Tereos Commodities, a division of the Tereos Group, is an international trading business in Raw and White sugar. The Tereos Group is world’s fifth-largest sugar group and has leading positions in the markets for alcohol (No. 1 in Europe and No. 3 in Brazil) and starch (No. 3 in Europe). Tereos has 42 industrial sites and employed 24,000 people across four continents in 2013-2014. The group recorded 4.7 billion euros in revenues. As a cooperative group Tereos unites 12,000 growers around a long-term vision: adding value to agricultural raw materials and contributing towards the development of quality food products worldwide. Tereos is developing new outlets for agricultural raw materials with a view to meet current and future challenges in terms of food, energy and environmental aspects.
Jean Marie Née, director Information systems of Tereos Group: “Tereos has always applied a commonsense principle: listening to its customers and looking to anticipate to changes in its markets. The launch of a new trading organization, Tereos Commodities, can be seen as the evidence of its approach and the next step in realizing its ambitions.”
With the launch of Tereos Commodities, Tereos aims to become one of the global leaders in the international distribution of White and Raw sugar. Tereos Commodities is ready for the global sugar market changes, which will occur in 2017. Then the European Union will be once again free to export sugar to the global markets and Tereos Commodities will offer its customers a broad portfolio built around a sustainable value chain. The adoption of the commodity trade & risk management solution Agiblocks will help to support that strategy.
Requesting a Risk Management Solution
Tereos Commodities was looking for a solution that offers physical contract administration for White & Raw sugar and the management of trade positions and logistics, enabling Tereos Commodities to operate with a low administrative workload and to avoiding double data entry. The solution request included some highly specialized functionality that is desired for their sugar trading and related business processes. Tereos Commodities requested Agiboo to offer a commodity trade and risk management solution, which allows them to gain control on physical contract management, hedging & derivatives, logistics & execution and finance functions such as cost analysis, invoicing and profit and loss. As Tereos is a global player extensive traveling is required for traders and trading management, thus Tereos requires a solution that enables easy access across the globe and offers a multi company set up.
Agiblocks proved to be a complete solution and to be able to cater for Tereos needs. As Agiblocks is a cloud based solution and offers full access to system even through tablets and smart phones, Agiblocks is fulfilling this important requirement as well.
‘We recognized the flexibility of configuration, the multi company functionality and technology potential of Agiblocks.” Although being a relative new CTRM solution, Agiblocks has everything in it to be an important solution in the commodity trading world. The opportunity for a quick and relative low effort implementation was also driving the decision for Agiblocks. Agiboo facilitated a short decision making process, and proved to be a competitive offering against other CTRM vendors in the market, both from a commercial and a capability perspective.”
"Agiboo facilitated a short decision making process, and proved to be a competitive offering against other CTRM vendors in the market, both from a commercial and a capability perspective."
Agiblocks is part of the supply chain services we offer our customers. Our customers require to be informed constantly and Agiblocks supports such. In addition the management and traders at Tereos Commodities have strong tools available to manage the sugar trade and associated supply chain risks. On the implementation side, Agiboo seems to outcompete the CTRM market significantly. Only two months after signing up for Agiblocks the software had been taken into production by Tereos Commodities and Agiblocks is currently used to facilitate the sugar trading activities. The structured implementation approach and the modularity of the solution, contribute to a low total cost of ownership and last but not least, ends Jean Marie, “with the choice for Agiblocks we made a choice for a future proof system.”
Agiblocks implementation according to Tereos
“The initial implementation plan for Agiblocks was ambitious! We started the project on June 1st 2015 with the aim to take the system in production latest August 1st 2015. Later on we found that due to several holiday schemes and anticipated hires this target had to be brought forward to Monday 20th July.” Jean Marie Nee continues, “Agiboo came well prepared with a detailed project plan and implementation guide. Every step was described in detail and everyone knew what was expected in order to have a successful implementation. Despite of the pressure we put onto ourselves everything went according to plan and planning. Quite some credits should be given here to the Agiboo consultants and project management as well.”
With weekly progress meetings there was complete control of the project. Changes and risks of a project activity were immediately managed and/or mitigated. Jean Marie details further, “Weekly documentation and updated project planning gave us the confidence that the project with the challenging deadline was completely under control. Agreed functionality was delivered in time and as specified during the initial system selection phase.
Agiboo’s approach with a scenario based User Acceptance Test, having every discipline in one room for two days and using pre-defined detailed test scenarios representing the variety of Tereos Commodities business processes, gave us confidence that we could take the system in production by Monday 20th July 2015 as planned.”
Jean Marie testifies further, “In my experience, not many IT projects are completed in time. The implementation of Agiblocks was certainly a very positive exception to the unwritten rule that most information technology projects are delayed by at least 50% of the planned elapse time. The in-time delivery, solution configurability and adaptability, the optional extensions, seamless implementation and low TCO make this project an exceptional experience.”
In the meantime, Tereos Commodities has made the additional decision to integrate Agiblocks with the Tereos Group ERP environment (SAP), to benefit from the efficiency of the fully automated financial integration that Agiblocks offers. Jean Marie adds to this, “We have high confidence that this integration step will be as well managed as the implementation of Agiblocks itself.”
Find out for yourself
Agiblocks is the first CTRM software solution that simplifies the daily practices of commodity trade professionals. It has been developed with the single goal of making your fixed routine of commodity trading and risk management more efficient. Its clean user interface is simple with fast access to key functions. For every task, from creating a contract to evaluating your risk, all required information is readily available. It is as powerful on smartphones and tablet computers as it is on the desktop, so it’s accessible anytime, anywhere. Experience our CTRM software solution for free and get a front-row seat to all the benefits Agiblocks has to offer with our free demo. The full range of Agiblocks functionality is available within the demo environment for your browsing leisure. Familiarize yourself with the tools and features of our powerful and agile software solution and find out how you can make the daily practices of commodity trade and risk management more efficient.
