We surveyed dozens of agriculture companies to identify their top five business challenges. While many of these challenges have been plaguing commodity traders for decades, the good news is that today’s modern CTRM technology delivers a clear path to overcome them.
Topping the list of concerns for agriculture companies we surveyed were:
1. Pricing
2. Risk/hedging effectiveness
3. Operational/supply chain efficiencies
4. Accurate & timely market intelligence
5. Regulatory compliance
It’s time to move on from data siloes and spreadsheets
Traditional commodity management consists of monolithic CTRM systems that are isolated from other systems, using only data created in the CTRM system. This approach results in data siloes, with no real-time connection between procurement, logistics, plant management, commodity trading, accounting, and other critical systems.
Companies that use siloed systems are stuck using spreadsheets to aggregate and analyze data for reporting - and manually inputting data – which is a time intensive process that often results in errors due to human mistakes.
Spreadsheets also inhibit good decision making. You cannot get real-time insight when it takes days, or even weeks, to collect all your data and run reports. But markets don’t stop for you to run you reports – so by the time the reports are done, they are likely already outdated.
Modernising CTRM
A modern CTRM systems can tie your entire value chain together on one platform, providing real-time visibility and one true picture of truth across the entire organisation. It automatically aggregates data from systems across your entire value chain – real-time, historical, structured, and unstructured data from internal and external systems including CTRM, ERP, accounting, spreadsheets, weather forecasts, market feeds, and more – to create more accurate insights and enable you to make better trading decisions.
Accessing real-time data from both internal and external sources enables commodity traders to analyze the impact of dynamic market movements quickly, identify areas of opportunity or concern, and plan accordingly – doing in minutes what used to take days or weeks.
Modern CTRM systems also takes advantage of the latest analytics tools, including AI and machine learning, enabling you to create meaningful insights quickly and easily.
Modern CTRM vs. Agriculture’s Biggest Obstacles
Solving agriculture’s biggest challenges starts with smarter CTRM systems that are tailored to tackle each of these top five challenges:
1. Pricing: We’ve seen the tremendous impact of geopolitical conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war on the agriculture market over the past several years. But this commodity isn’t a newbie to volatility. It isn’t just such geopolitical events that swing agri-commodities prices. In fact, it’s the norm for prices to constantly fluctuate due to imbalance in supply and demand, long lead times to respond to changes in supply demand, and other macro factors such as trade wars, climate change, and regulatory changes. Commodity trading companies generally hedge their commodity exposure with derivative transactions to mitigate risks. Despite hedging their risks, they cannot eliminate it entirely – which is why having an adequate solution in place to manage market price risk is essential.
2. Risk/hedging effectiveness: Accessing real-time data from across the entire value chain will give you a current, accurate, and complete view of exposure, pricing, market conditions, and more, enabling more effective risk management. When real-time data is analyzed quickly, you can stay on top of risk drivers. User-defined alerts notify you instantly when risk limits are breached, so you can take immediate action to address problems.
3. Operational/supply chain efficiencies: Modern CTRM systems connect information across your entire value chain, enabling more efficient planning and scheduling and improving operational awareness. You can track inventory at each location and maintain values in real time and use the complete view of inventory across the value chain to improve logistics and optimize movements across different modes of transport – truck, rail, barge, containers, vessel, etc. You can also match available time slots for expected deliveries to vehicle availability and reduce wait times and queues, and run simulations for freight interruptions so you know what your best options are when disruptions occur.
4. Accurate and timely market intelligence: Real-time alerts from these systems can notify you when market shifts occur and automatically collect data from external sources – Accuweather and aWhere for weather forecasts, Refinitiv, ICE or S&P Platts for market data, etc. – for real-time market intelligence. You can then use advanced analytics to analyze data, run simulations, and understand the impact of market changes on your business.
5. Regulatory compliance: New levels of automation in modern CTRM systems make compliance management much easier. They can automatically integrate with your trade repository to ensure you submit transactions and track the status in real time while meeting reporting deadlines. User-defined alerts on acknowledgements or rejections from the trade repository ensure you take prompt actions to resolve issues in regulatory reports across geographies, commodities and asset class (including EMIR, CFTC, MiFiD, ICE, MAR, Dodd Frank, and FinFrag).
Agriculture’s toughest challenges demand smarter solutions—and modern CTRM technology is ready to deliver. By replacing outdated, fragmented systems with an integrated CTRM platform, you can unlock new levels of efficiency, visibility, and control. It’s time to power your business with the tools built for today’s complexity—and tomorrow’s growth.
Facing headwinds in Ags? Learn how Quoreka’s platform approach to CTRM may be the key to your most pressing problems. Schedule a demo today and learn how our platform is solving the biggest challenges facing the ags industry
August 11, 2025
