What's Behind the Metals CTRM and CM Software Explosion - CTRMRadio 37

[Music] Welcome to CTRM Radio, home of the official podcast of commodity technology advisory and your source for information on all matters related to CTRM. Hello and welcome to another episode of CTRM Radio and ad hoc podcast by commodity technology advisory LLC hosted on CTRMcenter.com and kindly sponsored by Enuit, provider of CTRM and commodity management solutions worldwide. And in today's episode we'll be looking at the explosion that's happening on the metal side both in terms of the number of vendors that are advertising, metals and concentrates capabilities on the metal side as well as the fact that metals is benefiting significantly of course from the energy transition and we are seeing much more activity on the metal side of commodities. So Patrick and I will be talking to four of the vendors in the space and asking them a set of similar questions and let's get started by talking with Amphora. Amphora have just announced its new concentrates solution alchemy. So I reached out to David Klaspool to ask him about alchemy and what the opportunity was that Amphora saw in the metals market. Hi Gary and well thanks firstly for inviting me to speak with you today. We've launched this week of alchemy which is Amphora's CTRM design specifically for concentrates on its being perfect timing. So let me just go back a bit and give you some background. So I've been Amphora now for nine years and before alchemy we had clients using our course CTRM which we call symphony to trade concentrates. However back then when I was the business analyst seeing with the clients that used it for concentrates it was very clear that there were significant obstacles to the users as concentrates is traded significantly different to other commodities. Okay so concentrates deals are traded mainly bilashly so as a result terms in the contract can change frequently and I do so. So being able to capture and display all these nuances within a CTRM not specifically designed for concentrates it is just impossible. Concentrates is also unique in a journal life cycle the amounts and the specifications of what you're buying are not fully known. So you need to capture different assays and different ways along the journey and be able to select these different combinations for P&L and invoicing purposes. So in other CTRMs you may be able to capture the concentrates in position and you can run P&L and you possibly be able to run bar on it. However in order to do so the user is forced to make many assumptions and approximations outside of the system often using multiple different spreadsheets often managed by different people or different departments and it's just resulting in very poor use experience with major functional gaps. Give you an example of that there is for instance in other systems there's limited ability to capture all the optionality for the terms within the contract. So the user has to choose when entering the contract into the system what they think will be the terms when they actually take delivery and go to invoicing. So this could be like what the expected specification is going to be or it could be how you're going to price certain payable total penalties which actually could be dependent on the content or the actual price on an exchange of the matter when it's delivered which clearly you don't know when you enter the contract for the first time so you have them to make that assumption. So five years going now and four along with MRI identified this opportunity and decided to act. So our clean was built specifically for concentrates with UX and functionalities the focus throughout. And what's different about alchemy of the solutions do you think? Well we have three unique setting points so the first being speed, the second use experience and the third being completeness. But let me elaborate on them slightly so entering all aspects of the trade and all the logistical details in alchemy is extremely fast and this way a demo of alchemy is so pivotal because you can just see it so clearly. Enter the trade and say less than 10 minutes compared to other systems which can take you absolutely hours to enter trade. They're often prone to errors when you hit save after enter the trade for one or two hours it takes you. You enter the hit of save button and it can fail on you. It should be extremely frustrating for the use especially in its five o'clock or Friday evening. So that's the first part that it's so fast into trades but also all the logistical activities like trading and blend is very quick. Splitting executions is very fast too. You know looking at all your breakdown of your trade details and creating invoices is very very slick very fast to do. So that leads on to alchemy's use experience is truly it is second to none and again I emphasize that's why a demo is crucial here. There's no need to be an interlock formula to price to trade. It's all done through the use interface with just a few mouse clicks. Using alchemy summary sections it's very quick to analyse the breakdown of a trade price and P&L components. So using alchemy summary sections allows the user to quickly break down the trade price and the P&L components. So this is very useful for like middle office if there's maybe a discrepancy in the trade price you can quickly go through the summary sections and just tick through all different factors that make up that price. So as I mentioned other systems it may calculate trade price and yet it could be correct but if there's someone wants you to explain it it could take you I mean half a day to go through all the different what the prices are on the exchanges what the content is what the payable rules are etc. alchemy