Energy and non-energy commodity markets are evolving into data-driven markets. When a trader needs to make an important business decision in a timely manner, he or she will need to collect then manipulate available market or internal data, using it as the fuel for the decision-making engine. There is no doubt that data quality is at the core of making well-informed business decisions; however, manually checking for data quality is a daunting task.
To guarantee more accurate data for their analyses, traders need an automated process to standardize and distribute data. Otherwise, wrong decisions, along with missed opportunities to act on trades, could be costly or even harmful.
Providing accurate and standardized data in large volumes can be complicated. Data validation, process automation, and the transformation of data into information to be fed to end users must be done in accordance with the latest and generally accepted principles of data management standards. Data hygiene is at the core of a powerful trading system that dictates the pace and power with which traders and risk managers make their decisions. Here, I present the top three data hygiene practices that are constantly requested by our clients in energy and commodity trading.
1. Centralization
Our clients in commodity trading often ask us to update the parsers list and storage of our data warehouse to be able to capture the data as soon as it becomes available. As the speed and volume of trading data increase at an astounding pace, we at ZE have had to adjust to the standards of global commodity traders so our clients can lead in the market. That is why ZEMA’s Data Manager tool (DM) was developed. DM is a centralized scheduling tool that fully automates the collection of data from any internal or external source. DM builds a single access to all the required data while simplifying the importing process. By collecting any data report needed, we offer our clients unrivaled global data coverage along with an ever-growing storage capacity to allow peace of mind and enable them to focus on trading.
2. Validation
As expected, business decisions must be made from clean, validated data in trading. That is why regularly scheduled checks must be performed to ensure data hygiene. ZEMA’s Data Validation tool (DV) enables the ability to perform data checks based on a variety of rules. This functionality can be applied to any data report, real time or scheduled. Traders can set up customized requirements and schedule times to execute the data check and validation, which ensures the quality of arriving data. DV handles data integrity via automatic checks for completeness, correctness, and timeliness of trading data.
3. Administration
In trading, it is essential that the validated data gets to the right users at the right time in the right business unit. After data is centralized and validated, it must be distributed to designated end users in their respective units. That is why our clients want to ensure each trader is fed with the right data related to his or her operational domain as soon as data becomes available. As such, administering the right trading data to the trader was the backbone philosophy behind developing ZEMA’s Admin Console tool (AC). AC is a unique tool that can ensure that cleansed data are sent to the right trader at the right time. AC provides a single sign-on option and protects and manages users by providing them with security and reporting for all the trading data that are stored in a secure yet centralized warehouse. Additionally, AC allows traders to designate and manage permissions within their business units, tailored to specific requirements of that unit.
ZEMA Solution
The ZEMA solution is an end-to-end enterprise data management software solution with a proven record in energy and commodity trading. Knowing the importance of data hygiene firsthand from working with well-seasoned commodity traders, ZEMA for Traders puts a special emphasis on data cleansing. As a result, traders can spend more time on trading and less time worrying about managing data. To learn how ZEMA can help you with your data requirements in trading, book a complimentary demo. It will surprise you to know how easily clean data can transform your decision-making engine.