre when I hear integrating services into let's say 1 of your solutions. What rings a bell from my practical experience is the architectural design. So. Before you start integrating any service or connect any service. You always have to think very very closely where to build interfaces. What do data come from data flow or kind of data so you usually start at some point also from the architectural point of view and build a design for that. How you should.
| 10:29.80 | Andre | Correct.
| 10:29.27 | Martin | Do it in best practice in that in that context is that a topic that you also cover or that you usually leave to the client of course the client always knows best about his existing architectural design but is it about up to the client to further develop it when it comes to connecting services to Maybe. And E 2 M system that he's using from ion or are you helping me out. There.
| 10:52.53 | Andre | I think there's 2 2 different approaches. You need to distinguish I think the first 1 is to kind of have the flexibility to integrate in whatever other service they might have in their legacy I t infrastructure. So I think it's very important for an etm. Kind of have that flexibility to integrate that might be batch driven that might be real-time. So it's about flexibility to build that in. But if we talk about ecosystem or some standard service provider I think it's all about that. We kind of solving that particular problem for all of our clients. So that not each of the individual clients has to figure out particular architecture questions security stuff how the data should be exchanged so this is really the benefit of kind of doing that integration for the community and connecting the community to additional services as I said. Doesn't matter if it's market provider or if it's exchanges or if it is kind of the settlement matching service that we just talked about so. It's about that the client just can use that business service without kind of getting in all these details figuring it out that just can enable it. If they have a need on the business side. That's where we want to expand more and bring that additional value to the client base.
| 12:15.16 | chrissass | So so that makes a lot of sense I mean I get where that's going that. That's a nice path. Um, 1 thing nagging in the back of my mind and it is. You know we talk that you have many platforms in your your portfolio. Um, and from.
| 12:28.25 | Andre | Um, dip.
| 12:33.53 | chrissass | From the outside looking in and at the risk of you know, not maybe understanding. It is I think you probably have different markets that some of those target so you know open link. Maybe the tier 1 kind of market in my mind whereas triple point might be a different place in allegro somewhere in between is there a migration path that takes place for your customers. Going down the road or as you get these common interfaces that I think Sunilil talked about do does that negate the need to start as a triple point customer maybe work up the the tech stack because these renewable companies are going to grow right? that the big players today may not necessarily be the big players tomorrow I expect there'll be some newer. Players down the road. So do they grow within your portfolio or do they change platforms.
| 13:15.52 | Sunil Biswas | But maybe I should just take that and you know maybe maybe take a step back So you know? yeah no, no no I I think it's I think it's um, it's it's important right? So um, we we are a portfolio company we have. We have multiple offerings.
| 13:19.75 | chrissass | Yeah, it's fair to tell me I don't understand and and reset my expectation.
| 13:34.34 | Sunil Biswas | And so if you're a new customer coming to us. You know you have the benefit of engaging ion going through a process with us to to understand. Ah we can understand your needs of the prospective customer can understand the capabilities that we can bring. Right? Both near term and longer term and we can put the the the prospect. Hopefully we convert to a customer into the right product right? And that's actually a relatively straightforward exercise though. No different from going down to your local car dealer and figuring out. What's the best. Vehicle for you. Um, a far more challenging problem is to have an existing customer who through ah merges and acquisition may may have their business evolve right through energy transition maybe moving from hydrocarbons in into power. Um, and you know that we we sometimes get some. Ah, you know technology landscape renovation is a deprecating legacy solutions sometimes in-house and looking looking to consolidate as we sort of like go through these type of problems which are a lot more challenging. We have to work with our existing customers. Um, and we believe in. Having customers for life to build a transition plan to put them in into the right solution in in general we we don't force our customers onto 1 product only most of our customers. Um want to be on the right solution that empowers their business and enables growth. And we'll we'll put customers into into the right solution. So for example, if you're in a crudo refined products and all you do is you your market it nothing else. You probably can get by on using the solution like aspect. If you own plant and a plant equipment and a refinery and you have ah a racking and a retail fuel distribution business. You know you're likely to be on um right angle if you move Beyond just liquids exposure and you've got gas exposure as well because maybe you're in oil and gas. Um, um, producer. You know we would probably be looking at a electro same thing if you're um, a utilities company with powering gas Needs. We're probably goingnna put you and directly towards and and what electro solution. Um. Triple point's a little bit different triple point multicommodity we we find a lot of merchant trading firms who want to get up and running with broad commodity capabilities. Maybe not so much in the physical operations. Very much triple point and then you know as you've rightly said chris you know.
