Reports CTRM Briefing Note – EKA – Digital CM Platform App

CTRM Briefing Note
EKA – Digital CM Platform Applications (Apps)
JULY 2019
Overview - Digital CM Platform
As noted in a previous Analyst note (hyperlink), Eka’s Digital CM Platform is a cloud-based product grouping that includes traditional trading and risk
management solutions (for energy, ags, or metals), commodity management (CM) extension (including sourcing, operations and collaboration), and
analytics and reporting. The various components – including the CTRM/CM solutions and the analytics/reporting solution - are separable and
available for licensing jointly or as discrete applications. We further described the company’s cloud solution use of prebuilt (or user-developed)
“apps” to provide high-value discrete capabilities that can be quickly deployed to address complex functional requirements across multiple
commodities and industries.
With approximately 60 apps now available, the solution spans the myriad of value chains for all markets Eka covers, including energies, ags & softs,
and metals & concentrates. Eka Digital CM solutions include CTRM and ETRM, Commodity Analytics, Supply Chain and Digital transformation.
Eka has, to date, completed connections to more than 15 different systems including ERPs, market price feeds and accounting systems and though
connections to ETRM/CTRM systems of other vendors may require some development, once connected to the Eka cloud platform, the available pre-
built apps can be downloaded from Eka’s App Store and immediately deployed to enhance the capabilities of those systems. The solution also includes
the ability to rapidly build-out new connections via the provision of tools for users to map target data structures of their internal systems.
Solution Architecture and Deployment
Eka’s Digital CM Platform employs a cloud-based, multi-layered architecture. The first layer of that architecture is the connectors (APIs) used to
import user data from any relevant end-point system in use, including cloud, on-premises or 3 rd party applications such CTRM solutions (including
Eka’s, third-party or custom developed CTRM products), data feeds, pricing services or even spreadsheets. The next tier, the “collection layer”,
organizes and collates collected data prior to being sent to the “processing tier” where near real-time calculations are performed. The last layer is
the storage layer, utilizing both NOSQL databases (MongoDB) and relational databases as appropriate. This architecture ensures ease of
maintainability and extensibility while allowing for the rapid collection, processing and return of critical business information and insights.
With any solution that relies on integration among disparate systems, data mapping can be challenging depending on the architecture of the end-
point system being integrated. To address this challenge and help ensure rapid deployment, Eka provides a rich set of tools and capabilities for
integration, including:
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ETL tools, including mapping schemas
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Prebuilt business logic
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Data model templates
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Prebuilt UOM adjustments to reduce all units to a common set
Based on the experiences of users to date in deploying the Digital CM solution, Eka estimates the initial implementation to be as much as 50% faster
than what would be required for comparable capabilities provided by traditional software vendors. For example, the company cites a 50-user solution
which was implemented in 15-16 weeks.
The design and architecture of the Digital CM solution provides a scalable solution for commodity companies of all sizes, including mid-sized firms
that need a limited, but focused set of capabilities; while the functional breadth of the available apps ensures that the largest global firms, operating
in multiple commodities and markets segments, will have the tools and solutions to address their complex requirements as well.
Eka believes with the ability to rapidly implement the solution and add incremental capabilities quickly, buyers across any tier of the market can
easily acquire and quickly deploy only those capabilities that they require for their current business while, in turn, lower their TCO and accelerate
their return on investment well beyond what would be otherwise possible with a traditional monolithic CTRM/CM solution. Additionally, as those
businesses grow and evolve, Eka notes they can add additional capabilities without the long lead-times required for the implementation of new
systems or custom development of new functionality.
© Commodity Technology Advisory llc
July 2019
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