we have a summary section for our contracts, our executions and our parcels. So the third unique setting point is the complete list. So all the data is maintained inside of alchemy. So there's no need for all these different spreadsheets outside of the system. Without kimi the user is never forced to remove any data in order to enter additional values either. So all the historical data is stored which is very good from an audit perspective. So obviously as you can enter the waves but kind of enter once they're waked and if those waves change you have to edit those waves put new set of waves in but then the original waves you enter and I no longer there to be viewed. They may be there in audit tables where you can see like they've been changed from very what we're what we're first to what you've changed it to believe you can't just go and click back and say I want them you've got to then go back in and reinsure them if you want to go back and change it use the first set of waves. Without kimi you can enter all different combinations of waves as many as you want all different assays as many as you want. And then you can select which combinations of these you want to use. But all right down the journey whether that's B for your your trade pricing and get ready to go to the invoice or it could be for additional costs that that you incurred in the in the trade journey. So of that concentrate field and this is all done most importantly with just a simple click of the mouse that you don't have to load up all these different price weights and assays again you just go in and you select what one you want to use and these are simple and so on. Having developed a completely new solution you must have some views on where the market's heading and with the energy transition going on do you expect to see a potential surge in metals and concentrates and do you expect to see replacements in that market as well? Yeah I mean I think the energy transition towards renewables has really just begun. I mean currently we're sitting around about 10% and we aim to push that to what's 60% in 2050 I guess you know that it's more than I do Gary and I guess that has contributed to the recent surge in prices in like copper, lithium and other metals linked to this energy transition. Like electric charging stations and solar panels that are used large quantities of copper say who to see that demand for these should therefore increase which you'll also need it needs for an increase in supply which could drive further investment into the concentrate markets which hopefully from our previous perspective will lead to an increase in demand for CTRMs dedicated to the concentrates business. And in terms of alchemy what's the forward development plan since it's a relatively new product you know kind of what's the big milestones that you want to achieve over the next 12 months? So we want to evolve alchemy so it can capture base metals so it was a conscious decision when we started to start off with concentrates because that is by far the most complex commodity you can ever capture in any system. So we know there are a few key features that we need to build out to in order for us to really go and attack the base metals market as well. We know they are and we haven't won our roadmap but you know base metals it's quite similar to concentrates so the gaps are well hopefully relatively quick wins so watch your space I guess. So just to just elaborate on the alchemy being complete so you can also capture multiple brands on the same contract and then when they you can't just deliver it the user simply just selects what brand they want so brand could be like all the different specific assume specific occasions that you're going to be filling. it. You can also enter different ways to value the payable content at the contract level, then you just simply use your select which one they're going to use on the execution. And that's the same for refining charges and treatment charges. You can create a blend, you can split an execution, you can back-to-back weights and assays from the purchase of sale, and it's all achieved within use in the face. Validations for our also event mistakes be made on entering the data with clear guidance on what the error is. And the last color of the point is it's a web-based front-end in React. So you can have multiple instances running at the same time, so you don't have to open up your contract in one screen, your execution in other screen, your duties page in other screen and flicker-tween them seamlessly. And the most important is you save time, not having to view various data sources by having only one system for the whole trade life cycle. So to summarize Gary, my message to anyone involved in the Concentration Training World is to request our latest E-magazine, which I can send out, or I did request a demo, you know, take a look and try it on the size. It won't take anyone long to get weather, it can help them or not, and see whether it could be a major improvement versus what they currently use. So with Alchemy, you are able to accurately capture concentrated contracts with multiple weights and their size, a complex set of data and a logical walkthrough manner with no need for approximations using Excel that then feeds the CTRM. And the user has all the data needed to make a decision in one screen. The data is not scattered around everywhere. And it's clearly with the user having one source of data, it makes their decision to make a lot more efficient. Another metal specific vendor that's been around for quite some time is Commodity's Engineering. And so I spoke with Brian Collins over at Commodity's Engineering to ask him a similar set of questions and to get their views on what's happening