#1 Overcoming Data Integration Breakdowns For Seamless Daily Starts
Every CTRM/ETRM platform is responsible for aggregating prices, tracking positions, and creating reports for decision-making. But spending half a day or more searching over potentially failed processes like:
- End-of-day reports not running correctly
- Data feeds for our trading desks and pricing providers stopping mid-process
- Emails from the risk management department noting price changes are missing
Value Creed helps you leverage the expertise of our team and the one-on-one personalized account management and troubleshooting led by leading CTRM platform experts with over ten years of experience. We’ll show you how you can resolve common run operate challenges before they happen.
#2 How To Proactively Overcome Reporting Integration Failure for CTRM Platforms
Value Creed’s Run Smart CTRM Managed Services runs in conjunction with your reporting system to ensure your pricing, credit, risk, and other reports are complete and accurate so have the most complete information for basing your positioning decisions in the format you need and commodity managers can use.
- Run Smart™ delivers value by ensuring pricing, positions, credit, risk, and regulatory reports are accurate and current.
- Fully customizable and compatible with internal workflows, processes, trading platforms, and technologies.
#3: Cloud & Database Monitoring & Maintenance
With our Cloud & Database Managed services the CTRM platforms perform at 99% uptime, delivering reliability for your team and lower overall cost of ownership over the long-term.
Whether your CTRM is hosted on-prem or in the cloud, our Managed Services team ensures availability and fine tunes your environment to improve performance.
- Our database experts will monitor and ensure proper setup and configuration, check maintenance plans, react to and fix errors, check and monitor security groups.
- Our cloud experts will monitor connectivity and availability, key server metrics and elastic infrastructure, maintain the environment via patches and backups, react to and fix issues, and if desired, host your AWS/Azure application.
#4 What Do I Do about “Crazy Crude Prices:” Be Prepared for the Unexpected
The unprecedented demand-killing consequences of COVID-19 and abnormal behavior from market participants under stress show that markets for any commodity are subject to extreme and unexpected volatility.
Value Creed’s Run Smart™ Managed Services include dual timezone coverage, so there is always someone monitoring your data inputs.
No matter what time of day or night the crazy data rears its ugly head, a Value Creed CTRM/ETRM platform expert will immediately begin reconciling it and rectifying any errors it causes.
Value Creed has automated the process of searching for and isolating outliers as they occur. By isolating the cause of errors in real time, we empower data users to begin remediating them right away.
#5: Keeping Value At Risk (VaR) Reports On Track
Value at risk (VaR) is one of the most useful risk calculations, as it allows for a consistent analysis of positions and price movements for a given portfolio across time.
Value Creed’s integrated CRTM managed service platform, Run Smart™, is easily customizable to any business model.
Run Smart™ interfaces with downstream reporting software and upstream transaction-reporting and data sources. Its reporting capabilities capture, collect, and present real-time market updates, physical stores and portfolio positions.
Every night, Run Smart™ evaluates the calculated VaR for the portfolio or selected segment with the confidence interval, loss limit, and timeframe established by the user.
Want The Full Story?
This post is our series, 5 Reasons for Choosing Run Smart™ CTRM Managed Services. Learn more about key reasons for moving to Value Creed’s Run Smart Managed services with these posts:
- #1 Overcoming Data Integration Breakdowns For Seamless Daily Starts
- #2 How To Proactively Overcome Reporting Integration Failure for CTRM Platforms
- #3 Cloud & Database Monitoring & Maintenance
- #4 What Do I Do about “Crazy Crude Prices:” Be Prepared for the Unexpected
- #5: Keeping Value At Risk (VaR) Reports On Track
Value Creed's Run Smart Managed Services Start at $3,500 a month
Interested? Let’s Chat
As companies suddenly shifted to remote work in early 2020, they faced an array of new challenges. Communication delays and dispersed teams meant a new realignment in the way in-house (and at-home) employees operated.
Yet when it comes to CTRM platforms, any delay can be costly. Our clients turned to us for the solution—and found it in our managed services team.
Making Managed Services Your Advantage
The simple truth is that our managed services experts had adopted the best practices of remote work since well before the pandemic. In fact, their very structure resembles the standard for many newly-remote teams.
A Global Workforce
Advanced Insights
Prior Expertise
These assets made the difference for our clients seeking remote managed services oversight.
The results? A dependable, consistent level of CTRM service, ensuring business continuity throughout the toughest of times.
CTRM Productivity Gains Enable Trading Productivity Boost
See how Value Creed helped a major natural gas production and marketing company upgrade their CTRM, boost productivity and increase efficiency for daily trading activities.
True Success With Remote Work
Value Creed’s unique dual timezone model allowed our clients to thrive with managed services, no matter their location. What’s more, the 24/7/365 nature of our work made CTRM upgrades, testing services, Business Process Outsourcing, and more easier for our clients when they needed them the most, because of the pandemic and its business implications.