| 16:22.40 | Sunil Biswas | Tier 1 company 65 entities distributed on 5 continents global real time risk Management. You know that's that's an openlink space and so what I've walked you through here is you know its needs dictate the product and we'll put you into the right product. As we move forward. However, you know as we talked about these more modular services. The services become available to you? Um, they integrate in to each of our existing C Threem solutions eterm solutions sorry and you know as a as a. Customer You know you you basically slide the dial in terms of how much sophistication and complexity you need in order to run your business right? You don't need sophisticated risk management if you have a linear portfolio. For example. Right? And so those are the type of capabilities that we we open up and that optionality that we give our customers so they can scale their investment as as their business evolves.
| 17:28.25 | Andre | To just 1 thing to add I think also something to highlight is something also derisking the choice for the client since.
| 17:28.38 | Martin | Um, so what I would.
| 17:40.70 | Andre | It's not an easy project to switch out in each um and move to another 1 but in this particular case we're kind of supporting both sides and can help the client to kind of move over and he can switch over when he's ready if there is a particular. Ah, kind of change in the need that might be additional commodity as o'neil said or maybe the business is growing significantly. We're starting smaller out on something like aspect full sas and then eventually kind of maybe grow in something like right angle So in this particular case we can make it easier for the client to kind of move over since we're kind of owning. Both sites of the house of the house and then as o'neil said more and more shared capability come online. Um, where does no matter in which product you is You can enable that particular service in combination with your cgm. So send more is there a particular need for that business and then you could utilize it in that context and that will grow more and more over time from a what's available perspective.
| 18:42.83 | Martin | Interesting. So what I hear out of that is in general your approach is to really pick the fit for purpose solution for your clients out of your portfolio of systems that you have um, but also what I hear. Yeah.
| 18:56.42 | Andre | Correct as we offer choice in this context for the client and we jointly work with them through the process to make sure we have the right solution for today and for tomorrow. But even if that's completely changing we we help them to kind of get the right product switched out. If. There's that need and change. But usually we really try to ensure from the beginning that we have that discussion to make sure we're picking the right product based on our positioning but also then specifically about their needs from a capability perspective.
| 19:30.82 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah, just just to jump in to make things clear. You know we offer choice. Um, but for our customers we we believe in customer life for journey and so as your business evolves we're we're there to to partner with. Our customers when we'll take them on that that journey and you know that commercial experience is is very unique with with ion because it's not like a what any of our customers need to manage you know multiple vendors and. 1 system goes live and the other 1 doesn't and all the rest of it. We go on that journey to ensure a smooth transition of of portfolio and and business Process. You know as our customer businesses evolve and that's a unique value proposition. Ah, that we can bring and it's it's more than just the software itself. Actually it applies to the data and it also applies to the the infrastructure in the form of Cloud that we talked about and the the center of Excellence which is the operational model and support that we we put around our solution as well.
| 20:39.82 | Martin | Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to give the client where he needs and I think yeah, having such a big portfolio as ions that is of course an an edge in the market to to provide the solution that they need then. But what I also hear out of that is maybe coming back on that maybe I'm just wrong in my understanding so you do not see currently internally a need for a consolidation in terms of your etm solutions that you offer.
| 21:11.55 | Sunil Biswas | Ah, yeah, so I do we want 1 system that does everything for everyone. No that is that is that is not not what we'rere we're trying to do what we recognize is that ah across the commodity spectrum. Um.
| 21:17.95 | Martin | Um, okay.
| 21:30.20 | Sunil Biswas | There are different segments of the market with different needs and our strategy is to build services with degrees of capability that we can deliver to to those to those market segments and our desire is to deliver to those Market. So segments. At a faster rate than we do today and with ah an improved Market. Ah sorry an improved user experience. Beyond what they they have today and that's that's our sort of like fundamental philosophy of how we see our solutions evolving.
| 22:04.92 | Andre | I Think just 1 additional point I Think what also helped the context of iron is to kind of focus The solution of how they positioned in the prior world. Everybody wanted to play everywhere. So All the energy ctmms wanted to play suddenly in metals or an axe and then. Lot of investment dollars were spent on that and just I think with with the iron Portfolio. We can really focus the solution on the core strengths on 1 end and then we can optimize our investment by looking into what capabilities can be shared. And could be built once for that community and then just connected although there's definitely all the individual roadmap products have dedicated roadmap because not everything could be built from the beginning of the journey that we're in as a shared service. There's always a mix between kind of having that product-specific roadmap as well as building out that shared capability. But we do it in the context of how we position the solution itself which I think is also a big difference. How some of the legacy organizations operated previously. Which is a benefit for the clients.
| 23:16.40 | chrissass | So so I think we've covered a lot of ground. We've gone kind of Broad. We've we've we've gone deep at times. Um I think we've covered a lot of your portfolio from the conversation. The different companies. What what? I'm taking away is that you have a. Part of your portfolio designed to meet each segment of the market where your customers go along a growth journey through m and a or through other activity. Strategically what I'm hearing you say is that through consultative work with your customers. The service could then be brought into the platform they're on as they need it and grow with the customers. What I think I've heard you say is that accurate representation of our conversation so far.