in the market. So Commodity's Engineering is a provider of solutions to the physical commodity and metals industries. Our product, Balsamo, is cloud-to-libert enterprise-level CTRM solution. And we cover the full gambit of the coverage that you would expect in that kind of solution, contract capture, operational lifecycle management, pricing, financial control, risk, and of course hedging of physical commodities. So although available kind of generically across a number of asset classes, our specialist area is physical metals and the complex world of metal concentrates. That is our natural heritage. That's the area in which we have deep industry knowledge across the team. And the market for which our solution has been designed from inception. So the idea came about 10 years ago, which at that time, you know, there were a very small number of providers of concentrated solutions and they were challenged technology wise and probably legacy solutions. So the market was not well-service and vendors were attempting to adjust their existing solutions into that space, which is always going to be a challenge given the complexities of that side of the metals market. So it wasn't until about 2015 that the full software development program started, took about two or three years to complete with the help of the earliest clients. And then we had our first production ready product to market. So although we run a comparatively low key marketing approach, we have a number of really supportive clients. We have great collaborative relations. We do have clients across different sectors in the industry. And through them, we've further extended the capabilities and you know what now we offer what we believe to be a truly compelling and proven enterprise level solution for trading industrial companies in the concentrated space. So what from your perspective is driving CTRM cells in the metals side now and what do you expect in the near future to continue to push interesting solutions like yours? So we've seen an upturn in interest in CTRM solutions and metal space over the last, let's say, 12 months. So maybe that's coming out of the pandemic and the global economy kind of restarting if you're right. But I think there are a couple of factors to bear in mind. So the key driver that we see is really this increased momentum towards greener energy. Metal space is going to play a significant part in that. We all know that. And that's both from the predicted increase in demand for raw materials, not just to power the energy initiative, but also the infrastructure around that, the cabling solar panels, all of that stuff. So I think this is really pushing metals to the forefront and people's minds. They're aware it is a key component in the future of our planet and driving metals to the forefront. So in addition to that we have ongoing supply and demand challenges around the world. So whether that's caused via the pandemic or whether it's man-made issues and of course the uncertainty that we've got with the situation in Ukraine. So we see an increase in people coming to us talking about their operational side of their business. They want greater transparency. They want tighter controls in place. And in terms of pricing and inventory forecasts, this is really in the forefront of their minds as well as the ubiquitous monitoring of risk and how to handle them. And I guess the final downside if you like of CTR MSAILs is maybe by coincidence there's an uptick in the pure replacement market. So whether that's from client businesses who have outgrown their current provider or maybe they're looking to replace legacy solutions for whatever particular reason that may be. We've certainly seen a number of customers come to us with that. I was going to ask do you see cloud as being the factor people wanting to move to the cloud? Yes, yes we do. There's still a little bit of hesitation about the whole security aspect and we ourselves try and host our solutions in security friendly locations around the world. But yeah I think people recognise that the technology as it is now and whether it's hosted externally or whether it's brought in house, the whole browser base, cloud-based solutions is the way the world is going and people are beginning to recognise that it does lower the cost of ownership significantly and gives them greater flexibility going forward. So you mentioned this yourself but to me it seems like there seems to be more people offering metal solutions in the CTR and well. So why does there seem to be more choice for CTR and procurers and metals and is that choice real? Look you know we're in a buoyant market, prices are up, we've just spoken about potential demand, metal has been full frowns of people's minds and it's not unsurprising really that we've seen more choice available and more entrance coming into the CTR and space. And as face it that's good, right? It drives competition, it drives the existing established vendors to look at what they do. Now this isn't something that we've seen before, it happens on a cyclical basis of companies, software companies moving maybe from one adjacent vertical into the metal space. So typically I think it will probably be a bold strategy to do that without to do that natively without some kind of client sponsorship client support. So I suspect that's what's happening. We're seeing companies move from their established vertical, they're talking to their vendor and they're opening up the possibility moving into the metal space. And of course that's that's kind of a win-win really isn't it from the client that God established relationship with the vendor. That software is most likely fully embedded within the client environment and interface to their downstream systems and