Business Innovation Award: Digitize then Automate
Due to its achievements in digital transformation, Ceres Solutions has been named the first-ever recipient of The Scoop’s Business Innovation Award, sponsored by EFC Systems by Ever.Ag. Specifically, Ceres Solutions’ location at Crops 63 illustrates what the organization has been able to achieve in taking its ERP, agronomics and business data to elevate how it serves customers and builds a sustainable business.
In this 10-year transformation, Ceres Solutions has been able to demonstrate how the team has applied the strategy of digitizing and then automating its business.
The Seed Business Was the Starting Point
Located in Perrysville, Indiana, Crops 63 serves as a seed hub for nine counties and 150 farmer accounts.
Ceres Solutions’ seed business was the tip of the spear for the cooperative in this digital journey. The co-op represents three seed companies for corn, soybeans and wheat—with additional companies for cover crops.
By digitizing its seed business, Ceres Solutions recognized three substantial gains:
- zero shrink
- reduction in overtime
- improved employee morale
Uriah Paddock, ag seed data lead at Ceres Solutions, has been on this journey from the start.
“When the idea was brought to the team, I was a manager at that point, so I was thinking just how it would benefit my team. But now, having realized the benefits across our entire workflow—it helps everyone focus on the things that need to be focused on and stop doing mundane tasks,” he says.
Product information, pricing, invoices and orders are now all digital. AgGateway has provided a strong support network for Ceres Solutions’ initiatives—starting with seed and now spanning crop protection, energy and other areas of the business.
In-season time savings have kept Ceres Solutions in control during a hectic planting season.
“Something we do today that I didn’t think was possible 10 years ago is we have a live inventory,” says Clayton Cunningham, seed manager at Crops 63. “As soon as we dispatch something out to a farm, we have a live inventory of what went out, when and where. And then we can pull a report to see what went out that day specifically.”
And as for product ordering and delivery, having digital records with manufacturers helps both sides of the business forecast and stay updated on logistics.
“It has improved our relationship with suppliers because we aren’t calling them with a concern about a product. We’ve already kept the communication open. And if I have to make a change to an order, I know it’s received right away,” Cunningham says. “Instead of them waiting on us now to get the order to them and then having to make a plan, it happens instantaneously. The order goes in, they know, and that gives them a bigger window to build a plan and logistically figure out how to get that product to us so that it’s here when the farmer needs it.”
With the roller coaster of supply chain issues since 2020, Ceres Solutions already had the structure in place to strengthen communication with suppliers.
Cunningham excitedly shares the team no longer relies on spreadsheets, which could be cumbersome to work in and felt easily out of date.
An Appetite For Innovation
The success in implementing the new practices has the Ceres Solutions team seeking out how to further digitize the relationship with manufacturers, farmers and coworkers.
“When you’re making big changes like what we’ve made, it’s not very comfortable, and it definitely takes you out of your comfort zone,” Cunningham says. “But it’s the right thing to do. It makes our jobs a lot easier. And once we can get the team to understand that and get behind it, it’s been a great help.”
Farmer-facing advantages include just being easier to do business with.
“Our invoicing is much better—more timely, more accurate,” Cunningham says.
Ceres has ditched shared spreadsheets and filing cabinets of paperwork.
The company has worked to build 2.2 million acres of field boundaries for 450 users in its farm management information system, Agworld. In 2022, the team at Ceres doubled the number of farm plans it created with farmers.
Matt Clark, who oversees the precision ag and digital support team, says centralizing all the information and data management has streamlined how the business does things from collecting data to analyzing the data to sharing prescriptions.
“Our field records used to be in a file drawer,” Clark says. “Now, we’re able to view digital field records, share prescriptions and do everything we need to very quickly.”
The Path Forward
He says particularly in the past couple of years, doing business with farmers has changed as they seem to be more likely to engage with business partners digitally.
Clarks says farmer excitement for new tools as well as a swell of industry outreach led to Ceres engaging in a new proving ground for technologies.
Called its IoT Hub, the facility site includes a WinField Answer Plot and a new wirelessly connected field where they can assess sensors, such as those for nutrient values; pest monitoring cameras; and other new technologies.
“We’re looking at things for how it works agronomically but also how scalable is it and can easily replicate across our customer base,” Clark says. “We want to be the expert trusted adviser for technology just like we have been for seed, chemical and fertilizer.”
How This Applies To The Bigger Business
Because technology is now part of the DNA at Ceres Solutions, the team at Crops 63 says it’s core to how the site applies the company’s mantra, One Ceres.
“We’re a team. We’re all moving in the same direction that we all have the same goals, and those goals are to help each other and put our customer first. And that’s why I think the advancements we’ve made in technology have helped all our administrators, our managers and our customers,” Paddock says.
Examples of how Ceres Solutions digitizes then automates:
- Electronic ordering provides automatic order submission with the push of one button. It also provides the ability for suppliers to respond back and confirm receipt.
- Downloading product information and pricing makes Excel spreadsheets a thing of the past, and it provides the advantages of updates done automatically.
- Salespeople enter all orders, which are sent directly to suppliers. Real-time connectivity reduces human errors.
- Rogo Ag does half of the co-op’s soil sampling volume today.
- Core Agronomics is the company’s soil fertility program, which now features automated prescription writing for fertility. Those prescriptions can be reviewed by advisers.
- Added notifications in Agworld alert customers when field applications are completed. This includes a copy of the work order with any necessary EPA information.
- A three-year pilot with Solinftec is providing fleet management and logitical metrics for efficient route planning.
- Ceres has 12,000 IoT LP sensors from Ota Data across the trade territory for real-time, accurate tank-level information used in logistics and routing in the liquid propane business.
- On Sept. 1, the co-op launched Ceres price sheet, a cross-reference tool and ship notice for crop protection locations, with key partner WinField United. Ceres is also developing invoicing for seed and CPP with WinField United. Implementation is expected in 2023.