| 23:57.76 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah I would say so that's that's accurate I think the 1 thing to add and this is more forward looking but you know something that we're we're actively working on right now you know. The market has has moved on right? The the value prop and the the I p is not in the the infrastructure and the workflow it's it's in the underlying data and you know if you're you're an I am customer. You've probably been with us for some time you've got many years of historical transaction data market data. Pricing data locked up in your your etrm. Um and 1 area that we haven't talked about is the data and proprietary analytics that that we offer and I think this is the area of of differentiation that that our customers sort of like focus on you know in. Within their peer group. You know how much in the form of business insights and intelligence. They're able to extract from that information and correlate to help them position for for the trading of the future and and their business operations. That's say a a key area of focus for us and whether we deliver that type of capability through advanced analytics or whether we deliver it into data lakes and repositories for our clients to do their their their own analysis. That's a. Key area of of focus for the industry going forward certainly something we should no I mean that's that's ah, that's an in progressres right? and I would say from from our perspective. It's about unlocking that that data right.
| 25:29.79 | chrissass | So is that and on the truck today or is that a future sunil.
| 25:45.21 | Sunil Biswas | And that's that's a discovery I think more broadly across the the commodities industry I think we've seen this unlocked in in other markets in in years gone by I think that's very much coming to. To the commodities industry right now.
| 26:03.69 | chrissass | So is that a function of your experience in the financial markets that you saw the value that provided your other customers is or is it just the industry as a whole is seeing the value.
| 26:11.65 | Sunil Biswas | No I think look I think overall in the marketplace right? Data the rise of data science is it's ubiquitous. Ah across right? How do you then take those principles and apply it to to trading businesses logistics business businesses. That that requires you know domain expertise and I think for the last few years ourselves and and others in the industry have started to bring that so that discipline to to commodities and I think you you start now to see the benefits of that. You know, almost everybody's got some form of decision support tool saying on on their desktops whether it's a trader desktop chief risk officer desktop doesn't really matter. But it's it's all around business insights and allowing. Those decision makers to make more informed decisions.
| 02:11.31 | chrissass | Every vendor that's participated in the each your m miniseries so without further ado I will ask the first question we're going to alternate back and forth and Martin will ask the next question and we'll just go to get through all 10 so first question will the number of vendors for each year m shrink or expand in the future in your opinion.
| 02:30.12 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah, so the number of vendors in in our opinion will expand in the the entry level segment. That's where disruption comes from all industries consolidate. So after some time that fragmentation will see consolidation. And we'll see that at the top end of the market first.
| 02:47.27 | chrissass | Cool.
| 02:48.98 | Martin | Okay, great second question how many deals per minute must a modern etherm system today. Be capable to import.
| 03:00.30 | Andre | um um I think we see now for our biggest clients like daily Intraday trading from 50 cells and sixty cells in a day so you can break that down into a how many per minute in There's usually limited model of. Treating windows. So definitely a lot.
| 03:18.52 | Martin | And to about a 200 2 hundred fifty if it did the right calculation. But then we have a comparable. Okay, thanks.
| 03:26.61 | chrissass | Hi So what commodity types and energy types are you offering and which ones would you consider your company's greatest strengths.
| 03:35.16 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah, we cover all commodities I mean that's the key differentiation of iron as ah as a product portfolio company. So we we span all asset classes or market segments all stages of the supply chain.
| 03:51.76 | Andre | Multicommodity is clearly the differentiator for us.
| 03:55.10 | Martin | Okay, great. Do you offer a real time position Management Module and how real time is it so will any new trade that is being concluded updated in the position management Module automatically.
| 03:55.10 | chrissass | Thanks.
| 04:13.80 | Andre | Yes, we offer that and yeah, real time depends of course on the on the transaction type if we talk simple futures very quick if we talk bigger deals takes a little bit more time to process it. But it's basically triggered by the event that the deal is booked and then.
| 04:28.72 | Martin | Okay.
| 04:31.75 | Andre | All the position pages will update as soon as that deal is registered.
| 04:35.74 | Martin | Okay, thanks.
| 04:37.86 | chrissass | All right? Do you have an automated workflow for straight through processing.
| 04:43.50 | Andre | Yes.
| 04:48.50 | chrissass | That's easy.
| 04:48.27 | Martin | Can your etm system or solution price Asian options.
| 04:53.69 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah, absolutely not only Asian options we price pretty much any type of option you can you can dream of we have world class option valuation analytics wrapped up in our Fe products and and open link.
| 04:54.00 | Andre | Yes.
| 05:08.53 | Martin | Okay, great.
| 05:11.67 | chrissass | Are you offering a full integration and implementation service with your each youram solution.
