Personally, I don’t mind early mornings as long as they come accompanied by a rich espresso, something readily available in all central markets. I was reminded just how good the coffee is at an early morning meeting last week with a major market agent, where we were re-designing the way in which buyer relationships can be improved using digital technologies.

Just like good coffee, digital technologies are there to serve us. Served right, they have the power to give us back that most precious resource of all – time.

Markets generally have not been built around human time, indeed people have been made to fit the markets. But now we can make the markets more human and more time friendly. The digital passport to more personal time is in your pocket (phones) and in the cloud (the internet). So why not put them to work?

The HiveXchange is bringing trade relationships between market agents and their customers into a digital world. A lot of trading is done between known parties in our central market system. Those relationships can be converted to digital relationships – where price queries, orders, and requirements can be efficiently established and managed through our trading platform. We have a saying here, “you don’t have to touch it to trade it” and that is especially true for many wholesale relationships.

When you trade in a digital environment, messaging replaces phone calls, face to face visits can be replaced with images and information, fixed hours are replaced with always open hours, and location no longer matters. Actions can be automated for both the buyer and seller, and they can be scheduled to suit your lifestyle preferences. A range of risks can be managed “offline” and information delivers a range of management benefits too numerous to describe here.

The digital opportunity can be quite a difficult thing to get your head around – that is, you really can do more, with less, and get more control over your personal time.

Central markets are vibrant marketplaces with great coffee, and may they stay vibrant for many years to come. But for me at least, having the option to share a coffee with my family in the morning is life enhancing as well as good business. There is a time to work and a time to live, we are committed to helping market participants achieve more of both.

Thanks,
— Antonio Palanca