An article by Gary Vasey – CTRMCenter:
Just before heading to Essen for E-World last week, I had a briefing call with co-founder and Managing Partner, Mr. Jan van den Brom, and CEO, Mr. Bart Kroon, of Agiboo. It had been quite a while since we had last spoken, and it seems that Agiboo has been extraordinarily busy during that period. We started by going through a number of new wins that included:
- Currently implementing at a German Cocoa company where Agiboo is replacing a legacy solution. The customer required some specific functionality which was developed in coordination with the customer,
- Implementing initially for Cocoa for a US-headquartered trader of rice, grains, by-products, and other agricultural products worldwide again replacing another poorly implemented commercial solution in the process,
- Implementing for Coffee at a UK Coffee company where Agiboo is replacing another solution that was incompletely implemented and Excel,
- Implementing for Cocoa at one of the larger independent Cocoa traders in the world,
- Recently signed a Dutch Cocoa company and will start implementation next month,
- Recently signed a major grains and oilseed cooperative in South Africa, among several others.
Coffee, Cocoa and Sugar
Agiboo decided to focus in on Coffee, Cocoa and Sugar a couple of years ago and believes they have now developed very specific and fully functional targeted solutions for these commodities. “Most CTRM’s are very broad-based and don’t cover the specifics,” Mr. Kroon told me. “We are seeing a high failure rate for these general CTRM’s and many are moving to replace.”
The end of Spreadsheets
Mr. Kroon sees a lot of semi-implemented solutions in the space where the detailed fit to requirements is lacking and there is still a reliance on supplemental spreadsheets. Yet another trend is the replacement of legacy solutions built and implemented years ago, he told me, and in this instance, it is often driven by changed banking requirements. The changing needs of stakeholders driving CTRM turnover and replacement are something that ComTech has pointed to over the past couple of years in particular. However, Mr. Kroon emphasized that the banking environment has changed, and today’s banks’ risk profile has changed considerably. However, put simply, banks don’t trust Excel.
