ETRM Software House of the Year: Triple Point Technology

Connecticut-based Triple Point Technology wins our ETRM Software House of the Year due to solid revenue, profit and customer growth over the past 18 months. The firm has also made several key additions to its product offering, most notably a move into supply chain optimisation, with its December 2012 purchase of Pennsylvania-based supply chain software provider Wam Systems.

During 2012, Triple Point grew its revenue by 30% and profits by 40%. It added 28 new clients, including US-based refiner Valero Energy, Spanish power generator Iberdrola, Brazilian energy firm Petrobras, China National Offshore Oil Corporation and California-based oil and gas producer Occidental Petroleum.

Triple Point chief executive Peter Armstrong attributes the company’s success to the breadth of its software offering and continual reinvestment in its business. “We are 100% focused on providing the deepest, most advanced functionality, from upstream to downstream, in each commodity class,” says Armstrong. “We reinvest an average of 30% of revenue back into our products every year to ensure we can continually deliver unrivalled functionality [across] all aspects of the commodity supply chain.”

The combination of Triple Point’s product, market knowledge and attitude has impressed customers. “We selected Triple Point not only for the product, but for its people,” says Thomas Harvey, Florida-based vice-president of IT and chief information officer of The Energy Authority (TEA), an organisation that supplies trading and risk management services to US public utilities. TEA selected Triple Point to replace its existing energy trading and risk management (ETRM) system in 2010. “We were seeking a quality ETRM system and a company that we could form a long-term strategic partnership with. Triple Point made efforts to understand our needs and was willing to customise its service model in order to support our unique business processes by giving us access to its internal engineers and architects.”

Mobile applications are an area of focus for many vendors – and they have also been in the crosshairs of Triple Point, which expanded its range with the release of Mobile Commodity Trader and Mobile Inventory Navigator in 2012. Both products complement Triple Point’s flagship Commodity XL trading and risk management suite. Mobile Commodity Trader allows users to view and execute futures, swaps, physical fixed, indexed, and triggered transactions – with all information being automatically transmitted to Commodity XL, so that confirmations or hedging activity can swiftly follow. If no internet connection is available, the app will store all trade data and automatically transmit it once a connection becomes available. Meanwhile, Mobile Inventory Navigator enables schedulers to monitor inventory locations and balances for bulk commodities. Using the software, schedulers can assess inventory whereabouts in real time on an interactive map and view minimum and maximum storage levels while they are on the go.

[Our software] allows users to make decisions using optimised data across the supply chain

“There’s demand right now for real-time information and functionality to be available, not just when people are at their desks, but also when they are on the move,” says Sharif Eladawy, Triple Point’s director of Americas sales consulting. “Our mobile applications complement Commodity XL by empowering staff to perform key operations from anywhere.”

Through the acquisition of Wam, Triple Point now offers supply chain planning and optimisation technology. Wam’s software is designed to manage all elements of supply chain risk – from forecasting and volume planning to reducing inventory levels and optimising production scheduling.

Wam was seen by Triple Point as a perfect fit for its business. “Planning and optimisation has been a key area of focus [for us] for some time, due to the importance of logistics and scheduling in energy markets,” says Jeff Burns, the firm’s marketing director of supply chain management. “As well as tracking inventory movements, Triple Point software will make recommendations about what should be done and when and how to go about it. It allows users to make decisions using optimised data across the supply chain."