4C partners with The Smart Cube to give its clients high-quality commodity intelligence

A consultancy firm embedded in its clients’ strategies

Even the most established procurement teams can have gaps in their commodity management strategies.

Sometimes, it might be a case of not understanding the cost bases of their requirements, exposing themselves to risk when a commodity price fluctuation causes an essential component to skyrocket in price. In other cases, a procurement team may be misaligned to the business strategy, such as having a strategy for buying commodities at the lowest price and opting for spot purchasing, potentially risking supply security, which may be of far greater importance to the business.

With so many dynamic factors in the market to focus on at once, it’s inevitable some might be missed. But that’s where consultants like 4C Associates can add value.

4C is a commercial, operations and supply chain consultancy that prides itself in understanding its clients’ goals, strategies and markets, and providing strategic advice to help manage procurement, including commodity procurement, more effectively, across sectors from Life Sciences to Consumer Packaged Goods.

The firm has expertise in helping procurement teams align their strategies with the rest of the organisation. 4C’s consultants work with clients to establish procurement strategies for commodity requirements, that help them stay resilient in their markets – such as setting up long-term agreements or creating forward and spot purchasing.

But, to make these recommendations, 4C’s consultants need access to reliable and up-to-date intelligence for the markets in which its clients operate. And that is where The Smart Cube comes in.

The Smart Cube’s Intelligence combined with 4C’s advice

4C partnered with The Smart Cube to gain access to customised, high-quality commodity intelligence to complement their analysis and business requirements. This includes market insights such as commodity pricing, historical trends, forecast trends for the next 12 months, and qualitative analysis of key factors affecting commodity prices.

“We’ve spent years investing in our commodity models, which means they have a very high forecasting accuracy,” says Yash Rai, Vice President of Procurement and Supply Chain Solutions at The Smart Cube. “Where some providers focus solely on providing only data, we look at the entire commodity market – and deliver much more action-orientated, detailed and market-linked insights to facilitate easy decision making.”

The reliability and accuracy of our models, along with our unique combination of artificial and human intelligence, now proves a genuine competitive advantage to 4C and its consultants. Armed with these insights, the company can provide a better quality of service, near real-time insights, and accurate forecasting to its growing client base.

“The Smart Cube covers a huge range of commodities, its insights are easy to incorporate into our services, and they directly support our advisory work,” says Katy Gallagher, Director and Head of Consumer Products at 4C. “With this partnership, we don’t need to invest in analysing and collating commodity market data ourselves, which means we can focus more time on delivering value specifically related to our clients’ core goals and challenges.”

A competitive advantage in times of disruption

4C are strategic partners to a wide array of clients. The Smart Cube’s intelligence enables them to assess insights from relevant commodity baskets and easily identify the clients that are most likely to be exposed to risk.

This may involve highlighting insights around commodities its clients may not consider essential to their business, but in fact, pose major threats.

For example, not all of 4C’s clients closely monitored energy prices previously, but in times of energy price volatility, they can still have a significant effect on organisations’ profits and losses. Using The Smart Cube’s intelligence, 4C were able to make purchasing  recommendations that managed, and where possible, mitigated risk for many of its clients during the peak of the energy crisis in 2022.
In times of disruption like these, the commodity intelligence provided by The Smart Cube can become hugely important for 4C’s clients. And as markets continue to become more volatile, this intelligence will only become more valuable.

“We’re trying to help our clients include commodity intelligence tracking in their business-as-usual operations and align their procurement strategies to their business’ wider objectives,” says Katy. “Working with The Smart Cube and using its commodity intelligence is helping us achieve that – providing great support to our advisory services.”

To discuss how The Smart Cube can support you with robust commodity intelligence, contact Yash Rai, and how 4C Associates could help your business leverage these commodity insights to drive procurement value, reach out to Katy Gallagher