from the vendors perspective they get access to industry knowledge that maybe they don't have natively. So you know we can see why this happens and as I said it's happened several times before. The only word of caution I guess I would throw out is that there's one thing having a solution that supports metals activities for a particular client but there's potentially a long journey ahead to take that solution and make it available for multiple clients as a market ready product. Metals has been traded we know for for over 100 years almost in its current form and the industry still retains many arcane and idiosyncratic processes and speaking generally I'm always staggered that we we talked to different companies in the same side of the business. There's a huge amount of non-standardisation and similar processes and workflows can vary significantly from one company to the next. So I think you know competition is a great thing but just a word of warning you know it's it's a big industry it's a complex industry and I think vendors and maybe even procureers need to go in with their eyes open honestly. Another long-term player in the metals market of course would be Ion not only with triple points and open link but increasingly with aspect particularly in the concentrates and aures part of metals and so I reached out to Lance Focktman to get him. views on what was going on. What do you think is driving CTRM cells in metals now and into the near future? Thanks, Gary. I'd like to break the the answer down into two areas. One is supplied in the others demand. So there is an increase in demand and typically as you increase demand supply will follow, but there also is an impact on the supply side. So from a demand perspective, one, we've already been in and we'll see I think an increase on the cycle. So have a high price cycle and higher volumes of metals in the classic sense as well as the increase in different types of metals. So what we're seeing is circular economy is driving a lot of recycled metals. So it's not just scraps anymore. We are seeing battery metals. We're seeing electronics that are being recycled and specialist processes to take and recycle the battery metals, the pgms and so forth from different vices say catalytic converters, right, and other electronic equipment that are being converted. So what that does is it opens up more demand. Second, we're seeing different types of existing metals in mining's place. For example, the uranium supply chain, although it can be considered both in energy and a mineral. We're seeing new areas of metals that have previously never even contemplated a CTRM solution that are opening up more avenues for supply. And then on the supply side, we're also seeing if you look back 10 years ago, the most dominant player in the market has a reduced position in it. So that's leaving a bit of a gap for others, including ourselves that I own to fill. And we're doing our best shot to fill that as well as others in the market. So very simply put, an increased commodity cycle is increasing demand. New entrance from a metals in mining space. In other words, battery recycled are creating more demand. And some of the existing other metals that have been around that are now starting to look at solutions because of volatility and other reasons. On the other side of the coin, we're seeing what looks like to be many more choices for CTRM procurers in metals. I wondered what your thoughts were on that and whether in fact a lot of that choice is real. Well, indeed it is. Some of it is. And some of it's opportunistic. As vendors of CTRM, we have products that meet certain needs. And we have products that have certain breadth and certain depth and certain areas. Ion has a portfolio of products. And what we did several years ago is to understand based on our portfolio where our strengths and weaknesses are across all of the different commodity classes that are served. And we do understand that. And that's why we're investing heavily into the strengths of our products. So we know that certain products have certain weaknesses. So I'm not going to denigrate on any of the overall vendor community. But I will say that some are opportunistic and will claim metals exposure, but don't really have the full breadth or depth to handle the complexity of certain areas of the market. Some just touch the metal supply chain. Actually not even supply chain. Some can book a basic metal physical base or refine metals deal or could handle some of the paper or financial trading. But any CTRM should be able to handle financial contract. And it really does kind of matter what the commodity is. But for the most part you could shoehorn in that. But at the base level, if you think about a pyramid, you've got a number of products down at the bottom of the pyramid where it's wide that can claim metals exposure. But as you start to increase the types of metals scenarios and types of metal business lines, and as you increase the front to back office capabilities and needs and the types of trading that go on. So if you think about starting all the way over here at the precious and PGM side, going through to base or from concentrates to to the base metals and for the ores, that aloys, the chromites and everything else, and then you start to think, oh, what about specialty metals? What about being able to do recycle? What about being able to take the monolith from a catalytic converter? So if you think about that full capability matrix, and then you start to go up that pyramid into complexity, that's where you're going to see the real differentiation. So there are a lot of vendors out there that will be able to claim the metals experience. And so some of that's opportunistic. But as you increase