White Papers Leveraging the cloud for improved performance | Page 4

Leveraging the Cloud for Improved Performance
A ComTechAdvisory Whitepaper
CLOUD CTRM FOR AGRICULTURAL
MARKETS
Though most commodity industry participants are confronted with fairly complex supply chains,
uncertain and volatile prices, and difficult to control margins, agricultural producers, processors,
merchants and CPGs face many additional unique challenges and uncertainties.
For example:
/ E
 ach agricultural or soft commodities has their
own unique physical characteristics that affect
the production, processing, transportation, and
valuation of that specific commodity
/ M
 ost agricultural supply chains include highly
specialized and complex processes specific to
the individual commodity, and therefore specific
types of assets and different inventories of bulk,
packaged or containerized product or materials
/ M
 any agricultural products are perishable and
optimizing the time from production to process-
ing for these commodities is critical in reducing
spoilage and managing inventories
/ T
 here is now also significant effort to adopt
traceability processes for a variety of reasons
including brand protection, sustainability initia-
tives, child labor, deforestation, fraud, and other
serious environmental and social reasons
Given these complexities, few CTRM vendors have
the market experience to provide a solution, either in
the cloud or on-premises, that can fully address the
entire breadth of commercial and operational activi-
ties across multiple agricultural or soft commodities.
While there are some cloud systems that provide the
ability to capture and manage contracts for multiple
types of agricultural commodities, the upstream and
downstream supply chain processes associated with
those deals usually prove too complex for most sys-
tems. As such, when contemplating the purchase of a
new system for a complex, multi or single commodity
business, particularly a cloud-based solution, buyers
should consider a number of potentially complicating
factors, including:
/ T
 racking and Valuing Quality Attributes - Spe-
cific quality attributes that impact pricing and/
or treatment of the commodity during transpor-
tation such as, for example, purity, polarization,
moisture content, and others. These must be
captured by the solution in an appropriate way
(for example, by pile, bag, bale, weight, trade,
contract, location, etc.) at multiple points and
times in the supply chain. Often, this data is col-
lected by independent agents or third-parties
and this data must be able to get into the CTRM
automatically via an API or interface. Changes
in quality attributes can also trigger changes to
prices and conditions or, the addition of penal-
ties or premiums. Various quality attributes are
expressed in the contract and pricing terms, and