The challenge of feeding a world population that only grows year over year is a complicated feat by itself. Once you add in today’s volatile backdrop of climate change, environmental disease, fluctuating commodity markets, trade tensions, and changing consumer tastes, the need for smart agribusiness solutions to deliver foods sustainably, profitably, and affordably has never been more intense.
In fact, the urgency for food and agriculture innovation is so high that the Union Bank of Switzerland predicts it will become a US$700 billion market by 2030. We are beginning to see the power of these investments as recent advancements – such as artificial intelligence, crop monitoring systems, extremely localized weather data, agricultural drones, and graphene soil sensors – find their way into agribusiness ecosystems worldwide.
According to Capgemini research, industry players that seed and grow their business with such disruptive technology often realize at least nine percent higher revenue creation, 26 percent higher profitability, and 12 percent higher market valuation. These outcomes reverberate across the entire value chain, including farmers, producers, and cooperatives; farm machinery and equipment manufacturers; agrichemicals providers; and food companies, originators, and traders.
Is your agribusiness ready for increasing digitalization? If your answer is “no,” maybe it is time for the SAP Model Company service for Agribusiness to help navigate the way.
What is SAP Model Company for Agribusiness?
SAP Model Company for Agribusiness is the right solution for companies operating within the agriculture value chain that want an accelerator to support a comprehensive portfolio of processes. Particular attention is given to areas such as third-party commodities procurement and sales, back-to-back trading, comingled stock, spot purchasing, inter- and intra-company business practices, washout, product transformation, risk management, and commodities analytics.
The industry-specific model company service is especially helpful during digital transformation initiatives such as the migration, conversion, or implementation of the next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP), SAP S/4HANA. Customers can create, experiment, and test their unique proof of concept in the context of a defined use case while providing a framework for learning and enablement activities.
This reference approach supplies a system of ready-to-use business process scenarios that are based on SAP Best Practices packages and SAP S/4HANA. It includes best practices and industry standards that are proven, documented, and continuously improved to address the changing dynamics in agriculture and business needs. The service also covers industry-specific scenarios such as business configuration sets and transports.
SAP brings industry best practices and standards to life with a set of accelerators, including configuration guides, test scripts, SAP S/4HANA migration cockpit, templates for master data upload, and business content documentation. The SAP Cloud Appliance Library tool quickly deploys these tools, which are then delivered through services such as handover sessions and an optional business process workshop.
Customers use the model company service to prove their concept of the implementation and encourage their entire organization to adopt the new technology early on. This approach fast-tracks blueprinting, design, and planning of the implementation project, as well as training and knowledge transfer that support the adoption, use, and maintenance of the new technology.
Transform Agribusiness Network to Feed the World Sustainably
By choosing SAP Model Company, agribusiness players can free up their talent to focus on meaningful innovation and decrease resource costs and utilization through a show-and-tell modeling system, hosted and run by SAP. They can also explore the potential advantages of leveraging standard best practices and processes, such as an agile and lean implementation that is delivered quickly and cost-efficiently.
For the agribusiness industry, this transformation can bring a new era where technology is no longer a barrier, but a driver of a connected and collaborative network. Every member of the food value chain can then realize maximum value in terms of digital capabilities, organizational insights, and industry opportunities.
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Kristian Kauffmann is global head of Service Portfolio Management for Consumer Industries at SAP.
This article first appeared on the SAP News Center.