Case Study: CME Group achieves reduced peak-capacity costs and customer behavior change with Apptio

CME Group Modeling Costs to Change Behavior

CME Group, the world’s largest derivatives marketplace handling over 3 billion contracts (~$1 quadrillion notional) and nearly $3 billion in annual revenue, faced sharply spiking electronic trading demand—often 100x–1,000x normal activity—that forced the firm to maintain at least twice peak capacity and drive rising infrastructure costs. The challenge was to understand cost drivers, measure customer profitability, and avoid continually buying more capacity while preserving service and compliance.

CME implemented Technology Business Management (TBM) cost models to map costs to services and customer behavior, partnered with customers to influence trading patterns through pricing, policies and information, and introduced a Satisfaction Index and transparent dashboards. The result: reduced processing costs without losing revenue, reinvestment of savings into customer features and security, clearer investment prioritization, and measurable architecture improvements (up to 220x gains in certain workloads) that improved performance and lowered total cost of ownership.

CME Group

Carl Stumpf

Managing Director and Technology Controller