Value Creed’s unique dual timezone model allowed our clients to thrive with managed services, no matter their location.
There’s simply no room for delays in CTRM processes, even when the unexpected happens. Luckily, our managed services team stayed prepared. Their familiarity with working remotely and delivering results continues to make the difference.
See the Success By The Numbers and get in touch to learn how managed services makes the difference in your business:
Explore Key Solutions to Ensure CTRM Journey Success
Learn how CTRM users worldwide engage Value Creed to support these digital forward executive demands.
CTRM UPGRADES
EXPERTISE ON DEMAND
MANAGED SERVICES
CTRM CLOUD SERVICES
TESTING SERVICES
BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING
Ready To Get Started On Your CTRM Journey?
Let’s Us Know
Three Ways In-House CTRM Platform Support Is Costing IT Teams
Because CTRM platforms are business critical, CIOs and IT teams are forced to dedicate high-value staff resources to routine tasks like monitoring platform health and ensuring end-of-day reports run successfully. This fact creates three distinct challenges for IT teams and business users:
Challenges CTRM Users Face
These challenges leave IT departments and the users they support in a lurch due to the inherent complexity of CTRM platforms. Often issues require both technical and functional understanding, which is likely not accessible overnight. This fact can delay critical reports, increase employee frustration, lower engagement due to burnout, and focus costly internal resources on resolving critical-yet-routine issues when supporting the platform around the clock.
This reality led Value Creed to create a new model for CTRM/ETRM managed services called Run Smart™.
How Run Smart™ CTRM Managed Services Work
Watch and learn how Run Smart CTRM managed services provide monitoring and problem resolution to ensure your system is operating seamlessly during your business day, overnight and in the cloud.
Explore Three Forms of CTRM Managed Services
By employing Value Creed’s Run Smart managed services, companies can benefit from three distinct services to enhance their daily business processes and technical readiness:
Proactive Overnight Monitoring
Overnight monitoring of all your vital CTRM services, with error handling and resolutions ready by the time your in-house team starts their day.
Reactive Daytime
Resolutions
On-demand services during your team’s working hours, from user support, custom workflows, technical upgrades, and more.
Cloud Monitoring
& Maintenance
Bring your CTRM onto the cloud for 24/7 server monitoring and daily database backup, unlocking new insights at scale.
Why Choose Value Creed for CTRM Managed Services?
Our approach to CTRM Managed Services gives you flexibility as your needs change. With meaningful, attainable, and measurable goals, managed services improves your ROI through the right analytics and optimization.
Run Smart SLA Promise
Ready To Explore RunSmart CTRM Managed Services?
Value Creed's Solutions Start at Only
$3,500 a month
Daytime Monitoring & Support for Business Users
Reactive resolutions help with the heavy lifting that occurs during your daytime working hours. Whether you need custom reports, technical upgrades, user support, or even new workarounds using your standard software, Our CTRM experts are ready to provide actionable, on-demand solutions to boost your business success.
Reactive resolutions also resolve the day-to-day issues delegated by business users and IT teams. Value Creed’s CTRM experts collaborate with front-line client users and IT support to solve the new and complex problems that can, from time to time, arise within their CTRM systems and adjacent business-critical applications.
Daytime Issue Resolution Management Process
Daytime managed services enable your IT staff and users throughout your organization to leverage the functional and technical expertise of the Value Creed team for Level 1, 2 and 3 support requests.
- Day to Day User Issues (Level 1, 2 & 3 Support)
- Active Position Manager
- Fixing Current Setups
- Find Workarounds With Standard Sooftware
- Support User-Defined Processes
- Technical Upgrades
- Support Valuation & Settlement Processes
- Enhance Existing Customizations
- Create Custom Reports
- Create Workflow Processes
- Modeling Of New Business
- Create Integrations With 3rd Party Software
- Create PnL Explain, MtM, & Risk Reports
Value Creed Levels of Support
Daytime Reactive Managed Services Keep Users Satisfied and IT Teams Productive as Tickets and Demands for Support are Tackled Throughout the day Ranging from Critical Needs to Basic Instructional Support
LEVEL 1
Basic Level of Engagement
Basic Help Desk Resolution- Resolve user questions regarding functionality quickly or escalate to Level 2
LEVEL 2
Advanced Level Support
More In-Depth Support – Solve more difficult customer problems in limited time or escalate to Level 3
LEVEL 3
Critical Escalation with Highly Experience Resource
Top Level Support – Solve most difficult customer problems in the application code or build extensions/customizations to fix the issue
Why Choose Value Creed for CTRM Managed Services?
Our approach to CTRM Managed Services gives you flexibility as your needs change. With meaningful, attainable, and measurable goals, managed services improves your ROI through the right analytics and optimization.
