Discover what ION can do for you
Over half of the world’s largest food and beverage manufacturers use an ION solution to manage their treasury and commodity risk
Businesses are facing unprecedented volatility in the costs of raw materials. Large fluctuations in raw material spend are not easily transferable to the sale price of a finished good. With full visibility of spend per raw material cost component, procurement specialists can build risk management and hedging strategies to flatten volatility, gaining a competitive advantage. With ION Commodities solutions, organizations are better prepared to navigate uncertain market dynamics and capitalize on opportunities.
Value delivered
- Challenge
Unpredictable prices
Today’s price volatility across all commodities is unprecedented, making forecasting more difficult than ever. Businesses must plan promotions based on a cost assumption for a product not yet produced. The more scientific and modern the approach to demand forecasting, the greater the competitive advantage you can gain.SolutionOptimize against volatility
ION offers solutions that optimize your strategic planning. Our simulation and optimization algorithms increase demand forecasting accuracy and help maximize operating profit. - Challenge
Lack of position visibility
Commodity price volatility is always changing. As raw material costs increase, procurement specialists seek better visibility of covered and uncovered positions for both volume and spend needs. Managing a risk position in spreadsheets is no longer efficient. Better controls and faster reporting are necessary to implement a spend management plan that can react as fast as the market moves.SolutionComponentized risk
ION’s comprehensive spend management solutions break down material forecasts to componentize the risk of each raw material. Pricing agreements, cash contracts, and futures/options/swaps are used to provide coverage by pricing component. This gives your business the visibility to compartmentalize risk and execute a spend management plan for all raw materials, from ingredients to packaging. - Challenge
Data rich, knowledge poor
Compiling risk positions can be cumbersome. As market prices move, dashboards and analytics need to be updated constantly. Measuring performance against various metrics is vital to determining the best approach to managing material needs and spend.SolutionReal-time analytics
ION’s solutions offer full reporting of coverage by raw material and spend forecasts. Report versioning offers on-demand variance reporting of actuals versus forecasted budget, market, and historical data. You can test strategies with simulations and access a full dashboard to view performance in real time. This eliminates time lags and helps drive smarter, faster decision making.