Selecting and Implementing Energy Trading, Transaction and Risk Management Software - a Primer

by Patrick Reames and G Michael Vasey

Energy trading, transaction and risk management (ETRM) software solutions are the highly specialized systems used by companies engaged in the production, buying, selling, moving and managing of energy... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1419688294
• ISBN13: 9781419688294
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Booksurge Publishing
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The book delivers what the title promises

In my opinion, this book is a must-read for everybody planning to implement or implementing an Energy Trading, Transaction and Risk management (ETRM) system. You don't select or implement an ETRM system that often. Even if your organisation is fluent in selecting and implementing software, ETRM software and its market have their own problems. This book will open up your eyes to a few of them. Of course the book is full of 'I could have thought of this myself' moments too, but to think 'I could have thought of this myself' after a multimillion dollar implementation is not very comforting. The authors start with an overview of ETRM Software and the ETRM Software landscape. Who uses ETRM software, who provides ETRM software, what does ETRM Software do. Individual vendors are listed with their addresses in an Appendix, more detail is not provided. In the second section of the book they describe the selection process. This is done in a more abstract way, as the target market is quite diverse. Starting with a discussion on whether to have a 'best of breed' or a 'sole sourced' approach (DIY is not discussed) they continue through the RFI/RFP process and the software demonstrations to the negotiations. I've never been involved in this process, but my life after the selection would have been different had this book been available at that time. The implementation section is interesting too. Especially the recurring stressing of 'own your project' is apt. The client must own the project and dedicate its most skilled people to the project. And at the clients site, the business should own the project, not IT. So you should dedicate your best business people preferrably full time to the project. (You will be working with the software in the next 5-10 years, and if your implementation is less-than-best, your best people will have lost much more precious time in the end.) This section also contains information on the use of vendor resources and external consultants. Two sponsoring companies provided a chapter each, where the Deloitte & Touche chapter on testing is a gain to the book. The chapter dedicated to the use of third party integrators starts with survey results. These results show, that al longlasting projects use third party integrators, whereas half of the fasttrack implementations don't. This is explained with the complexity of the projects creating the need for external expertise. On the other hand, you could heretically ask, whether external integrators add to the complexity. (I am allowed to ask this question, as I'm a 3rd party consultant as well.) It is typical for the book, that this issue is pointed at in a paragraph titled 'No Incentive to Complete the Project'. Section 4 is on the maintenance of the system. One chapter deals with the support & maintenance agreements, the second with updates. A chapter on the client-side organization of the maintenance is missing. The sponsor responsible for the updates chapter unfortunately fail