Combining web and app platforms to provide transparent information to global customers in opaque markets
CM Group is a consulting company that provides supply-side commodity analysis, specialising in metal and mineral industries. Their independent industry analysis and market insights use rigorously collected data and sophisticated models to help clients get ahead of the competition.
The Digital Embassy was approached to redevelop and extend a multi-platform solution that would help inform global traders in bauxite about current pricing trends and provide additional information about current global bauxite mining activity.
In addition to providing real-time feedback of changes in this commodity market, the solution would need to support subscription functionality as traders are required to register to access CM Group’s information on this market.
Our solution, The Bauxite Index website, provides a tightly branded and responsive platform that offers a seamless user experience, excellent content management ability and incorporates our own YourApps customised applications to power sophisticated mapping functionality.
In order to fulfil the requirements for the Bauxite Index and Map solution, CM Group needed us to:
The Bauxite Index website was built as a news and content service providing access to real-time reporting of the current state of the bauxite commodity market and the CM Group Bauxite Value in Use Index (CBIX ViU), the world’s most widely quoted bauxite index.
The platform integrates a subscription paywall via a member login portal that gives users access to in-depth analysis of the commodity market. After subscribing and logging in, users are given access to analysis reports that provide detailed information about global bauxite activity and activity on related commodity markets, helping them make sense of the fluctuations in global pricing.
To support The Bauxite Index, The Bauxite Map was developed as an additional subscription service that provides geographic information on all current bauxite mines and deposits. The Bauxite Map is built using YourMaps, a custom mapping solution developed by The Digital Embassy.
Google Map coordinate locations are identified in the YourMaps console and then additional information is added, making the location point more informative to the end-user. In this case, users of The Bauxite Map can view a map of all current mining and refinement locations and find additional information such as the name of the mine and quality of the output.
The new WordPress CMS extensively simplifies the content management process, while it also further extends CM Group’s management ability.
A custom Users Management area within the CMS allows CM group to easily keep track of website administrators with varying levels of privileges, as well as to track all their registered members. From this area, they have access to data such as membership sign up date, days until expiry and last login date.
Finally, to make the user management process completely seamless, we built functionality for CM Group admins to send emails to members directly from within the WordPress CMS at the touch of a button.
Since going live, the refreshed Bauxite Index website and newly developed Bauxite Map site have provided a professional and highly functional solution for CM Group and their subscribers. The professionally presented and highly functional solution has delivered a new avenue for subscribers to regularly access to find out the latest changes in global bauxite markets.
