Rampant global population growth has added pressure to an already strained global food supply, which only creates great challenges for both businesses and their customers.
Now more than ever, smart data must play an integral part in the daily lives of farmers, growers and other agriculturalists, whose decisions have a substantial effect on global food production. This is the reason why SAP has seen a significant increase in new agriculture SAP S/4HANA customers that have decided to take their businesses digital.
The reason: Agribusinesses are struggling to solve difficult business challenges that have a widespread societal impact (like continuing to feed the world’s growing population). As a result, these companies are now incorporating smart-farming technology/software that is scalable – all thanks to a business cloud that can be tailored to meet specific requirements.
Farmers can implement systems in their fields leveraging sensors, models, and artificial intelligence to help make decisions based on data collected in fields, orchards, and waterways – resulting in a comprehensive “data farm” of sorts. Powerhouse economies who fail to implement and embrace this sort of technology risk losing some of their competitive edge as major food exporters.
New Zealand-based Balance is a prime example of this phenomenon. Looking to create a sustainable and viable business amongst increasing competition, Balance looked to the cloud to drive better on-site productivity and profitability for its farmers. How? By implementing real-time dashboards for each team (with full visibility over essential customer data), Balance has the right foundation in place to establish the company’s digital future.
Another example comes in the form of India’s ICHIBAN Crop Science – a company tasked with feeding nearly 1.25 billion people. Indian farmers do this with limited land, water and other resources – something that was a nearly impossible just 50 years ago. ICHIBAN Crop Science is committed to improving crop production to help local farms meet the strained demands of the growing population. Thanks to the launch of the Information Communication Technology Project as the backbone of its network, they were able to achieve product quality and timely availability, earn trust with farms, maintain cost control and maximize profits.
In leveraging the power of the cloud solution SAP S/4HANA , the possibilities are endless – from improving crop production to reducing water waste to helping local farmers better track their complex systems and maximize the yields of their farms. In effect, the cloud fosters collaboration across an extended network of stakeholders in agri-business and enables all participants to work towards feeding a growing population, thus helping deliver on SAP’s mission to help the world run better.
If you want to shape the emerging agri-business ecosystem and play a leading role in it start now and work with SAP to develop a road map for transforming your business and moving into the cloud.
Peter Maier is general manager of Energy and Natural Resources Industries at SAP