in complexity, as your business has needs both across different areas of the metals spectrum, as well as different types of trading problems. So if we think about the complexities of just of trading problems, if all I'm doing is trying to hedge my physical exposure, that's manageable. But what about if I need to be able to do blending? Those are, that's a pretty complex problem. I can assure you that only a few vendors can actually manage a blending where I'm bringing in my physical exposure and being able to see what's pable and outside what sales and being able to net that and blend that and then be able to head against it. So it's not just a simple paper problem, the paper problems can be complex. If I think about the can I use a concentrates type of solution to be able to manage taking catalytic converters and getting them into monoless and getting the actual payable pgms and other battery metals back recycled out of them. Can you be able to manage that? Can you handle the normal concentrates or complex concentrates plays where you can do all of the assays, the numbers of assays, the number of revisional invoicing, all of the delivery lot and multimodal transportation of that, be able to handle unpiring and so on. If you can't handle that, then concentrates is not really going to be a solution for you. You might as well just keep doing it in spreadsheets and however else you're doing it. The same thing with pricing. If you get into ores, some really complex pricing there typically. So if you have to price the contract outside of the system, why bother? As you gain in complexity, the number of vendors reduces. As you gain in the number of metals, uh, uh, business lines that you have, the number of vendors reduces. So there's in my mind, only a few vendors out there that can really cover the spectrum of metals and the spectrum of complexity. So obviously, I, on beliefs that we have a few different tools out there, whereas aspect is, is our primary solution for the metals supply and has the greatest breadth and depth. We also have trouble point and open link solution and open link has some really great strengths, especially to handle precious and base and financing type of solutions. So, you know, if you're out there doing pledging and leasing and carries and repose and that kind of basically the financing plays, whether it be in base or precious, both aspect and open link can handle those quite well. Those are the areas of complexity that that we think about, and that's where you reduce the vendors down to just a few. You mentioned some of the solutions there, but which one would you be pitching for concentrates specifically, particularly if it involves a commodity supply chain and why? Aspect because we support it natively out of the box. So we can spin up, it's a sad solution too. So we can spin up a new environment of aspect with the base metals and within within the day of spinning up the environment, we can have a concentrates contract capture because out of the box it supports the typical concentrates payables structure with deductions and everything you're going to need and to set up the assay rules. And so are we going to be able to play out an extremely complex scenario where in one day where you're taking a number of trucks from middle of Africa to a port on the east side of Africa and then taking it to a tolling facility and so on and so forth. No, but the point is base out of the box, we can get very quick and that's why we would promote aspect as that solution. Okay, and finally how is it going for ion in metals? Are you leveraging those products effectively into this demand? Incredibly well, yeah, on both of those questions. So how is it going? We had a tremendous year last year. I mean, all of the commodities across not just CTR I'm speaking, but it's been an incredible year for commodities. Volatile as well as generally up, but ion has had a tremendous year aspect has seen a quite impressive growth. We had eight new customers added that touched the mining and mining and metals play. We've also had a number of existing and customers that have it. expanded into the metal space, so I've started to trade metals. So that's a pretty substantial, in any one year, it would be great to add eight customers, not just in that place. So, aspect actually is added almost 30 new customers in the last year. And eight of those are specifically in the metals and mining area. And finally, Patrick talked to ECA. Another long time provider of solutions into the metals and concentrates space. So today we're visiting with Mr. Edward Porter, a VP of sales for the APAC region for ECA. Edward, thanks for joining us. So just to jump into it, maybe he can give us a little bit of background on ECA's history and in the metals realm and then also your current solution for that market. I mean, if you look at the product at the time, we've obviously much like everybody else in this space, but it's done a lot of research and development in providing a you know, a broad set of functional solutions and applications as we call them now in this space. As you probably know, ECA is a SaaS solution provider of CTO and products and applications. We see ourselves in four categories when it comes to metals specifically. Trading houses, recyclers, miners and smelters and obviously processes and fabricators. We have customers by those industry segments. You know, one of the things that we've done in the past is obviously is addressed to business challenges that are faced by these companies. You know, and we look at that in a number of verticals, whether it be the management of you know, raw material procurement. You know, some of the material in its different stages where we look at smeltering and tumbling, you