1. IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Energy
Trading and Risk Management 2013
Vendor Assessment
IDC Energy Insights: Worldwide Oil and Gas IT Strategies
IDC Energy Insights: Utility IT Strategies
V E N D O R A S S E S S ME N T #EI240388E
www.idc-ei.com
J i l l F e b l o wi t z
IN THIS EXCERPT
F.508.988.7881
The content for this excerpt was taken directly from the IDC
MarketScape: Worldwide Energy Trading and Risk Management 2013
Vendor Assessment (Doc # EI240388). All or parts of the following
sections are included in this excerpt: IDC Opinion, In This Study,
P.508.935.4400
Situation Overview, Future Outlook, Essential Guidance, and
Synopsis. Also included are figures 1 and 2.
IDC ENERGY INSIGHTS OPINION
Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA 01701 USA
The energy trading and risk management (ETRM) solution vendor
evaluation in this study is based on a comprehensive and rigorous
framework that assesses vendors on current capabilities and future
strategy. This evaluation includes a quantitative and qualitative
assessment supported by exhaustive, practical feedback from energy
companies using ETRM solutions to assess vendors. For this
assessment, IDC Energy Insights evaluated nine vendors: Allegro,
Amphora, Aspect Enterprise Solutions, Brady, Murex, OpenLink
Financial, SAS, SunGard, and Triple Point. According to our research:
● Besides the basics, energy companies want ease of integration,
user friendliness, and rich functionality — especially associated
with physical delivery.
● Over the past two years, vendors have moved to expand their reach
through pursuing more asset classes, acquiring functionality in
adjacent spaces, and expanding partnerships with professional
service firms.
● Features and functionality will continue to be the mainstay of
energy trading and risk management applications. Of note this year
March 2013, IDC Energy Insights #EI240388e
IDC Energy Insights: Worldwide Oil and Gas IT Strategies: Vendor Assessment

2. are logistics, oil and gas management, credit risk, compliance
readiness, mobility, analytics, and geospatial visualization.
IN THIS STUDY
With the development of the identification of new energy resources,
new regulations on commodity trading, the emergence of new
exchanges and energy products, and the need to understand exposure
to trading partners, oil and gas companies, utilities, merchant
generators, hedge funds, and financial services companies need a way
to understand the state of ETRM technology. This IDC Energy
Insights study is intended to help buyers of energy trading and risk
management software applications in their selection of ETRM
applications.
The evaluation is based on a comprehensive and rigorous framework
— the IDC MarketScape model. Vendors are assessed relative to the
criteria and one another. The analysis highlights the factors expected
to be the most influential for success in the market in both the short
and the long term. This assessment discusses both quantitative and
qualitative characteristics that explain success in this market.
The focus is on ETRM, rather than commodity trading and risk
management (CTRM), which encompasses other commodities such as
agricultural products and metals. The physical aspects of energy
trading are an important part of trading for those that have or take
possession of the commodity, so these are treated in some detail.
This study is composed of two sections. The first part involves
definitions of the characteristics that IDC believes lead to success in
energy trading and risk management. These characteristics are based
on buyer and vendor surveys and key analyst observations of best
practices. The second part of this study provides a visual presentation
of multiple vendors in a single bubble-chart format. This display
concisely exhibits the observed and quantified scores of the reviewed
vendors.
The document concludes with IDC's essential guidance to support
continued growth and improvement of these vendors' offerings.
#EI240388e ©2013 IDC Energy Insights

3. Methodology
IDC Energy Insights' IDC MarketScape criteria selection, weightings,
and vendor scores represent well-researched IDC Energy Insights
judgment about the market and specific vendors. IDC Energy Insights
analysts tailor the range of standard characteristics by which vendors
are measured through structured discussions, surveys, and interviews
with market leaders, participants, and end users. Market weightings are
based on user interviews, buyer surveys, and the input of a review
board of IDC experts in each market. IDC Energy Insights analysts
base individual vendor scores, and ultimately vendor positions on the
IDC MarketScape, on detailed surveys and interviews with the
vendors, publicly available information, and end-user experiences in
an effort to provide an accurate and consistent assessment of each
vendor's characteristics, behavior, and capability.
