White Papers Taking the Next Step in CTRM Cloud Solutions | Page 4

Taking the Next Step in CTRM Cloud Solutions

ity, trading safety, and efficiencies. Rapid deployment is provided out of the box, with customized
configurations depending on the complexity of
the requirements.

Buyers however, must be careful and
check the label. Taking a client/server E/CTRM
application, hosting it somewhere and then
screen scraping it with Citrix is not SaaS nor
hosted in the cloud. Such a mode of deployment
may not bring the envisaged cost and business
benefit as it may not offer the vendor the ability
to reduce costs associated with implementation

A ComTech Advisory Whitepaper

and support. To really provide those benefits, the E /CTRM needs
to be written specifically for such a delivery mechanism; the right
architecture and technologies are key.

One vendor who, perhaps more than any other, has innovated E/CTRM in the cloud is Aspect Enterprise Solutions. The company started offering its ETRM solutions in the cloud 14-years ago
and has continued to do so ever since in the broader CTRM arena
for metals and agricultural commodities. The company has enjoyed
considerable success with this model and counts some 500 companies as clients for its web-based E/CTRM and data management
tools.

DELIVERING THE BENEFITS
As one of the earliest in the cloud vendors, Aspect has gained a level of expertise and insight into cloud deployment and into accruing the promised business benefits beyond that of most E/CTRM vendors. The company has
recently launched a program called AESthetics, designed to remove the complexity from E/CTRM implementation
and customization around cloud-based applications. In addressing this need, AESthetics hits at one of the biggest
difficulties with E/CTRM software; one that has historically been a dilemma for creators and users of the software
category alike.

In order for E/CTRM software to cater for a broad
enough set of users to be commercially viable, it has
to also be extremely configurable. Unfortunately, this
configurability often translates into complexity that
increases implementation times and the difficulty in
supporting the application; in turn, driving up costs
and increasing the operational risks associated with
customized software. Simply supplying E/CTRM in
the cloud doesn’t necessarily help reduce this complexity either and the market is well equipped with
stories of implementation over runs and even failures
for both on-premises and cloud based solutions.

Addressing the risk of such occurrences, Aspect’s AESthetics technology, which has now been
running for several years, involves a series of initiatives designed to reduce this complexity, expediting

© Commodity Technology Advisory LLC, 2014

implementations and support. One of these initiatives is to decompose
existing business applications into more discrete and granular components, which along with best practice business process maps created
by the company, can be used to help companies assemble the components into any workflow to meet their users’ business requirements.
Aspect Enterprise Solutions has also developed and uses a series of
Work Benches to represent common activities among commodity trading companies, including for example, Reference Data Management,
Contract Management, Credit Management, Transaction Capture, Deal
Confirmation, Risk Management, Physical Delivery, Settlements and
Accounting. The company builds and releases such Workbenches with
each new release.

The idea is that by configuring the component applications,
common business activities and best practice business processes and
workflows, users can create and access an application that is truly personalized to their business and create an experience that Aspect terms