How to Unlock the Real Value Within Your Data to Create New Revenue Opportunities
Presented By Proagrica The continuous innovations in the agribusiness industry are driving a new data revolution. Ag retailers today have greater access to data than ever before, bringing new challenges and opportunities. New efficiencies have inspired changes to workflows, partnerships and processes, while the increased access to communication tools and data aggregation systems have created the ability to find new revenue opportunities and reduce revenue loss. “The goal of data is to help make better decisions,” says Scott Cogdill, Director of Agronomy Solutions for Proagrica. For the first time, the amount of data is overwhelming and the questions of what to do with it can make or break a business. It is crucial to understand what data is important, what the data can do and how to best use it.
A successful data and analytics platform today will deliver business visibility not previously possible for Ag Retailers. To truly add value, these systems must provide up-to-date insights and meaningful data points based on both sales and customer information. These systems create the ability to make data-driven decisions and to uncover previously hidden opportunities. With these numerous benefits, there are also on-going challenges in managing and utilizing commercially focused analytics solutions. Within agribusiness, these challenges include:
Achieving integration of data sources. The need to understand and prioritize information has never been more critical, however, many Ag Retailers struggle to aggregate, or even identify, important data because their technological tools do not “talk” to each other.
Moving from ideas to actions. Collecting data points, gaining insights and then converting that into real-world actionable business strategies is a complex process. Data must be approached with the thought that it could be turned into an actionable opportunity. Today, many Ag Retailers continue to struggle with data overload and remain unable to convert their data into business gains.
Implementing strategies to scale data analysis programs. In order to gain the most value from data aggregation systems, it is important to have operational strategies in place to grow the practice of collecting and reviewing data as the organization grows and shifts.
Across the industry, agribusinesses are at various stages of understanding, utilizing and monetizing their data. “There is a mix of levels of sophistication, but most feel they have a ways to go to gain the visibility they need to move forward,” says Matt Waits, President, Ag Solutions Proagrica.
In order to turn commercial insights into an opportunity to reduce overspending and regain profitability, any tools used to support those analytics must create visibility and enhance communication. “We know it is very difficult for Ag Retailers to gain new customers because of strong loyalty between growers and agronomists. Increasing spend per customer and ensuring each customer is spending the highest percentage of their overall expenditure with you as a retailer is a vital way to improve profitability,” says Marie Kennedy, Senior Product Manager for Proagrcia. Additionally, beneficial data analytics programs will be able to identify when new customers make a purchase and help the Ag Retailer to nurture that relationship to create long-term clients.
Establishing long-term strategies for maximizing data and building supportive partnerships can enhance the value of your analytics program over time. “The right system strips out the noise and the mess to surface actionable insights from clean, reliable data,” says Ms. Kennedy. “When dashboards are easy to use, multiple roles across the business can answer their own questions rather than having to rely on a handful of super-users. Rather than having to go to each system or instance individually and run multiple reports, the platform brings the data together and standardizes it, so all users have the same single source of truth.”
Selecting the correct tool as a basis for an analytics platform is a critical decision. In making this determination, the system’s ability to provide value-add processes must be considered. The following questions should be measured:
- Does the system provide high level visibility into sales data, searchable by a variety of metrics?
- Is sales team performance tracking available, including progress toward targets?
- Can invoice information, such as open invoices by customer, be tracked?
- Is customer segmentation available?
- Does the system track performance against forecast?
Successful tools, such as Proagrica’s Commercial Analytics platform, will enhance business intelligence for Ag Retailers by tracking sales history, forecasting, benchmarking, profit margin and year-over-year sales comparisons. Proagrica’s Commercial Analytics increases visibility into sales performance at every level, as well as adding valuable customer insights. “Understanding your customer profile completely – segmentation, purchase frequency, customer churn – it will give you a clear picture of your net customer value, allow you to make strategic decisions and it will minimize risk,” says Ms. Kennedy.
Agriculture data is complicated, and the value of commercial insights should not be underestimated or unachievable. Commercial Analytics provides easy-to-use visualizations of your data, presenting valuable insights previously difficult to uncover. As part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools, Proagrica is an established organization capable of making data more connected, delivering useful insights to drive business growth and profitability.
To learn more about the opportunities within Commercial Analytics, visit the Proagrica site.