Carl Kinghorn, who leads production for the ERP division of EFC Systems by EverAg, says it’s imperative for software to enable work to be done as it should be—not as it always has been. He shares some examples of how technology has brought forward tangible changes for ag retailers.
He says the software development team is focused on trying to help their customers (ag retailers) help their customers (farmers).
“We have an amazing set of people who are out there listening to what our customers are saying, and then we’re listening to those trends in the industry to try to marry the two things together to ensure that we’re coming up with a solution that not only meets an individual customer’s need, but also what can we do to help drive that market forward to really help them, possibly with things that they don’t even know that they need,” he says.
Kinghorn notes technology and data are bringing opportunity for ag retailers to digitally transform their business.
“How do we take the way things have been done in combination with the knowledge that we’ve accrued through all the time that we’ve been doing this and turn into a real solution that can actually make a tangible change,” he says.
If a “digital transformation” sounds intimidating or intense, Kinghorn suggests to focus on the value it presents.
“I think we sometimes will talk about the tools before we’re talking about the value. The value of digital transformation is a really critical a baseline to have before we talk about like the specifics,” he says.
As an example he shares using data to drive decisions for the next time or the next season and make the business better and stronger.
One advantage of becoming more technologically equipped is it puts the data collection closer to where the work is being done.
“We’ve got better tooling that allows our customers to do their business where the work needs to be. This is about the trends in mobility, so once we gather the data, we can take the data and fit a lens on it so we can see how we can do better. Having tools for the operational side of the business is great, but moving from an operational focus to finding the right intersection of the operational tooling and the insights that you need at that moment. That’s where my mind lives quite often: where are we now and how do we continue to push forward,” he says.