| 05:17.88 | Sunil Biswas | Ah, yes, we we provide not only product-based integration to integrate between let's say eterms and and yeah erps and other established vendor products out there in the Marketplace. We also have a services offering where we've got apis so consultants can come in create bespoke solutions to your own in-house Proprietary solutions.
| 05:42.94 | Andre | Yeah I think the the thing what I would add in this context is also more and more business services as a 1 side kind of the infrastructure services but then more and more focused to kind of run some of the day-to-day maintenance activity for our clients. In addition to adjust implementation. Service.
| 06:04.46 | Martin | So okay, great. What are or what is from your point of view. The biggest threat or challenge for a third party etm venors.
| 06:17.63 | Sunil Biswas | Ah, well Look. We don't really see threats I mean we see challenges and ah and opportunities right? We live in a marketplace that is undergoing Change. You know that change is coming from. Ah, renewable energy sources the movement to green this creates opportunity for for all of us. Not only as eterum vendors but also the the customers we serve that disruption that change is coming. We're here to partner with. The the rest of the industry to deliver solutions.
| 06:49.67 | Andre | Yeah I agree and then definitely as long as we have volatility I think there will be need for risk management and we still see kind of quite evolving market if that involvement kind of stops that would be problem. Probably a threat similar to no volatility itself.
| 07:10.16 | chrissass | Cool all right? So what is your licensing model look like today and do you anticipate it will change in the future.
| 07:17.79 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah, so um, licensing model is subscription based service. Our standard terms of 5 year terms and we do not expect that to change I think that's in line with enterprise software these days.
| 07:35.00 | Martin | Okay, then last question are you offering Apis and what is the technology behind it.
| 07:44.62 | Andre | Yes, we offer apis it's a key kind of capability for automation. Um, and they are in dot net or Java so we have a decent amount of flexibility depending on the preference of the particular client situation.
| 08:01.38 | Martin | Okay, cool. Thanks okay.
| 08:03.76 | chrissass | Fantastic. We've gotten through the speed round. Thank you for answering the questions for us today. Thank you for being on the podcast. Do you want to take a minute or so and maybe bring all of this together and we can use this guys cutting this out from what you did already I just want to have a transition so you've already done that in the previous episode.
| 08:22.50 | Sunil Biswas | Um.
| 08:22.49 | chrissass | So if you want to retake it you can give me a ah minute or 2 update of what you offer or I can just cut and paste what you said last time.
| 08:28.00 | Sunil Biswas | Probably cut and paste. But let let me let let me just to do a recap. We take whichever 1 is is better and entree. Actually why didn't you go first because and then I'll do the Ra last time I went first and you did a rap so you go first and.
| 08:34.98 | chrissass | Okay.
| 08:45.85 | Andre | When we say rep what else do we want to include just kind of goodbyes or is that.
| 08:50.51 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah.
| 08:51.75 | chrissass | Now I would I would take a minute or 2 and just talk about you know the the solution or what would ion brings right? Just bring it back. Why someone should reach out to ion so like a minute the elevator pitch right.
| 09:00.40 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah, talk talk talk about talk about um you know, ah the industry empowering renewables and all the cool stuff that we're doing just just wrap all up and then I'll I'll close out say something.
| 09:09.76 | Andre | Now.
| 09:15.26 | Andre | Okay, so I think just just as a summary. Um and we talked about it before big focus for us is really kind of the whole topic of energy transition big focus um is for. Our existing kind of power activity to support the existing clients around how they kind of adopt in the renewable Market. So a lot of focus of our our roadmap a lot of interaction was our user group. So we're looking at how we manage the ppas how we deal with the certificates how we handle that additional trade volume. So. Big focus for us and something that we will continue to invest into.
| 10:01.15 | Sunil Biswas | Yeah, ah, um, so just to wrap up from the ion side. You know First of all, thank you very much for affording us the time to talk on the podcast Martin and chris. You know ion is probably uniquely placed in this industry as an etherum provider given the number of solutions that we span that the customer ti that we we cover from you know tier 1 multinationals and and sovereigns all the way down through through regional players to in in some cases. Even. Um, hedge funds. So a great number of solutions and offerings as we've vindicated the the industry is on the move change. We've had price volsility'll see that go to green a very exciting time for us and we're looking forward to partnering. With our customers and other participants in the market to really transform this industry in the years ahead so again thanks very much for having us look forward to to talking with you again.
| 11:03.91 | chrissass | Well thank you both so much for being on this episode of er m um miniseries we've enjoyed having you as well for audience this concludes this episode of the eer um miniseries if you haven't had a chance to listen to all the episodes. There are 13 episodes out there. Please download and list to as many of them as you like. Ah there's a chapters function. You can jump around from chapter to chapter and otherwise we look forward to talking you again soon on insider's guide to energy Bye bye all right? so.
| 11:30.38 | Andre | Thank you.