White Papers Analytics to Address Agricultural Market | Page 6

Analytics to Address the Increasingly Complex Global Agricultural Market

A ComTechAdvisory Whitepaper

EKA TAKES AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH
With more than a decade of experience in developing and deploying CTRM and CM solutions in the agricultural
and softs markets, Eka understands that while a sophisticated and functionally rich CM solution is necessary in
managing much of the business, there is no singular CM solution that can provide the breadth of data aggregation
and analytics capabilities that enable complex businesses to truly optimize their bottom li ne performance.

Enterprise level, analytics driven optimization decisions require a solution that reaches out to all relevant systems across
the breadth of the business, including multiple CM and CTRM
solutions, ERP solutions, operational systems such as facility
management software, inventory management systems…and
the list goes on.
Further, in this rapidly changing and volatile market, optimizing bottom line performance requires the ability to quickly
aggregate and analyze an ever-increasing volume of data at
near real-time speed. Simple integration or data aggregation
approaches that rely on point-to-point data transfers are insufficient in this market and may in fact provide misleading analysis
due to missing or outdated data as processes are initiated or
files are transferred and aggregated.
Eka’s approach to providing the analytics capabilities necessary to prosper in this market are based upon two main tenants:
/A
 ll of a company’s data (including spreadsheets) must be
accessible from one system.

Eka’s analytics solution, Commodity Analytics Cloud, enables the complex data aggregation capabilities necessary to
“see,” in near real-time, across all requisite systems in the enterprise. Additionally, leveraging what Eka calls a “Commodity
Intelligence Engine,” the Commodity Analytics Cloud platform
uses preconfigured and user definable apps to provide rapid
analysis and insights into the critical issues facing business
users, spanning multiple categories including P&L, procurement, risk, and supply chain.
Eka has developed a number of apps to answer the most
commonly posed questions in the commodity space; additionally, the platform provides a user-friendly interface that enables business users to develop their own apps. Utilizing an
in-memory processing grid, the system can process extremely
large data sets in a very short time to support near real-time
decision making. Utilizing some of the tools of a Big Data solution, including the use of NoSQL, the product aggregates data
from any number of sources: internal systems such as CTRM,
ETRM, ERP, CRM, and spreadsheets, plus external sources
such as market curves and weather data.

/O
 perational and financial optimization, including complex
scenario testing, is necessary to effectively navigate in a
market marked by increasing and accelerating volumes
of data, including what is commonly termed “Big Data.”

© Commodity Technology Advisory LLC, 2016, All Rights Reserved.