During Wednesday's GEAPS Exchange Online Conference, Becky Newell, president, and Scott Frappier, pre-sales architect, both with Levridge, shared the importance of adopting technology for your feed and grain facility.
Ag businesses are facing mounting pressure to increase profits while ensuring better pricing, higher efficiencies, and a more personalized experience for growers, customers and suppliers. During the session, Newell and Frappier said embracing technology will strengthen the position of your operation for ongoing success.
Newell said agribusiness are going through a lot of change technologically in a very short time span.
“There’s still a lot of physical locations and a lot of people who prefer to do their feed and grain business in person,” she said. “There’s a lot of physical paper – contracts, equity information, etc. And there’s a lot of homegrown software systems that, when consolidations occur, have to marry and talk to each other, which is not always easy.”
The world in general, however, is transitioning to more online portals, more self-service models, and agribusinesses will have to adapt to keep up.
“Sometimes, we just get used to what we’re doing and don’t realize there’s a better way to do,” says Frappier. “Sometimes it’s the younger generation coming in and saying, ‘this is what we’re used to.’ There’s many reasons that adoption begins to happen.”
Newer platforms and newer technology are a big shift for some business, but it’s worth the investment, says Newell. “The value of technology is significant,” she says.
She notes the following reasons for adopting newer technology:
- Business Insights – dashboards allow you to drill into key metrics and improve your marketing
- Real-time data – this allows you to know what your inventory or where your equipment is at any given moment helps save time and offers better insight to data
- Integration to the world – business partners and customers will require you to be more interactive and integrate into different systems for faster data, faster automated payments. This increases customer satisfaction – the number one most important thing, says Newell.
- Modern toolset for your team and staff – helps with attracting and retaining the younger generation, and helps the older generation do their job better.
- Online self-service portals – help customers help themselves and empower your growers. Newell notes that not everyone wants this, but at this time, some do want self-service and won’t do business if you don’t have it
“There’s so much opportunity out there and it’s really cost-effective to update your systems,” says Newell. “There’s so many creative solutions to tap into that can help with return on investment for your business.”
For the full educational session, click here. GEAPS Exchange Education Sessions will be available online for 30 days and can be viewed with a registration.
SPEAKERS
Becky Newell, president, Levridge
Becky Newell, is a founder and president of the agriculture technology firm Levridge. Her background includes 14.5 years at Microsoft working as a developer on Microsoft Dynamics business technology products Dynamics GP and Dynamics AX. She has extensive experience on the Microsoft Dynamics platform development team, learning the foundation of the product and how to develop in a team atmosphere. Becky also co-founded technology consulting firm Stoneridge Software in 2012, serving as a Vice President of Development. She grew up in Onida, SD where her family still farms, raising wheat, corn, sunflowers and beef cattle.
Scott Frappier, pre-sales architect, Levridge
Scott Frappier is a Pre-sales Architect of business systems, with specific focus on Microsoft technology platforms. He is uniquely adept at working with organizations of every kind to solve business challenges through process improvements and application of the best fit technology. Scott has a passion for in tackling the unique challenges in Agriculture, from both an industry and platform perspective. He has 20 years of experience with Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft business technology, including both at Stoneridge and Levridge. Over that timespan Scott’s experience includes many roles such as developer, project manager and vice president and independent business owner. He is well known for his technical depth and ability and has worked on many high-profile implementations across the country.
Levridge is the leading software choice for businesses in the agriculture industry who want to become more productive, efficient, and streamline operations in one single system.
