OpenLink, the global leader in trading, treasury and risk management solutions for the energy, commodities, corporate and financial services industries, held its 2016 Global Summit in New York last week. Central to the event was OpenLink unveiling its plans for the Cloud, which received a very positive response and excitement from its global user base. The findings suggest the approach of widespread Cloud adoption by traditionally on-premises enterprise environments.

The OpenLink Global Summit brings together trading, treasury, risk and IT executives to hear about the latest technology and product developments, as well as to meet, network and exchange ideas with peers, development teams, OpenLink senior management and partners.

This year’s event was extremely successful, with 408 attendees representing 84 client companies and 11 OpenLink partners. The Summit was held at the prestigious New York Marriott Marquis, located in the heart of Times Square. Featuring 14 customer best practice presentations, key topics included:

• Trends in treasury cash management
• Market outlook on the energy and commodities landscape
• Leveraging data through analytics
• Transaction management for operators of pipelines, fractionators and storage facilities
• Modernization of the trading environment
• Meeting the challenges of financial services regulatory reform
• Keeping up with the demands of the global Treasurer
• Optimizing collateral management
• Consolidated risk and hedge accounting

The highlight of the Summit was OpenLink CEO John O’Malley announcing plans to launch OpenLink in the Cloud. Over the past year, OpenLink has created a Cloud Solutions Group, headed up by Bloomberg’s former Global Head of New Business, Scott Rompala, and conducted 50 in-depth client interviews into demand and market readiness for Cloud services.

John O’Malley said: “It is at the core of OpenLink’s mission to continue to find strategic and technological solutions to help optimize our clients’ businesses. Every client we have spoken to over the past year has articulated a major initiative to move at least some portion of their trading environments to the Cloud, and virtually every new business discussion includes a Cloud element. We are working in close collaboration with our clients and will be launching early next year. Clients will be able to do things they never thought possible and derive an even greater competitive advantage from using our solutions. It’s a very exciting time in the development of OpenLink.”

“With the backdrop of ever-increasing adoption of Cloud solutions in the wholesale energy and commodities markets, OpenLink has unveiled a well-planned and holistic strategy that offers a clear, near-term path to the Cloud for their existing clients and prospects,” said Patrick Reames, Managing Partner of Commodity Technology Advisory, LLC. “Further, they’ve been able to combine Cloud technologies with their strengths in risk management and analytics to create a unique product offering for the space.”

The keynote speaker was Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author of the New York Times bestseller “The Power of Habit” and new book “Smarter Faster Better.” Duhigg spoke on the science of productivity and the power of focus and innovation, driving some big conceptual ideas into eye-opening insights that can be reflected and utilized in our daily routines.