capSpire's Gravitate Web Portal

A CommodityPoint Technical Briefing Note

capSpire's Gravitate Web Portal

Extending and Enriching E/CTRM System Capabilities

COMMODITYPOINT a division of UtiliPoint International, Inc.

19901 Southwest Freeway, Suite 121 Sugar Land, Texas 77479

www.commodity-point.com August 2012

http://www.commodity-point.com/

capSpire Gravitate Web Portal

Copyright 2012 CommodityPoint, a Division of UtiliPoint International, Inc.

Introduction

Most bulk product and commodity suppliers, such as those that sell crude

products, natural gas liquids, grains, or agricultural products, have traditionally

relied on custom-built transaction management systems for managing their

business. However, within the last several years, many of these companies have

turned to vendor supported commodity trading and risk management (CTRM)

systems to manage the entirety of their businesses, from production/supply

aggregation through sales and distribution to regional or local markets. While

the movement toward supported CTRM systems has brought these companies a

number of functional and business process improvements such as improved

data integrity, supply aggregation risk management capabilities, and better

accounting and controls; there still exists a number of issues that are unique this

market segment are not fully addressed with tools that were designed to service

wholesale commodity trading organizations.

Given this genesis in wholesale trading, CTRM systems do a very good job of

managing the aggregation of supply for these marketers/distributors - capturing

trades, both physical and financial, tracking and managing logistics and supply



chains, and aggregating and valuing the portfolio of products. Many are also

effective at capturing the sale side of transactions, the sale and distribution of

commodities and products associated with a rack or terminal oriented business.

Unfortunately, these systems are simply internal business management tools –

they do not effectively interact with the marketer's customers as they have no

client facing capabilities.

Even for a marketer or distributor using a sophisticated, market leading CTRM

system, such as those from Allegro, Solarc (now OpenLink) and Triple Point,

downstream client interactions are still most commonly conducted via phone,

Instant Messenger (IM), email or fax. Transactions with these customers are

usually captured in the CTRM system via manual input, and those customers

have no visibility into their data held within that system, other than via invoice

or other statements and notices provided by the marketer/distributor.

Customers must still contact by phone, IM, fax or email, the supplier's personnel

for critical data such as deliveries against contractual volumes, price

information, or information needed to resolve invoice disputes.

All commodity marketers/distributers, whether they be national, regional, or

local in scale; selling petroleum products, natural gas, grains, or edible oils; rely

on high value interactions with their clients - value added services will improve

customer retention and loyalty. Poor customer interactions and bad service,

whether at the products rack, grain elevator, rail terminal, delivery meter or in

the back office, will most certainly drive those customers to alternative sources

of products.

Unfortunately, CTRM systems are not designed to address these critical

interaction points in the marketer/customer relationship. Recognizing this

shortcoming, capSpire, a US-based software and technology services company,

has developed a new product, called Gravitate, which has been designed

specifically to extend the capabilities of traditional CTRM solutions in order to

improve these high value client interactions.



Web Enabled Client Interactions

Having worked with many of the largest commodity supply companies around

the globe, the founders of the capSpire recognized the inefficiencies inherent in

the traditional methods of interaction between suppliers and their customers.

They also recognized that these

interactions not only lead to poor

client relations, they also slowed cash

flows due to delays in answering

customer questions or resolving

invoice disputes. capSpire's head of

product marketing, Trent Amos,

describes their solution this way,

"The Gravitate Web Portal is a customer engagement platform that

fundamentally changes how commodity suppliers and marketing companies

interact with each other."

At its core, Gravitate Web Portal is an interface via which the

marketer/distributor's customers can access their key account information held

within that company's E/CTRM system, 24/7, enabling rapid resolution of

contract or invoice issues and questions, and decreasing the burden of manual

reconciliations on the part of the distributor's personnel.

The portal also provides value-added capabilities such as historical market

prices, news and marketer/distributor announcements, including the ability to

embed video-based market

commentary. The product automates

distribution of critical notifications

(via email or SMS) which would have

to be otherwise manually initiated,

including:

• Product lifting or delivery events

• Issuance of invoices



• Invoice payment reminders including past-due notices

• Requirements to take or lift product as required by contract terms

• Contract lifting or delivery fulfilment notices

• Price information, including any location-specific discounts that may be

available.

Within many of the Gravitate screens, customers have drill-down capability,

allowing them to view all transactions against individual contracts and view deal

level detail within their on-line invoices.

As the system is a clear extension of the producer/marketer's identity and

brand, the portal has been designed to be easily configured to match the

producer/marketer's corporate look and feel, including configurable screen

colors and logo-ing. The pluggable architecture allows the operator to add

their own grids, widgets and new pages to the site to meet the needs of their

specific markets. Additionally, the company has developed a number of pre-

configured integration schemas to multiple CTRM systems, enabling rapid "off

the shelf" implementation.

