Corporate statement: New technology is changing the way companies manage ETRM software
Pioneer Solutions’ president, Uday Baral, discusses how the needs of ETRM users are being met by the dynamic and efficient service his company offers
This article was paid for by a contributing third party.
Though technology has come a long way in a short time, the energy trading and risk management (ETRM) vendor industry still struggles to meet business needs with respect to the complexity associated with delivering quality and timely technology solutions. The user community will generally agree that, not only does it take too much time to implement an ETRM system, but it also costs too much to maintain systems that quickly become obsolete because they cannot readily adapt to ever-changing business needs. This remains a top concern for the user community as the cost of ownership and time required for change has become unsatisfactory.
Customisable templates and formula-driven technology
So, what can be done to combat this cycle of deployment failures? Is there a new technical approach to an age-old problem that could help solve this dilemma, or is there technical delivery expertise available that can help? The solution lies with both: a knowledgeable delivery staff armed with easily configurable, template and formula-driven technology (not code) that can easily adapt to business requirements and integrate with peripheral applications. Although this may sound impossible – it isn’t.
After years in the consulting trenches working side by side with several global energy and utility companies, Pioneer Solutions LLC has grown to adapt its software products to quickly meet ETRM systems demands with a web-based, user-defined, template-driven technology that supports even the toughest industry’s challenges.
Reduce the time to implement and maintain ETRM systems
This technology empowers business users with the ability to easily add fields and define workflow and formula-based business logic, reducing the time and cost associated with ETRM implementations and maintenance.
Formula and template-driven software is not new but, in the ETRM space, it is virtually unheard of. For instance, adding a new product for most ETRM vendors may mean changing source code – a costly and time-consuming task. Template-based technology simplifies change by enabling an authorised user to make changes with no coding expertise, eliminating the need for programmers to perform simple updates.
Modular solutions for ETRM challenges
Leading-edge, formula and template-driven technology fully supports straight-through processing from deal capture to accounting. The technology can easily adapt to unique business requirements or interface with other applications. Leveraging this technology as the core foundation of its solutions, Pioneer Solutions offers a flexible and comprehensive ETRM solution called TRMTracker – a cost-effective (hosted or server-based) end-to-end, multicommodity energy trading and risk management solution that supports the entire life cycle of trading – from front to back office.
The depth and advanced architecture of TRMTracker facilitates Pioneer’s ability to offer modular solutions that solve specific ETRM business processes on a stand-alone basis. For example, its FASTracker product for derivative accounting manages the complex process of tracking and reporting compliance for several accounting standards: FAS 133, IAS 39, CICA 3865, AASB 139. FASTracker is part of TRMTracker’s comprehensive ETRM back office and it is designed to automate the entire process of hedge accounting featuring a complete audit trail with dynamic, web-based reporting.
Other solutions derived from TRMTracker target the complexity associated with complex bilateral contracts. Pioneer’s SettlementTracker is a cost-effective accounting solution that automates the management of structured deals and complex energy contracts, speeding the time to invoice while minimising billing errors. The breadth and depth of these ETRM solutions, combined with the technologies’ ability to quickly adapt to customer needs has led to Pioneer being recently commended for outstanding customer satisfaction and for the technologies’ ease of integration by a leading independent ETRM survey.
Pioneer Solutions is finding new efficiencies for its clients through deployment of a knowledgeable delivery staff armed with breakthrough technology in the ETRM and emissions compliance space. For more information, please visit us at: www.PioneerSolutionsGlobal.com
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