Commodity Risk Management Across Your Materials Portfolio

CRU Risk Navigator was developed in response to a challenge we repeatedly heard from the market: understanding risk is often less about finding information and more about knowing what matters.

In this video, Matthew Perlman, Product Owner of CRU Risk Navigator and Senior Innovation Manager at CRU, reflects on the customer needs and market observations that helped shape the platform.

Get a concise overview of the CRU Risk Navigator, its coverage and how it brings CRU intelligence together to show changing supply and price risk.

Understand the Drivers Behind Material Risk

A changing score is a prompt to look closer. Review the factors behind the movement and the relevant market context to understand what may be driving the risk. The tool applies CRU’s connected intelligence across prices, supply-demand analysis, forecasts, asset data, market analysis, methodology and expert insight to support investigation and discussion.  

How should risk teams read an assessment?

Start with the tracked material or basket. Review its separate Price Risk and Supply Risk assessments alongside the available drivers, trend, confidence and time horizon. This context helps teams understand what may have changed and whether further investigation could be useful.

What is driving the change?

A Material Risk Profile brings together the assessment and available market context for a tracked material. It helps users examine the drivers and trends that may be influencing the assessment.

Can this support an escalation or resilience discussion?

When an assessment changes, compare the material with others you track or with a relevant basket. Review its risk drivers to judge whether the change warrants investigation or discussion.

Prioritise the Materials that Need Attention

Review changes across your tracked materials, compare their drivers and time horizons, and identify which risks to raise or investigate first.

Comparing assessments can help teams distinguish developments that may warrant closer attention from broader market activity. CRU Risk Navigator’s custom baskets can group selected materials for portfolio and cross-functional discussions.

A shared view can support commodity supply risk analysis and discussions across Commodity Risk, Supply Chain, Procurement, Market Intelligence, Finance and Management. Where deeper market detail is needed, CRU prices, Monitors, Outlooks, internal reports and analyst expertise can provide additional context.

Preparing for a leadership update

When leadership asks which commodity or raw-material risks need attention with a short turnaround, teams can use Risk Navigator to review changing assessments, available drivers and relevant horizons. This can provide a structured starting point for an update and follow-up investigation.  

Bring Material Risk into Business Decisions

Why consider CRU Risk Navigator? 

When you brief colleagues or leadership, use the raw material assessment and its supporting context to explain why a risk may need attention and what should be discussed next. A shared view of changing material risk can support more consistent discussions across teams such as Risk, Supply Chain, Procurement, Market Intelligence and Finance. 

Can leaders understand the basis for an assessment? 

Available drivers, trends, forecasts, confidence, methodology and scope information can help users examine the context behind an assessment. 

How can it support a leadership discussion? 

Teams can focus on the material or basket under discussion, summarise what appears to be changing, review the available drivers and time horizon, and identify where further investigation may be useful. This gives leaders a clearer starting point for discussing potential exposure without presenting the assessment as a guaranteed prediction or recommended action. 

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