Oil and gas companies are perhaps the most volatile businesses out there, which justifies the paranoia their traders often go through. Since oil and gas trading involves trading of physical commodities, the risk is higher. Unpredictable weather conditions, occurence of natural or man-made disasters, etc. – there are too many variables. On top of that, oil and gas companies deal with massive challenges on a daily basis including price surge, bad market conditions, huge operating costs, and whatnot. Hence they require a system that can easily overlook all these aspects of trading without much complications. This is where CTRM software comes in.
What is CTRM?
CTRM (Commodity Trade and Risk Management) technology was introduced 20 years ago to solve the complexities of commodity trading and make the lives of traders easy. The technology was built to assist the day-to-day operations of commodity traders, which includes control management, minimising risk, overlooking logistics, etc.
CTRM software offers many functions to commodity traders in various fields such as IT department, accounting, management, etc. Using the software, traders can plan and schedule procurements, calculate logistics and store key data. The bedrock of CTRM software lies with another technology, ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning.
Before CTRM software came in, traders used to rely on ERP as it offered them a variety of functions. ERP systems could collect data from various departments and present them in unison. This offered traders a simple solution and they could finally see every information related to finance, manufacturing and sales, operations, etc. at one go. Everything should have worked out for the better, but vendors weren’t happy with the ERP system. But why so?
Why Didn’t the ERP System Work Efficiently?
Although ERP solved some major problems, it gave rise to many new ones. The biggest pitfall of using an ERP system was the staggering cost. Since oil and gas trading companies have huge operations, the implementation and maintenance of ERP becomes a pressing concern. To implement ERP, a company also must spend a considerable amount on employee training, IT support and building a whole infrastructure. Add to this additional software purchase, and you have a system in ERP that worked but incurred huge costs.
But cost wasn’t the only setback of ERP. ERP is a complex system that required not only resources, but a considerable amount of time. Besides training of employees, what was really a humongous task was migrating huge data to the system. Trading companies have loads of paperwork and related spreadsheets, and hence transferring them on ERP proved rather tumultuous. Companies also faced a lot of resistance from internal employees as they feared losing their jobs. All of this resulted in dissatisfied customers.
All this created a huge gap where CTRM fit perfectly. Although the seed of CTRM software germs from the ERP system, it operates beyond it and solves a lot of earlier issues. CTRM software has many new functions and it has improved on the many issues that were with the ERP system.
Why is a CTRM software Perfect For an Oil and Gas Company? Five Benefits.
The idea behind designing CTRM software is to provide a system specifically designed for commodity traders such as oil and gas companies. Their advent made space for specialisation which was missing earlier in any ERP system. Let’s study five functions of a good CTRM software that makes it perfect for an oil and gas company.
- Scope for Personalization:
ERP software offers a standard model for every commodity trading company, be it an oil and gas company or a metal company. This eliminates any variation in the process to offer specialised functions which creates problems for different traders dealing with different things. Traders had to spend extra money to build additional software. A good CTRM software solves exactly this problem. If a CTRM software is built for an oil and gas company, it will have many personalised features which will be useful in such business. So now you have all you need in a single CTRM software.
- Rapid Implementation:
As we mentioned earlier, ERP ate up a lot of time to get up and running. A CTRM software takes half the time and effort to go live and function fully. Since modern CTRM software also has a cloud native function, it allows businesses to quickly transfer data without worrying over losing any important data whatsoever.
- User-friendly Interface:
A good CTRM software allows an easy-to-use interface. They have straightforward instructions and operate without any fuss. They also have many supporting tools such as natural language processing which will allow an oil and gas company to quickly train employees on how to use it and they can get started in no time. Thus, it prevents wastage of time that comes with using an outdated ERP system.
- Accurate Insights:
This is another huge feature of modern CTRM software. It not only collects data from the previous CTRM system or an obsolete ERP system, but also extracts information from across the value-chain of a commodity trading company. All this allows the software to have massive data which automatically generates accurate insights. It also has real-time data which will further allow an oil and gas company to analyse market movement.
- Improved Security:
Another major concern of traders back in the day was the fear of losing data. Since previous ERP systems took a lot of time to transfer data, people feared losing data. With new and advanced CTRM software, you get a cloud-based system so that no data is ever lost.
Robosoft offers effective IT solutions for commodity traders and allows them to increase their business efficiency. With our help, you can successfully build an elaborate supply chain and grow bigger.