Rely on Run Smart's Industry Leading SLA
Value Creed's Run Smart Managed Services Start at $3,500 a month
Ready To Explore RunSmart CTRM Managed Services?
Value Creed's Solutions Start at Only
$3,500 a month
Proactive Overnight CTRM Monitoring of EOD Reporting
When your in-house staff clock out for the day, our proactive overnight monitoring managed services team gets started on what they do best. Between 10 pm and 6 am, our CTRM experts oversee your databases, interfaces, and grid queue to ensure all issues are resolved in time for the start of the trading day.
The 24/7 nature of commodity trading and risk management makes proactive overnight monitoring a key asset for companies competing worldwide. Proactive monitoring for commodity trading risk management allows the managed services team to ensure daily reports and dashboards are accurate, and free of any issues by the time they arrive to the client. This process occurs overnight, with interfaced data upload checks, pre-End of Day run checks, and consistent resolution monitoring in time for the day’s CTRM trading.
The Proactive Monitoring Process
Throughout the process, CTRM experts oversee a variety of vital tasks, including:
Make sure the needed data to run processes and create reports has been stored in the CTRM System
- Trades
- Prices
- Foreign Exchange Rates, Volatilities, Interest Rates
Monitor the processes by which the raw data is transformed into usable information. Literally, make sure the math is done
- Valuation, Credit, and Settlement Jobs
- Grid Schedule Monitoring
- Log & Server Management
Make sure the information calculated in Process Monitoring Step is presented properly for management consumption and decision making
- Position and Exposure Reporting
- Mark-to-Market Reports
- Market Risk Reporting
- Credit Reporting
- Settlement Reporting
See Run Smart™ Proactive Monitoring In Action
Example Client Dashboard Reporting
Why Choose Value Creed for CTRM Managed Services?
Our approach to CTRM Managed Services gives you flexibility as your needs change. With meaningful, attainable, and measurable goals, managed services improves your ROI through the right analytics and optimization.
Rely on Run Smart's Industry Leading SLA
Value Creed's Run Smart Managed Services Start at $3,500 a month
Ready To Explore RunSmart CTRM Managed Services?
Value Creed's Solutions Start at Only
$3,500 a month
Dual Time Zone Monitoring: Problems Solved Overnight
When your trading day ends, you need to recharge and prepare for another hectic session tomorrow. The last thing you need is to deal with end-of-day processes that fail to initiate. An even worse scenario occurs when your day ends normally but you return the next day to find an empty space on your desk where last night’s EOD reports are supposed to be. How can your company operation without knowing your present exposures, valuation, P&L statement, or mark-to-market position?
The simple but infuriating answer is, you can’t. Not without exposing your firm to undue risk. Your only option may be to wait until last night’s reports can be rerun, missing out on profit opportunities all the while.
Preparing for the Reporting Run
As a Value Creed client, you can rest easy. Just as our U.S.-based team manages your company’s CTRM infrastructure during the day, our overseas team’s day begins when yours ends. Our lead consultant in India starts by preparing the system for EOD reporting:
- Resolving any issues captured by the grid logs
- Clearing the grid queues
- Completing grid schedules and other preliminary processes
- Verifying the system contains current prices and data needed for the reports
Running the Reports
Our team continues to monitor the entire EOD reporting regimen, so if an anomaly occurs, our technicians can resolve it before it delays the next day’s trading. Team India handles any new grid logs generated during the reporting run, in the vast majority of cases resolving overnight so the overnight reports contain clean, accurate, complete information.
In a few cases, a grid log created during an EOD run will show the system is unable to calibrate a valuation or is missing a price or other data needed to complete a report. Without Value Creed’s Dual-Time-Zone crew on the job, this might lead to a complete shutdown until the next morning when your team arrives. With a Value Creed managed services contract, your employees will never face the prospect of an hours-long rerun report rerun first thing in the morning. Instead, our experts in India will discover the trouble, fetch the missing positions, and re-initiate the reports so they are complete well before the opening bell.
See The Timeline for These Critical Reports
Wondering what this process looks like for your organization and how we support you 24/7/365 by task type and phase? We’ll show you – fill out this request below.
Reporting the Runs
Finally, once the reports are completed and all issues resolved, Value Creed consultants present you a daily docket that includes interval screenshots of our monitoring activities. The report may contain technical, performance, and custom data, as contracted:
- Process Management
- Grid Schedule
- Log Management
- Server Management
- Creation and Revision Time
- Report Status (Successes, Failures, Remediation Progress, etc.)
- Price Comparisons
- Exposure Reporting
- Mark-to-Mark Reports
Let’s discuss how our transparent, accountable, overnight project management team ensures you’re never left in the dark and always have the reports you need to make informed trading decisions.