Market Definition
ETRM applications are involved with trading physical and financial
energy commodities and include transactional and analytic
applications used in the front office, midoffice, and back office. These
applications cover business processes from deal capture to settlement
and include trader tools, risk management, credit risk management,
bidding and pricing strategy, forecasting, settlement, and logistics.
Logistics depend largely on the commodity and its origination and
delivery point and include pipeline nominations, power scheduling,
and shipping (see Figure 1).
Vendors have been building up extensive capabilities in areas adjacent
to ETRM. These are primarily in the areas of generation asset
modeling, contract management, chartering and vessel operations, and
supply chain.
©2013 IDC Energy Insights #EI240388e Page 1

4. FIGURE 1
Energy Trading and Risk Management Applications
Source: IDC Energy Insights, 2013
Inclusion Criteria
To be included in this worldwide IDC MarketScape, a vendor must
have over $10 million in revenue and operate in more than one region.
Companies must offer functionality in at least two of the following
areas — deal capture, risk management, scheduling, nominations,
logistics, and settlement — and at least two energy commodities —
power, natural gas, natural gas liquids, coal, crude oil, and refined
products.
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5. SITUATION OVERVIEW
What's New in Energy Trading and
Risk Management
OTC and Transparency Regulation
The dust has finally settled, at least in the United States, on new
regulations for transparency in the commodities markets. The Dodd-
Frank regulations are in place and companies trading in energy
commodities are affected, whether or not these companies are major
swap participants (MSPs) or swap dealers (SDs). In fact, one utility
company stated that it is building out Dodd-Frank reporting capability,
even though it did not qualify as an MSP or SD, simply because it
trades with a number of smaller utilities and it believes that being able
to report to a swap data repository will be an incentive for smaller
utilities to trade with it.
In Europe, European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) went
into effect August 16, 2012. Technical standards were expected by the
end of 2012, with expectations that by 2013 companies should be
ready on reporting. In addition, energy companies may have to be
prepared for regulation of high-frequency trading — MiFID II — and
wholesale energy market integrity and transparency to address market
abuse — REMIT. Due to the nature of regulation in Europe, it may not
be possible to litigate against the regulations (such as in the United
States where CFTC position limits regulations are under injunction
due to a lawsuit). In both Europe and the United States, trade
repositories will not have ultimate responsibility for the quality of the
data — companies participating in the trades will.
New Resources in New Locations
By now, almost everyone in the industry is familiar with the latest
forecasts by the IEA that the United States will overtake Saudi Arabia
and Russia as the world's top oil producer by 2017 and become a net
exporter of oil by 2030. The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy
Information Agency has provided evidence bolstering this conclusion
with its finding that crude oil production increased by 790,000 barrels
per day from 2011 to 2012, the largest increase in annual output since
the beginning of the U.S. commercial crude oil production in 1859.
Much of this growth is being driven by development of
unconventional resources. With unconventional resources, there are
new logistics challenges. There may not be pipeline infrastructure in
place to transport oil or gas from newer fields to storage or processing,
so energy companies have to turn to truck transport. Where there are
pipelines — for gas, for example — there may be less pipeline
availability or the need to optimize gas storage. There is also a debate
in the United States whether natural gas, in the form of LNG, will be
©2013 IDC Energy Insights #EI240388e Page 3

6. allowed to be exported. All this is to say that there are significant
changes to the supply chain.
FUTURE OUTLOOK
IDC MarketScape ETRM Market Vendor
Assessment
The IDC MarketScape vendor assessment for the ETRM market
represents IDC Energy Insights' opinion on which vendors are well
positioned today through current capabilities and which are best
positioned to gain market share over the next three to five years.
Positioning in the upper right of the grid indicates that vendors are
well positioned to gain market share. For the purposes of discussion,
IDC Energy Insights divided potential key strategy measures for
success into two primary categories: capabilities and strategies.
Positioning on the y-axis reflects the provider's current capabilities and
how well aligned the provider is to customer needs. The capabilities
category focuses on the capabilities of the company and product today,
here and now. In this category, IDC Energy Insights looks at how well
a provider is building/delivering capabilities that enable it to execute
its chosen strategy in the market.
Positioning on the x-axis, or strategies axis, indicates how well the
provider's future strategy aligns with what customers will require in
three to five years. The strategies category focuses on high-level
strategic decisions and underlying assumptions about offerings,
customer segments, business, and go-to-market plans for the future, in
this case defined as the next three to five years. In this category,
analysts look at whether or not a supplier's strategies in various areas
are aligned with customer requirements (and spending) over a defined
future time period.
