Since rolling out our flagship Delivered Wood Raw Material Price Benchmark for the US South in 2006, Forest2Market has continued to develop a series of innovative and analytical solutions for the global forest value chain. The product proved to be such a valuable tool that we now offer the same benchmarking service in Eastern and Western North America, Brazil, Scandinavia, the Baltics and western Russia.
In 2017, we launched SilvaStat360, a technology-enabled business intelligence platform that provides Forest2Market customers with the on-demand data and tools that are most important to them. As we continue to add new features and functionality to the platform, we are pleased to introduce the second generation of the Delivered Wood Raw Material Price Benchmark for North and South America, as well as the Baltics.
This product launch follows other web-based products that we’ve introduced over the last two years, including Madison’s Lumber Reporter, The Beck Group’s SawmillTQ, the Economic Analysis tool, the Precipitation tool and the popular Timber Supply Analysis 360 forest inventory interface.
The new Delivered Wood Raw Material Price Benchmark tool provides an interactive full-spectrum view of millions of historical, actual timber transactions and the individual delivered price components that comprise them. To account for differences in the market, there are two separate sections designed specifically for subscriber needs: 1) Delivered Fiber 360, which includes total fiber data regardless of product type (chips, roundwood, particles), and 2) Delivered Logs 360, which details log data.
Subscribers can compare their prices to the larger market in order to initiate better decision-making and planning, improve performance and drive profitability. Subscribers use the Benchmark service to:
- Track price changes and identify trends in a dynamic market
- Negotiate raw material and residual price changes
- Determine specific pricing for preferred raw materials
- Gain efficiency in raw material sales or acquisitions
- Secure and stabilize supply agreements
- Meet growing demand for emerging technologies
- Improve vendor loyalty and relationships
- Compare pricing to the market at large
- Quantify raw material revenues/procurement costs by component
- Measure results against the broader market
- Identify performance improvement opportunities
- Establish facility and individual performance objectives
- Determine intra-company transfer prices
Dashboard
The product’s dashboard view provides interactive charts and tables that help users visualize geographies and the data that correspond to their mill facilities, including historical data on product, price and volume. All of this data can then be viewed on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.
Users can view mills across the globe or select a region, sub-region and market area, then drill down to analyze specific products and performance over time. The charts are interactive so users can easily add/remove products from the display area and then sort and export the data based on their own individual needs. They can also include/exclude their individual mill facilities and even change the filter criteria based on delivered price basis, unit of measure, roundwood form, currency and more.
Mill to Mill Analysis
The Mill to Mill analysis tab allows users to further drill down into the data and compare their performance directly to individual competitors in the market. Using the same filter criteria, subscribers can analyze their delivered costs components by area and product, including fiber cost, freight cost and “other” associated costs. The charts are interactive and can be filtered and displayed by price component.
The Delivered Price Components by Mill chart displays individual mill performance, which allows subscribers to directly compare their cost components and delivered prices to their peers. The chart is also interactive and can be filtered and displayed by price component. The highest performing mills achieving the lowest delivered cost are included on the far left of the chart.
Consumption
The Consumption tab is a feature that is unique to the US South, which allows subscribers to see their individual delivered price components by consumption volume compared to the market. Like the Mill to Mill analysis chart, the delivered price by mill chart at the bottom of the page shows individual mill performance compared to the market as well as price components for each mill that are sortable by consumption volume. Also, like the Mill to Mill chart, the highest performing mills achieving the lowest delivered cost are included on the far left of the chart.
Inventory
The Inventory tab subscribers in participating regions to see their onsite and offsite inventory, as well as price, compared to the market. In the Historical Inventory vs. Price chart at the top of the page, users can view this data by month and can also select and deselect the data and trend lines they want to see displayed in the chart. The Inventory Summary by Area chart allows subscribers can see current onsite and offsite inventory compared to the market, as well as inventory by area compared to the market.
Just like the other individual analysis tabs, users can use the filters to choose the criteria they wish to display in the interactive charts.
All of this data can be analyzed in methods that are most beneficial to each individual user and users can save search filters, download the datasets and customized images, or print charts right from their screens.
The new Delivered Wood Raw Material Price Benchmark represents the continued evolution of the only transaction-based performance benchmark for the global forest value chain. When used in conjunction with the other analytics available on SilvaStat360, the Delivered Wood Raw Material Price Benchmark adds new levels of functionality and performance to the digital platform, which is the only tool that allows you to access all of this data in a single place.