With the recent news of Saudi Arabia and Russia’s oil price war, as well as, the undetermined economic impact of the coronavirus worldwide commodity executives are searching for ways to reduce expenses.  CIOs and their staff know application management is a common choice for cost-cutting.  But, this is challenging when considering mission-critical CTRM and ETRM platforms must remain operational around the clock, to support trading activities on a national or global basis.

CTRM and ETRM Platform Management and Support – Two Options Available With Traditional Approaches

Traditionally, IT teams have only had two options when it comes to supporting CTRM/ETRM platforms for font office, middle office and back office users.  These included: 

Option 1: Hire CTRM Experts In-House

This requires IT and business leaders to fully fund full-time positions on their teams and spend months searching for the best candidate for the job. Often these searches are so specialized they oftentimes require external recruiters as well, an option that raises the first year investment significantly.  Once new hires are onboarded, IT and business leaders are committed to paying for the person’s fully loaded costs – an additional 30% added to their annual pay, ongoing training to retain talent over time.   

Option 2: Engage Management Consulting Firms 

Since many management consulting firms have six-figure minimums, making CTRM management cost-effective is out of the equation.  Albeit, these firms are often deployed with upgrades or complex platform optimization programs are undertaken, this option is not reasonable for IT and business leaders searching for an experienced, yet cost-effective approach.

Now There Is New Option for Managing CTRM/ETRM Platforms at a Lower Cost and With More Flexiblity

We all like options, especially in challenging times like these.  Change requires us to think differently, especially when we are focused on finding new ways of operating business that allow for cost savings while managing user expectations.

We need options now that are also virtual in nature and do not require on-site staff, but rather support a platform that is mission critical in a remote support manner.

For CTRM and ETRM platforms, keep these key points in mind:

• This has been proven as an operational model
• Run Smart was developed with a dual time zone support and virtual capacity from the beginning
• 20+ years of consulting best practices were applied to define the Run Smart™ managed services business process to best serve common industry challenges with CTRM platform management.

Value Creed’s Run Smart Managed Services enable IT teams to leverage CTRM/ETRM experts 24/7/365 at a fixed-price.  This option is treated differently on the balance sheet, moving funding from capital budgets to operational.

Developed by 20-year veterans in the industry and based on a history of best practices learned from leading CTRM managed services firms, a third option for CTRM managed services was created, Run Smart™ from Value Creed.  

This approach enables IT and business leaders to save as much as  48% or more a year, as compared to onboarding full-time staff members for the same hours of capacity, or management consulting firms with large onboarding minimums.  

Since 2017, the firm has supported the largest multi-nationals as well as nimble mid-tier suppliers. 

Learn how you can start with Managed Services for your CTRM platform today.