Figure 2 shows each provider's position in the vendor assessment
chart. A provider's market share is indicated by the size of the bubble.
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7. FIGURE 2
IDC MarketScape Energy Trading and Risk Management Vendors
Source: IDC Energy Insights, 2013
Vendor Profile
Triple Point — Solid Product Offerings, Steady Growth
Triple Point has come a long way since the company first started
selling energy trading and risk management software. The company
has shown consistent and impressive year-over-year growth. By our
estimate, company revenue has increased almost nine times over what
it was in 2004. Growth is organic but has also been boosted by
acquisitions. Triple Point's customer base is primarily companies with
over 2,500 employees. Triple Point's roots are in oil and gas, and oil
and gas companies make up a higher proportion of customers than
utilities. The company also has a sizable amount of revenue from other
industries, especially customers that deal in multiple commodities —
©2013 IDC Energy Insights #EI240388e Page 5

8. agriculture, metals, recycling, and so forth — as a CTRM player.
Triple Point is ranked as a Leader in this IDC MarketScape.
Triple Point's stated product strategy is to "provide solutions that
deliver full automation/integration, visualization, and intelligence
(analytics) across multiple commodities and regions, from upstream to
downstream." The company has done this through:
● Acquisitions. For the past several years, acquisitions have added
to Triple Point's capabilities in ETRM and in adjacent spaces. In
addition to past acquisitions (ROME, Softmar, TradeWell,
Enerbility), recent acquisitions have extended the company's
portfolio in the areas of supply chain management and planning
(WAM Systems) and coal and mineral supply chain optimization
(QMASTER).
● Internal development. New features being developed include
expanded SDR connectivity, enhanced nominations for the rack,
expansion of risk to include conditional VAR, PFE and economic
capital, asset optimization for generation and natural gas storage,
and functionality to support natural gas liquids (NGL).
Triple Point continues to advance its technical architecture. Triple
Point's service-oriented architecture is well established. Now the
company is moving into cloud, Big Data and analytics, and mobility:
● Cloud. The company has been working over the past four years to
move clients to a cloud platform. Triple Point's development
organization, quality assurance team, and sales demonstration
group all use Amazon's cloud computing environment to build,
test, and demonstrate Commodity XL. The company is in the
process of moving its entire internal computing environment to the
cloud.
● Big Data and analytics. Like most ETRM providers, Triple Point
is enabled for grid computing. The company has recently been
certified for Oracle's Exastack for Big Data and Analytics.
● Mobility. Triple Point is building out one mobile application per
quarter. A recent addition is the Mobile Inventory Navigator,
which allows personnel to view supply points, view feasibility
plans, and update quantities while in the field.
Customers are satisfied with Triple Point overall. The customers
interviewed by IDC Energy Insights expressed satisfaction with the
ease and simplicity of deal capture and position management,
capabilities for confirmation and straight-through processing (STP),
and the low number of IT personnel required for support.
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9. St re ngt h s
Over the years, the company has grown up in an organizational sense,
adding key personnel, building out the organization structure, and
developing partnerships. Many companies that grow rapidly do not
grow their management structure to meet the needs of a larger
business, but this is not the case with Triple Point. New executive staff
includes a vice president of Corporate Development to vet acquisitions
and a senior vice president of Global Product Development. Sales and
marketing are organized on a regional basis, with industry
segmentation within each region. Triple Point has also added
significantly to its professional services staff, especially in emerging
markets. The list of Triple Point partners is impressive. It goes beyond
marketing partnerships to reseller relationships, bench development at
professional service firms, and integration. For example, customers of
SAP can use SAP level 1 support for all issues because Triple Point
and SAP have worked on joint development and integration.
O ppo rt un it i e s
With Triple Point's acquisitions, there is a lot of room to grow into the
customer base with more offerings. At the same time, Triple Point is
extending to new markets — it recently opened an office in Latin
America. It will be a testament to the company's leadership if it is able
to continue to develop, integrate, and sell existing and adjacent
products while broadening its markets.
