Fendahl sees a very hectic market for CTRM and related software now, says Henry Thornalley of Fendahl. “There are some very large RFP’s doing the rounds at the moment and there was no summer slowdown in activity this year,” he told me. However, what I found interesting was Henry’s view that sales cycles are not decreasing. In an era where many opt for cloud-based solutions, you might have expected sales cycles to decrease as firms adopted more of proof-of-concept approach to procurement. “In certain regions, sales cycles appear to be increasing and quite often decisions get deferred,” he told me. “Having said that, we are involved in larger deals as well and these naturally tend to take longer to close.” He went on to say that in certain regions outside of the US, sales cycles seem to be more complex generally. This may well be due to the increased amounts of types of due diligence required because of various regulations. Politics are not just making traders lives more difficult and riskier but vendor’s too it seems as they are questioned over issues like where date is stored, whether they have customers in certain countries and so on. Henry says that… continue reading