Expertise in Commodity Trade Execution
In 2016, a British politician famously claimed that the public had "had enough of experts." Fortunately, this sentiment did not extend to the commodity, logistics, and supply chain sectors. Without the deep expertise that drives excellence in commodity trading and shipping, many might wonder where their next shipment—or meal—would come from.
Expertise Is a Necessity, Not a Luxury
Expertise and experience in trade execution are not luxuries; they are necessities to mitigate risks, capture value, and ensure the seamless flow of goods in a complex global market.
However, this raises an important question in organizing the work activities of a Trade Execution (TE) team: Does every employee need to be an expert?
The answer is a resounding no. While many aspects of trade execution require specialized knowledge, experience, and skills, there is also a significant amount of administrative work and low-risk contract and shipping execution that doesn’t. Tasks such as processing accounts payable invoices or managing the administration of a high-volume, low-risk container shipment program do not necessarily require deep commodity or contract-related expertise.
Create Value & Lower Costs
The organizational challenge is to break down the business processes and workflows in a way that maximizes the value of your TE experts, relieving them of administrative burdens and low-risk contract execution where they cannot significantly impact outcomes. Instead, enable them to focus the greatest amount of their time on high-impact activities—those involving significant risk, complex contracts, and exception resolution—where their expertise can prevent costly errors and drive business performance.
Conversely, repetitive processes and lower-risk execution flows should be handled by less experienced team members who can manage these tasks efficiently and at a lower cost. These activities are also prime candidates for offshoring or outsourcing.
Managing Your Experts' Careers & Rewards
Many commodity organizations recognize the value of expertise but may not always deploy it optimally. It’s also not uncommon to see expert individual contributors 'over-promoted' into supervisory roles that don’t align with their strengths—or even their interests. This can diminish their value to the organization and negatively impact their engagement.
To avoid this, it’s important to provide recognition and rewards for expert individual contributors in non-supervisory roles. These individuals are invaluable for resolving complex exceptions, mentoring junior colleagues, and offering critical feedback. By focusing their time on high-impact activities and fostering an environment where their expertise is valued, organizations can fully leverage their talent.
Crest can assist you in reviewing opportunities to improve performance and reduce costs in your Trading & Shipping operations.
TECHNOLOGY CORNER
Process or Technology in Procurement Decisions?
In commodity trading, a common dilemma arises: Should processes be reviewed and optimized before selecting and implementing new technology, or should processes be adapted to optimize the new technology after implementation? The answer?
It largely depends on the scale and importance of the transformation. Is the technology a strategic investment, or is it a tactical solution to address specific issues?
Strategic Transformations
For significant transformations with substantial investment, it’s generally wise to review and streamline existing processes first. This ensures the chosen technology meets your needs and highlights any functionality gaps that might require additional investment.
However, if your business processes are not already well documented, or if speed is crucial, it can sometimes be more efficient to adopt industry best practices and/or align processes with the selected technology solution during implementation.
Tactical Solutions
For more focused, tactical challenges, where costs and risks are lower, a "fail fast" approach might be more practical. In some cases, the effort required to document processes and navigate procurement procedures may outweigh the solution's value. For example, instead of overanalyzing requirements for an electronic signature tool, simply adopt a widely used application and adjust processes afterward. Of course, overusing this approach can lead to a complex web of solutions, but for low-cost, quick-payback projects, pragmatism often wins.
Striking the Right Balance
Ultimately, whether to prioritize process or technology depends on your organization’s needs and goals. For strategic projects, a thorough process review can lead to a successful technology rollout. For tactical challenges, a faster, more flexible approach may be best. The key is finding the right balance to drive sustainable results.
How have you navigated process alignment and technology implementation in your experience? info@crestts.com
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