Web Enabled Trading

While many of the product's capabilities previously described are designed to

improve client access to information - decreasing invoice disputes and

improving customer relationships - CommodityPoint believes that the most

intriguing capability of

Gravitate is what the

company calls its

"order execution

module" which

effectively transforms

a CTRM system into

an e-commerce



platform.

Gravitate enables the distributor/marketer to post product or location specific

offers and allows customers to purchase product via the web interface,

transactions which are in turn captured and updated within the distributor's

CTRM system. Offer prices posted through the module can include spot deals,

fixed forwards, stop limits and index pricing. Customers can execute purchase

transactions for a one month basket of products, or for a single product for

multiple months based on a forward strip. Additionally, the system provides for

exchange-based real-time pricing (net of any seller determined basis

adjustments or discounts/premiums). As deals are done, customers can see an

updated accounting of their transactions against one or more contracts and on-

line views of each underlying contract/agreement are available to the customer.

Technology

According to capSpire, the system has been developed using the latest Web 2.0

Rich Internet Application technologies, including ASP.NET, WCF, MVC HTML,

CSS, jQuery and AJAX amongst others. All client facing technologies are

compatible with the major browser vendors, as well as smart phone browsers,

facilitating access in any environment. The middle tier leverages a robust, full-

featured .NET 4.0 platform and it services its content by utilizing a very reliable

and scalable IIS 7.5 web application server. The middle tier utilizes a robust

Object Relation Mapping framework, allowing quick and easy access to 3rd

party data API’s and interaction with the persistent data store, which resides in

SQL Server 2008.

capSpire also notes that Gravitate adheres to all relevant security standards for

delivering web-based sensitive data. Users' credentials are stored using a one-

way encryption algorithm and the application supports delivery of the content

over HTTPS protocol using SSL certificates. In addition to the appropriate web



securities, the system confirms each user request to ensure the logged-in user

has the appropriate credentials and roles to access the requested content.

Conclusion

Though Gravitate is a new product with a limited number of live

implementations specific to the crude products and NGL markets, it is finding

considerable interest in the market. In addition to those current installations,

the company indicates they are currently working with additional clients and

other market participants to extend the market coverage to address additional

commodities, including natural gas and agriculturals.

Not only does Gravitate extend and enhance CTRM system capabilities, bringing

counterparty information and data to customers and improving relationships

with those customers; it also enables web-based deal capture, transforming an

otherwise cloistered CTRM solution from an internally focused transaction

management system into a functionally rich e-commerce platform. Given these

capabilities, this new offering from capSpire is clearly an innovative and unique

solution for the energy and commodity markets.

Please Note: CommodityPoint Technical Briefing Notes are intended to inform readers about

products that CommodityPoint believes to be technical innovations and advancements in CTRM

systems and related software. WHILE THIS DOCUMENT PROVIDES COVERAGE OF A SPECIFIC

VENDOR AND PRODUCT, IT IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT OF THAT PARTICULAR VENDOR OR IT'S

PRODUCTS; rather it should be viewed only as an informative analysis of that innovation.



About CommodityPoint

CommodityPoint is the industry leader in providing Commodity Trading & Risk Management (CTRM) research, analysis and advisory services. Our services bring insight into business issues, trends, processes and technology, to utilities, energy companies, banks, brokers, funds, investors and vendors that enhance their competitive position and support critical business decisions around the wholesale commodity trading markets. Our team provides expert analysis of market trends and, in particular, the technologies and applications supporting those that participate in regional or global commodity markets.

With offices in Europe and the US, and backed by an experienced research team, our organization provides an unparalleled view of the marketplace. CommodityPoint is a division of leading energy and utilities analyst and consulting firm, UtiliPoint International, Inc.

Other Resources The CTRM Blog – http://www.ctrmblog.com

CommodityPoint – http://www.CommodityPoint.com

TRM Products and Services Online Directory – http://www.trmdirectory.com

Other CommodityPoint Reports CommodityPoint research reports are available at http://www.Commodity-Point.com

For additional information regarding this report or any CommodityPoint product or service, please contact Patrick Reames at [email protected] or Mark Tredway at [email protected].

CommodityPoint Locations: The Americas 19901 Southwest Freeway, Suite 121 Sugar Land, Texas 77479 USA Phone: 281-207-5440 Europe & Asia/Pacific International Business Center Prikop 4 602 00 Brno Czech Republic Tel: +42 0 533 433 658

UtiliPoint International is a wholly owned

subsidiary of Midas Medici Group Holdings, Inc.

(OTCBB:MMED).

http://www.ctrmblog.com/

http://www.utilipoint.com/

http://www.trmdirectory.com/

http://www.commodity-point.com/

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

capSpire's Gravitate Web Portal