Sapient Global Markets-Meet Our People-Commodities/Endur

Gagandeep Senior Associate

Hello, a bit about me: I am an Endur functional consultant and working atSapient Global Markets for last 8 years on many exciting projects in commodities space

Introduce yourself and explain your current Role & Responsibilities.

I have been with Sapient Global Markets for the last 8 years. I work as an Endur functional consultant and currently managing the implementation and delivery of a complex real time position & risk reporting project with a US commodities client.

Tell us about an exciting client project you have worked on at Sapient Global Markets?

I have been fortunate enough to work on many exciting projects in SGM, the most recent being the Oil Greenfield implementation for an Italian commodities major, where I played the role of a BA out of their London office. That was followed with equally exciting work on Back Office delivery for the same project

Tells us about the client problem you are solving these days?

Currently, I am working on a migration project with a big US commodities client. We are helping the client migrate their real time risk reports to a new technology within Endur V14 which are used by more than 100 users. The complexity & scale of the system brings an exciting challenge and the missing requirements bring the adventure of conquering the unknown. The project involves the migration of more than 150 custom risk and position reports from existing RTPE (Real Time Position Engine) based solution to APM (Active Position Manager) and ADS (Active Data Services) solution that is being implemented in Open Component, all of which are the latest technologies within Endur

Give us one example of your creative thinking or an innovative solution to a client problem.

Taking a recent example, we developed two tools to automate the analysis of the existing system configurations and state check. The first tool generated the configuration and structural requirements of the reports automatically, thereby reducing the analysis effort considerably. The second tool helped in identifying the changes in the configurations and code between two dates, which identifies changes between environment builds automatically; again helping in improving quality of delivery by finding differences way before in the lifecycle.

How do you see yourself growing professionally in Sapient Global Markets?

When I started, I wanted to hone my functional skills and the various BA and techno-functional opportunities received at Sapient Global Markets helped me carve out my path as an Endur functional SME. Also, I got a chance to work with some of the best experts in the commodities and Endur space; it brought a new horizon of learnings and experiences with them, thereby broadening the approach to problem solving.

How do you balance personal priorities and project commitments?

The team has creative freedom towards problem solving, and ownership is shared equally among the whole team. This brings a sense of belonging and accountability within the whole team. We try to estimate the effort based on individual’s capabilities and create plans keeping personal commitments in mind. Everybody scales up and down whenever such needs arise which helps us keep the balance between personal and project commitments.

What is that one thing which drives you to come to office every day?

Freedom to be creative and great colleagues to work with.

What message do you want to give to people joining Sapient Global Markets?

Sapient Global Markets is a great platform for people who are ready to take challenges, work hard, learn and grow. There are abundant opportunities in this company and you can shape your career the way you want.

Deepa Senior Specialist

Hello, a bit about me: I am an Endur and Commodities SME and have worked with Sapient Global Markets for 7 years. After spending 4 years outside, I rejoined Sapient Global Markets in 2014. I am extremely passionate about my work and enjoy every bit of working in a diverse and engaging company like this.

Introduce yourself and explain your current Role & Responsibilities.

I have worked in the commodities and Endur space for over 11 years. I started as an AVS developer back in 2004, when Sapient Global Markets was doing its first Endur project. Since then, I have never regretted even once working in this space and it really shaped my career and what I am today. I have had an extremely fulfilling and successful career in this space.

Currently, I work as a solution architect on a large Greenfield Endur implementation project for a North American corporation. I work from India and also manage delivery from offshore.

Tells us about the client problem you are solving these days?

Currently I am working on a Greenfield North American power implementation project on Endur. Like every migration project, it comes with its own challenges of migrating from one trading system to another. Being a greenfield project, it does give a lot of flexibility on implementation and doing the right thing instead of being constrained by existing implementations. The biggest challenge, however, is to meet the user’s expectations of getting similar results as they are accustomed to the earlier systems and the migration of existing data to the new system and reconciling everything to the last penny

How do you see yourself growing professionally in Sapient Global Markets?

During my 7 years of working with this company, I have worked with 5 different clients with diverse project experiences. I have worked with utilities in both Europe and North America, global banks, gas and oil companies. This has given me a very diverse and rich professional experience especially seeing how a product like Endur can be implemented in many different ways. This has been very critical in my professional growth.

Also, Sapient Global Markets has a strong, growth-aligned culture and never have I felt inhibited by my title to not do something I want to do. I worked here happily as an associate and I work here happily as a senior manager too.