Triple Point customers we interviewed noted that they would like to
see Triple Point strengthening ongoing support. In particular, they are
interested in online support, help with integration, technical
documentation, and faster resolution of issues. Triple Point is
addressing these issues through several new in-place initiatives — a
Triple Point University for customers, centralization of account
management, and closer collaboration between customer support and
software engineers.
Competitive Summary
At first glance, what continues to be striking about this evaluation is
that there is a great deal of parity among the vendors in this market in
the Leaders and Major Players groupings. This is in large part due to
the attitude of the industry toward software in this market. The
industry is willing to pay top dollar for applications in this space and
demands the latest in technology because speed and scalability are
important and the stakes are high. There is a demand for applications
built on the latest and most advanced technology. Automation is not so
much about efficiency as it is about opportunity and risk mitigation.
Regulation will also play a key role going forward. Further:
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10. ● The Leaders. Leaders are characterized by having a rich set of
functionality, ease of application integration, scalability, and a
relatively long history in ETRM. All of the IDC MarketScape
Leaders are able to support multiple commodities and have strong
physical delivery capabilities. Leaders have demonstrated growth
and have solid plans for the future.
● The Major Players. Major Players are more diverse in their
approach. This rating includes smaller cloud players, commodity
specialists, and analytics experts.
ESSENTIAL GUIDANCE
Actions to Consider
● Use this IDC MarketScape to develop a short list of vendors for
consideration. However, note that the weightings used in this study
may not apply to your company's priorities and requirements, as
they were developed with a range of buyers in mind. For example,
you may be interested in the cost savings and convenience of a
SaaS approach, which will influence your decision to put Aspect
Enterprise Solutions at the top of the list.
● When considering a major upgrade of an existing application, take
time to look into alternatives. There may be some situations where
a major upgrade is equivalent in time and effort to a change to a
new application provided by a different vendor.
● Expect the market to be somewhat stable for the next year or so as
vendors continue to integrate acquisitions. Assess whether
acquirers can articulate a road map that provides integration
milestones in addition to product development and plans to
enhance customer support.
Actions for Vendors
● Continue to look for growth in emerging markets. There may be
more activity in those markets as some trading companies look to
trade in markets that are not subject to regulation being
implemented in the United States and Europe.
● Invest in developing methodologies and tools to speed
implementations and upgrades. Work to improve integration, given
the large number of applications tied to the ETRM.
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11. LEARN MORE
Related Research
● Business Strategy: The CIO Agenda: IT Solutions and Technology
Priorities — Results from the Western European Utilities Survey
2012 (IDC Energy Insights #EIOS01V, January 2013)
● Worldwide Oil and Gas Industry 2013 Top 10 Predictions (IDC
Energy Insights #EI238363, December 2012)
● IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Oil and Gas Professional Services
2012 Vendor Assessment (IDC Energy Insights #EI237328,
October 2012)
● Perspective: Energy Trading and Risk Management — Hurry Up
and Wait (IDC Energy Insights #EI235528, June 2012)
Synopsis
This IDC Energy Insights report is intended to help the buyers of
energy trading and risk management (ETRM) software applications in
their selection of ETRM applications. The evaluation is based on a
comprehensive and rigorous framework — the IDC MarketScape
model. Vendors are assessed relative to the criteria and one another.
The analysis highlights the factors expected to be the most influential
for success in the market in both the short and the long term. This
assessment discusses both quantitative and qualitative characteristics
that explain success in this market.
According to Jill Feblowitz, IDC Energy Insights vice president,
"Leaders in ETRM are characterized by having a rich set of
functionality, ease of application integration, scalability, and a
relatively long history in ETRM. All of the IDC MarketScape Leaders
are able to support multiple commodities and have strong physical
delivery capabilities. Leaders have demonstrated growth and have
solid plans for the future."
©2013 IDC Energy Insights #EI240388e Page 9

12. Copyright Notice
Copyright 2013 IDC Energy Insights. Reproduction without written
permission is completely forbidden. External Publication of IDC
Energy Insights Information and Data: Any IDC Energy Insights
information that is to be used in advertising, press releases, or
promotional materials requires prior written approval from the
appropriate IDC Energy Insights Vice President. A draft of the
proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC Energy
Insights reserves the right to deny approval of external usage for any
reason.
Page 10 #EI240388 ©2013 IDC Energy Insights