Openlink Wins Commodity Business Award: Recognized for Faster, Simpler, Packaged CTRM Software

London and New York – March 28, 2017: Openlink, the global leader in trading, treasury and risk management solutions for the energy, commodities, corporate and financial services industries, has won the Commodities Now Commodity Business Award for Excellence in CTRM Software 2016.

“Traditionally, Openlink has been perceived as the go-to software house for tier one organizations with complex needs, due to its functionally rich and configurable products. The judges recognized that Openlink has also been developing and offering packaged solutions for quicker, simpler implementations – and winning increased business in the mid-tier space. Openlink enjoyed a strong level of support from Commodities Now readers and industry participants who voted Openlink as the leader in the CTRM category,” said Guy Isherwood, Awards Director and Publisher/Editor of Commodities Now.

Openlink won the four largest projects in the E/CTRM market in 2016 but stands out against the competition as much for its solutions for smaller clients as for its success with the bigger players. In a year of great volatility, largely due to the deep and sustained shock to the oil price, many of the larger players focused on weathering the storm, whereas mid-tier companies found it to be a year of opportunity. The market skewed toward the less conventional decisions that smaller players were in a position to make.

In Europe, mid-tier gas and power traders benefited from increased interconnection, a decreased appetite from tier ones to harvest all available business and reduced commodity prices that lowered the barrier of credit risk. This meant an expansion both in trading volume and range as utilities and trading houses looked farther afield for opportunity. However, this type of expansion often takes such players beyond the scale where spreadsheets suffice for energy and commodity trading and risk management.

Openlink was well-placed to support this section of the market due to its recent investment in packaged solutions, designed for specific industry segments. In Central and Eastern Europe alone, Openlink signed numerous deals with regional utilities and traders looking to scale operations and expand into the increasingly unified European market. In North America, it outclassed its competitors to win new U.S. gas and power clients seeking opportunity from increased business complexities, completing Openlink’s West Coast dominance from Seattle to San Diego.

Alongside its core offerings, Openlink made significant expansion in 2016 into integrated treasury and procurement solutions for commodity-intensive corporates. It secured over 10 new client projects for top-tier commodity-intensive corporates, replacing incumbent solutions that were no longer capable of supporting business requirements.

Rich Grossi, Executive Vice President, Product and Engineering at Openlink, said: “Though it’s possible to implement stand-alone treasury management systems (TMS) and commodities trading and risk management systems (CTRM) for independently managing financial and commodity risk exposure, we are delighted to be recognized for our ability to deliver an integrated TMS and CTRM solution, which enables forward-thinking organizations to accurately understand risks by correlating exposures across treasury and commodity systems.”