Give us one example of your creative thinking or an innovative solution to a client problem.

Recently, there was a situation in our project where we were setting up lot of reference data manually in the system. It was quite repetitive and time consuming; a perfect candidate for automation. The solution was to build a simple automation tool which will simply do the bulk of the work for you. The amount of days it saved us was incredible though. Most problems have simple solutions if you wear your creative hats and work towards creating a solution.

How do you balance personal priorities and project commitments?

I am a full time working mother of 2 young children and having a balanced personal and professional life cannot get tougher. I think the way we think about balance is the key. It’s not something we can find a solution for once and let it be. It’s an everyday thing, like walking on a tightrope; you need to keep balance at every single step. Once we have this clear in our minds, it doesn’t frustrate you anymore. What has worked for me is having a good support system at home, being very open about my situation to my team and supervisors and not trying to do everything by myself. I want to be able to pick up my children from school and cook dinner for them every day, but I know it’s not practical, so I let others handle it and not try to feel remorseful about it. When I have to take calls in the night, I try to leave office early and take a break and then join back for the late calls. Having a few minutes for myself every day, even though it means to wake up very early in the morning, is also a critical thing for my happiness.

What is that one thing which drives you to come to office every day?

I really love my work. Sapient Global Markets is filled with people who are so passionate that it’s contagious.

I have never ever felt like making an excuse to miss work. In fact off late I have been falling sick frequently and I was really upset about not being able to work. It’s a very engaging and fulfilling environment and very conductive to people who love what they do.

What message do you want to give to people joining Sapient Global Markets?

Sapient Global Markets has a very strong culture and its people are at the core of it. So, the only message I would give to people who are coming on board is to come to Sapient Global Markets with an open mindset, be ready to observe and understand the company and to become a part of this great company without losing your self-identity. All your ideas are welcome here, but you also need to be prepared to speak up openly and act on it too.

Sheelwant Specialist

Hello, a bit about me: I have been working as an Endur functional consultant for the last 8 years at Sapient Global Markets. I am currently managing the implementation and delivery of a complex real time position & risk reporting project with a US commodities client

Introduce yourself and explain your current Role & Responsibilities.

I have been with Sapient Global Markets for the last 8 years. I work as an Endur functional consultant and currently managing the implementation and delivery of a complex real time position & risk reporting project with a US commodities client.

Tell us about an exciting client project you have worked on at Sapient Global Markets?

There are so many instances of exciting projects I worked on. I have worked with 8-9 accounts and 14-15 projects though these years.

One exciting project was with BG Group, where we had to implement their European financial oil business in Endur. The sponsors didn’t have much trust in Endur and as it was the first engagement with the client, we had to present our capability in consulting and OpenLink solution. I have done analysis in requirement gathering, solution design, and QA for the project to make it successful and overcoming several roadblocks in the initial phase.

Tells us about the client problem you are solving these days?

Currently, I am working on Endur Design and Configurations, with focus on mid office, for the project and helping the team in learning and knowledge management

Give us one example of your creative thinking or an innovative solution to a client problem.

After each trading day, the position manager of Asset Optimization group of a utility company had to aggregate the positions across hedging portfolios and then it was transferred to trading portfolio after doing some storage optimization manually. We have understood the overall process and then implemented a solution in Endur which automatically aggregates and transfer the position on daily basis This solution saved time for the position manager of the group, which helped him in devoting focus to more important activities for LNG portfolio design

How do you see yourself growing professionally in Sapient Global Markets?

I see myself growing as a functional consultant and advisor in Trading and Risk Management domain and that means to increase my breadth across other commodities and capital markets and to move vertically in consulting and advisory space to help clients in all ups and downs

How do you balance personal priorities and project commitments?

For me, it’s kind of always making the use of Steven Covey four quadrant rules – urgent and most important things I do first. Pre planning and estimates for tasks at hand also help. Flexible work hours option also help quite a lot. Over these years my work life balance has been good.

What is that one thing which drives you to come to office every day?

It’s the variety of work which brings in the chance to learn. To me, learning is also the ability to find something extra for our people to get them learn something new and different.

What message do you want to give to people joining Sapient Global Markets?

Sapient Global Markets is a great learning place in every domain. Here you will come across many challenging situations and ample opportunities to apply your thinking and skills. The open culture here is the other best thing which enables you to reach out to any one across titles and levels.