know, obviously when we start looking at positions such as metal accounting sales, obviously hedging and currency exposure and then importantly the, you know, reporting and obviously the report report output from that. And as we go down, you know, through those through those verticals, we also manage the risk management and counterparty risk of tightening activities. So yeah, we've got a pretty broad offering when it comes to metals. Obviously we focus on content trade based metals precious and along with that as a second ago focus on the physical trade management of those, the derivative contracts, the risk, position management and you know, some of the business integration as well and what we call tentacle connectors in support and enterprise wide solutions across these clients. You know, digging a little bit deeper into this subject, you know, our history doesn't really stop there as well when we start talking about CTRMs. We do go a lot deeper into the supply chain. We have very much a set of applications and products in our bulk and mining solution, which handles a lot of the anti collision, anti avoidance, on site operations and mine. So that's another level of risk that we support our clients across and that's something that's may not be properly known about, um, echo and its products is really the deep involvement it has with some of the global mining players and they can the requirements they have across their critical systems, which where we sit is where we sit. You know, we do work with a lot of innovative companies as well in that space, providing, you know, solutions for, you know, scanning, LiDAR and radar, you know, with companies that provide, you know, real state-of-the-art vision technologies. So yeah, we do, we've got to come to metals, we have a, you know, a quite a broad spectrum of products and solutions, but focused on CCRM, our challenges over history, being really to address some of those aforementioned issues. If we look at today's market, and it clearly metals as become a bit of a hot segment in the CTRMs space, what do you think are driving this increase that we're seeing at least at ComTEK in terms of new license cells? What's the, what's the impetus behind that and will that continue into the future? Well, I think there's a degree of panic. I think, and if you ask that question to anybody involved in global commodities, irrespective of the product, you know, the, the response would be reasonably similar. You know, volatility is obvious, you know, that impacts the whole commodity markets. Obviously geopolitical tensions, another common term that's used to date, supply disruptions from, you know, those tensions and obviously the change into market patterns. You know, we sit well within that because, you know, we have products that essentially help manage the risk associated to those changes and those, you know, those new impacts to the way we do business. And with our CCRM product, you know, we manage the risk and optimize trading strategies. So it's about, I think now nowadays, with those stresses that we're facing, it's all about that accuracy of data and the ability to improve the decision making. Certainly that's what we're faced when we talk to potential customers. And obviously, you know, there's one thing now that's increasingly driving change and the necessity for CCRMs or reliable goods on platforms. And that's the pressure of buying materials, you know, obviously with increased inflation and the impacts on financial risk and borrowing, you know, we see clients very much concerned about the impact that is to their business. You know, it really can distort the proposition really whereby customers can't afford to lose, I say companies can't afford to lose their customers based on inflationary adjustment, you know, and it's really the end result that they're focused on, you know, if they start pushing out their prices every time there's an inflationary adjustment, make it quite easily, but losing customers to, you know, cheap, cheaper or other products out there rather than other providers or producers that are forever undercutting them. So it's a very delicate industry supporting that a little bit more, you know, there is a massive increased demand for automation, you know, and along with that, the glider and what support says is a glowing complexity of the market itself, us or ECHR as a CCRMs system provides automation services around key areas such as trade capture, risk management and obviously settlement which is really important and that reduces time and effort. And with that, we also, you know, lean into other areas such as regulatory compliance. And, you know, the middle industry is subject to several of those regulations and RCTM can and does help ensure compliance with these regulators and that's paramount in reducing the risk of penalties and fines. I think it's not a dissimilar answer to anyone that you, to any answer you would get from anybody in this space really, but more importantly to us, you know, one of the things I think that separates us is really is is our technology and the modernisation of that and the way that it can integrate to some of the enterprise solutions out there which we face across every opportunity and every implementation. When we start talking about ERPs, CRMs, fast integration, the technology that supports it has to be reliable and, you know, it helps create that unified view of the business which is paramount decision-making across these clients. So, you know, we've spent as a company an uncountable amount of man hours developing this tech and just integrate into these enterprise solutions. And I think what is key and sometimes differentiates this again from the competition is known where you fill