Notes from the Allegro Customer Summit
I had the opportunity to spend some time at the Allegro Summit last month, the company’s annual event that brings together not only their customers, but also industry leaders and partners. For example, the first day of the event included a keynote address by Spencer Abraham (who incidentally recently joined UtiliPoint and our affiliated companies as an advisor), who spoke of the challenges of the current market in his talk, “The Global Energy Race”. The two day event also had speakers from Allegro’s user group and industry partner companies, including a very salient address from Trent Gall with Deloitte on the topic of the continuing use of spreadsheets in ETRM.
Eldon Klaassen, Allegro’s CEO, covered a number of key points in his opening address, including a look at Allegro’s development strategy, which includes a multi-year life cycle for their core offering, Allegro 8, and their strategy of expanding the core product capabilities through extensions, limiting the impact on current users when new functions are deployed. He also talked in some length about the new Allegro University, a new virtual training center that allows users to take more than 100 on-demand courses. This new training structure is also now integrated into their implementation methodology, allowing new customer user teams to have 24 hour access to training or to access refresher lessons – which should be very helpful in decreasing the learning curve for new customers/users.
Mr. Klaassen also talked about their new trading floor environment that they have established in their offices in Dallas. They have essentially recreated an analog of a modern trading floor, complete with running systems and data feeds. I think this a great idea, as it allows not only prospects and new customers to get an idea how their system would integrate into the trading environment, but it also allows Allegro own resources, such as implementation consultants and developers, to better understand the complexities of a real world trading floor and how their efforts can impact, and hopefully improve, the ability of traders to manage their business.
The two day event was well planned and well attended. Though most of these types of events have seen decreases in attendance this year due to economic conditions, from what I saw in the ballroom at the Four Seasons Resort and Club in Dallas, it looked like Allegro was able to fill the house.