o9 Solutions, Inc. > Case Studies > Transforming Agricultural Planning with IoT: A Case Study on an American Agricultural Cooperative

Transforming Agricultural Planning with IoT: A Case Study on an American Agricultural Cooperative

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization
Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Use Cases

Supply Chain Visibility

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

The customer is an American agricultural cooperative of over 700 growers, specializing in the cultivation of cranberries and grapefruit. The cooperative was struggling with disconnected and siloed commercial and financial planning systems, which were manual, time-consuming, and prone to errors. The lack of visibility and collaboration between business functions led to planning in silos and significant delays in completing the annual operating plan. The cooperative also faced challenges in incorporating future factors impacting the financial forecast into the planning, particularly the lack of multi-currency scenario planning.

The Challenge

The American agricultural cooperative, consisting of over 700 growers of cranberries and grapefruit, was facing significant challenges in its commercial and financial planning processes. The existing systems were highly siloed, leading to disconnected top-down and bottom-up plans. The process of closing gaps was manual and time-consuming, resulting in prolonged planning cycles. The financial planning process was highly manual, prone to errors, labor-intensive, and lacked visibility into the underlying assumptions. There was also a lack of granularity in incorporating future factors impacting the financial forecast into the planning, particularly the lack of multi-currency scenario planning. Furthermore, the lack of visibility and collaboration between business functions led to planning in silos and significant delays in completing the annual operating plan.

The Solution

The cooperative adopted the o9 platform to automate gap detection and enable an initiative-driven approach to gap closure. The system actively managed assumptions based on changes in the business climate and projected related impacts to the overall P&L, providing visibility and eliminating guesswork. The platform also enabled the cooperative to perform scenario planning with a high level of granularity, considering key factors influencing the financial outlook such as business challenges, growth assumptions, and future effect rates. This was particularly beneficial in addressing challenges related to the COVID-19 contribution margin. The o9 platform's Enterprise Knowledge Graph was leveraged to integrate various planning functions across the organization, reducing overall end-to-end planning cycles and increasing visibility and efficiency. The platform replaced Hyperion Essbase and Excel systems.

Operational Impact

The implementation of the o9 platform brought about significant operational improvements for the cooperative. The automation of gap detection and the initiative-driven approach to gap closure eliminated the manual, time-consuming processes, reducing errors and improving efficiency. The ability to perform scenario planning with a high level of granularity allowed the cooperative to better anticipate and prepare for future business challenges and changes in the financial outlook. The integration of various planning functions across the organization through the Enterprise Knowledge Graph reduced overall end-to-end planning cycles and increased visibility and efficiency. The cooperative also benefited from the excellent user experience of the platform, which facilitated high user adoption across the organization. The open architecture of the o9 platform allowed for customization to fit the organization's needs, making it a future-proof solution.

Quantitative Benefit