in being able to do that and reliably do it quickly and cost effectively. So I think that's pretty much it, you know, where we sit with respect to, you know, what are the driving factors? Speaking of competitive advantage, it does seem that there are more and more companies coming into the metal markets over the last couple of years and I think, you know, any CTR inventor is going to try to go to where the market interests lies. Are you seeing more competition in the space? Absolutely. You know, it seems like a daily occurrence as a new logo in the competitive arena. Yeah, it's very much the case. You know, that's, there is obviously an increase in demand for CTR and products and the companies that support them. Knowledge allows that to be driven again by a number of factors. Advancement in technology is obviously the one that drives this and the quickness that they can do in terms of bringing products to market. This obviously drives as increased the competition and what we face is, you know, we have to differentiate, differentiate ourselves from these quick and easy solutions that come into into the space, you know, is increased competition for us and what we offer, I think, is really just unique features and capabilities that meet specific needs of these, specifically needs, specific needs in the metal industry anyway. You know, we have great focus on innovation and development of specialized solutions. So when we start talking about where do we sit above the competition? It's really around handling of data and the accuracy of that and really just I suppose a history of being able to provide really good solid robust solutions to our client base. With that, there comes obviously price and pressure on the vendors, you know, which makes it very competitive. But that's a good thing, I think, you know, that encourages companies to innovate and improve their products, you know, I think as we move forward, we'll see data improvement on a management of data improving and technology will accelerate and CTR systems will follow. The subject area is today that we face, you know, is capabilities around artificial intelligence and machine learning, you know, that's now mentioned in almost every opportunity, you know, do you happen to do this? Have you had an experience in it? Where do you see blockchain and a number of key things? factors that were never really voice until the last couple of years. But I think it's a great thing to do. I'll live fish in intelligence and get back to that machine learning. But there still really isn't going to address the problems faced around the complexity of the market. And I don't think that what humans are going to be substituted by a decision made by some algorithm. And again, the algorithm's artificial intelligence and machine learning is only going to be reliable as the data. And the data itself is being refined every day. And that's key for us is how technology is influenced by the handling of data. You know, as a company, we, as I said before, do have a SaaS solution. And along with that, we provide the PiteTech innovation technology in supporting that. And that would be around these subject matters. You know, we do voice enabled trade booking. You know, we do, we have added samples of blockchain enabled capabilities and enabling that to our solutions. So, you know, we do come across instances whereby we are at the forefront of those subject matters. But again, you know, it can only be a good thing. All these changes because it will lead to solutions across the industry. So the idea behind this episode of CTR and radio was to take a look at the metal space in terms of CTR and in particular to investigate what's happening there as numerous vendors seem to come to market with kit. Not only do we have pretty commodities now known as core as the market leader challenged by people like Ion, but also we've seen that new players are entering the market with metal solutions like the alchemy solution that we heard about. There are also a number of existing players in the market like Gen 10, enuant, commodities engineering, ECA and at least two or three metals mining type vendors that have come to market with CTR and extensions to their solution. So at the moment, you're actually spot for choice. It looks like part of this is down to the fact that there is simply a lot of activity on the metal side caused by the volatility and also probably the energy transition. And so it seems like a lot more metals companies are interested in procuring modern CTR or commodity management software in order to run their business. Well, we'd like to thank the four guests that appeared on this episode today. We'd like to thank you for listening. And if you enjoyed the show, please do like and subscribe where if you heard this and come back periodically for more episodes of CTR and radio and ad hoc podcast by commodity technology advisory LLC hosted on CTRMcenter.com your place for everything CTRM and kindly sponsored by enuant. And by the way, Patrick and I have just put out a new book on CTRM software that you might like to take a look at too. Available on all Amazon platforms, please do take a look at that book if you have any interest in CTRM software at all. This is Gary Vasey saying thank you for listening. Goodbye. [music] You've been listening to CTRM Radio, a podcast by leading industry analysts, commodity technology advisory. You can find more information about us at ComTechAdviserie.com and much more news, views, research and information on CTRM at the CTRM Center at CTRMCenter.com. Thank you for joining our presenters, managing partners, Patrick Grimes and Gary M. Vasey and their guests today. And we hope to see you on a future edition of CTRM Radio. [BLANK_AUDIO]