Archive for the 'Webinars' Category

I met up with Marty Makulski this afternoon, one of two partners overseeing the Energy Supply and Trading practice at Opportune. Marty, who joined Opportune (along with fellow partner Don Jefferis) a little over 2 and half years ago, indicated that the company is seeing tremendous growth in the ETRM space.

According to Marty, the ETRM focused group has grown from 2 (Marty and Don) in December of 2007, to “more 50 people in our practice and we expect to leave the year with more than 70. At the end of next year, we expect to be over 100″. He indicated that they are seeing a lot of business coming from companies that are in need of project management skills and product specific knowledge for new system implementations, particularly for products that support crude, natural gas and power trading. “We’ve been fortunate in that we’ve been able to not only attract some of the top ETRM consulting talent from many of our competitors, but we also been able to bring on people that have deep product expertise from having worked for the top systems vendors in the space.”

Another significant line of new business for the practice is helping companies that are in the very uncomfortable position of using products that have been “end of life’d” by their vendors. According to Marty, they are helping several clients support the Tempest product and are working with several others that are facing similar decisions with other products.

Note: I have edited this post in response to a request from Opportune. Should you have any questions regarding the previous version of this post, please contact either Marty Makulski or Don Jefferis with Opportune.

It’s not too late to sign up for our online seminar - Changes in Commodity Markets: Impacts on Traders and Software held in conjunction with PGSEnergy.

To register and for more information please visit http://www.pgsenergy.com/online/u777.html

SunGard Consulting Services is presenting a webinar on “Evolving to a Single, Timely & Accurate Source of Commodities Market Data”

If multiple channels of market data, and their reconiliation, are overwhelming your organization, you should check it out. It will be next Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 2-3 pm EST.

For more information, click here.

In 2007 UtiliPoint engaged in a survey of European trading firms to benchmark the software used around typical ETRM software (billing, gas storage, hedge accounting, scheduling, asset optimization, etc.) and the IT environment on which solutions are based and supported. The survey found that European markets are somewhat immature with many different solutions being used – both commercially available and in house developed. Learn what this application landscape looks like and what problems and issues European energy trading firms face in terms of their IT and application infrastructures.

UtiliPoint will be hosting a web based seminar discussing the finding of the report, and providing specific information around:

- What applications are used and how effective they are deemed to be
- What the average IT infrastructure to support trading looks like
- What trends and issues are faced by European energy traders

If you’d like more information, you can click here.

The first of our summer webinars is now fast approaching - details below. This is the presentation that Gary Vasey gave at UtiliPoint’s Prague Executive Conference where it was very well received…

Sign up now…

May 29th 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - Market Sentiment as the New Risk Factor in Commodity Markets – How Energy & Commodity Markets Have Changed and It’s Impacts - for more details and to register click here

UtiliPoint Europe will be conducting a series of webinars through the summer in conjunction with PGSEnergy Training.

The schedule is as follows;

May 29th 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - Market Sentiment as the New Risk Factor in Commodity Markets – How Energy & Commodity Markets Have Changed and It’s Impacts - for more details and to register click here

June 26th 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - European Energy Trading, Transaction & Risk Management Integration Problems and Solutions- for more details and to register click here

July 31st 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - European Markets for Billing and CIS Software – An Appraisal - - for more details and to register click here

August 28th 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - Blogging in the Energy and Natural Resources – Are They Catching on and What Role do They Play? - for more details and to register click here

September 25th 10:00 am to 11:00 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - European Energy Trading, Transaction and Risk Management Software Markets – Characterization, Size and Trends - - for more details and to register click here

October 30th 11:00 am to Noon (U.S. Eastern Daylight Savings Time) 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm (Central European Time) - The Use of Weather Data at Energy Companies and Utilities - for more details and to register click here

December 19, 2007, 10:00 to 11:00am CST

Compliance with the now mandatory NERC reliability standards means that companies must change the way they do business today. It is no longer enough to simply perform the work necessary to comply. Companies must have the appropriate documentation that proves compliance.

To help meet these requirements and avoid steep penalties, NERC reliability standards should be incorporated into corporate compliance programs, tracked to specific business processes, included in risk assessments, and identified by internal controls.
During this webinar, UtiliPoint and NERC specialists at SunGard Consulting Services will address the following topics:

- Implications for business processes and IT systems

- Developments for 2008 and beyond

- Evaluation criteria for compliance programs

- Best practices for compliance program management

To join the webinar, you can sign up here.

A New UtiliPoint webinar covering the content of the recently conducted European survey of ETRM users will be delivered by Dr. GM Vasey on April 26th at 11am ET. To register or for more details, please visit hhtp://www.pgsenergy.com/online/u120.html

New webinar from Dr. Gary Vasey and Mr. Peter Fusaro - for more details visit http://www.pgsenergy.com/online/f114

Webinar is scheduled for March 28th from 1pm ET.

UtiliPoint and The Structure Group will be presenting a free executive seminar on the developments in the Texas Nodal Market this Thursday, March 1st. The seminar will be at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Houston and will run from 8:30 - 10:30 am. Structure will also be providing a continental breakfast from 8:00 - 8:30 am. For more information, click here.