In the past trading houses had only two options: spreadsheets or big-budget custom software development programs. Now SaaS-delivered solutions combined with Cloud Computing offer a real, cost-effective alternative. With the global economy, regulatory environment and credit shrinkage increasingly mandating formalized systems for even small trading companies, SaaS offers fast-start, turnkey solutions without up-front investment or resource demands.
Steve Hughes
President & CEO
Aspect Enterprise Solutions
Cloud-based applications — aka Software as a Service (SaaS) — have seen steady growth over the past few years and will continue to grow.
Gartner, Inc., Cloud Computing: The Next Generation of Outsourcing, Ben Pring, November 1, 2010

According to Technology Research Analyst Firm Gartner…

We are in the midst of a fundamental shift, as more enterprises start to use services enabled by cloud technologies. This will heavily impact IT services providers, who must now consider strategies for coping with profound changes in the marketplace or risk being left behind.
Cloud Computing:
The Next Generation Of Outsourcing
Ben Pring, November 1, 2010
According to Technology Research Analyst Firm Gartner…
Increasingly, hosted or SaaS-based solutions are gaining favor among end users as a means of reducing capital costs, deployment times and support overheads. While traditionally these solutions were preferred options for smaller end users or end users with limited functional requirements, as the functional capabilities of SaaS - or application service provider (ASP)-based deployments grow, the appeal to larger organizations will widen.
Magic Quadrant For Energy Trading And Risk Management Platforms
Keith Harrison and
David Furlonger
March 18, 2011
AspectCTRM was installed and working for us so fast – quickly enabling us to get a real-time understanding of profit and loss, exposures, price movements in the markets and how we can better manage risk.
Peter Malcom King
Business Development & Strategy Manager
Linetrale Oil Supply & Trading Company, Nigeria

News

Aspect Enterprise Solutions Completes Integration For $42Bn Itochu Group

London, March 8, 2012

Multi-commodity trading and risk management Cloud solutions provider Aspect Enterprise Solutions today announces the completion of a key new integration project for the Singapore-based energy trading arm of Japan’s giant Itochu Group. Itochu recorded revenues of $42Bn for fiscal year 2011 and is one of CNN’s 500 top global companies.

The integration, achieved through Aspect’s Web services layer, seamlessly links the trader’s established AspectCTRM system with its own in-house IDEAL back office and operations platform. For Itochu it means one unified point of data entry, helping eliminate errors and avoid unnecessary data duplication. The integration work was completed on time and within budget by Aspect’s own project team.

“AspectCTRM has been a valuable part of our trading operations for some time and the integration with our own systems will result in increased efficiency and better accuracy across the trading activity,” said Itochu’s Shinya Hasebe, Senior General Manager, Middle Distillates and Gasoline Department.“It also illustrates how flexible Aspect’s software-as-a-service architecture can be in meeting user organization’s individual needs.”

For Aspect, CEO Steve Hughes said the integration project at Itochu was yet one more example of how the AspectCTRM platform can be leveraged to deliver still further value to organizations deploying it. “Stand-alone, the AspectCTRM solution is a powerful asset for traders across multiple commodities. When integrated with established enterprise applications it becomes a seamless part of business processes, enhancing workflows in ways that legacy CTRM applications simply cannot.”

Built on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) architecture, all of Aspect’s applications are delivered in the Cloud. Their inherent scalability and the speed with which they can be deployed contrasts dramatically with traditional ETRM/CTRM software systems which typically take a year or more to implement and which fail to effectively scale downwards to support smaller trading operations.

Even in a large scale fully end-to-end implementation, key elements of the company’s flagship AspectCTRM trade and risk solution, including deal capture and risk analysis, can be in place, working and delivering value within a matter of days. Successive additional elements then go live as the progress of integration projects allows.

About Aspect Enterprise Solutions

Aspect Enterprise Solutions www.aspectenterprise.com is a leading global provider of Web-based, multi-commodity trading, risk management and data analysis applications with almost 500 customers and thousands of users in 90 countries. The Aspect family is the only integrated, all-in-one platform delivered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in the Cloud, which enables rapid deployment, controlled costs and immediate ROI. Applications include AspectCTRM®, a full-featured commodity trading and risk management enterprise suite for front, middle and back office. It’s available in three editions: Lite, Standard and Enterprise, seamlessly expanding in functionality according to the needs and budgets of clients. AspectDSC is the decision support center for traders offering oil, metals and agricultural market news, prices, futures and analytical tools on desktops and mobile devices including Apple® iPhone® and iPad®, and BlackBerry. AspectPM is the Price Manager solution which provides consolidation and support for the global oil price forecasting process and forward curve management.

Media Contact
Brigette Gebhard
Aspect Enterprise Solutions
+1 347-328-0396
bgebhard@aspectenterprise.com