Grain industry sales solutions with Business Objects extranet

With SA being a major contributor to the farming industry worldwide, particularly the grain sector, Business Objects, provider of business intelligence solutions worldwide, has recognised the gap in the market for technology that can effectively help grain buyers and growers increase operational efficiency and improve customer relationships.

Business Objects provides a supply chain extranet designed for grain buyers and growers, enabling farmers to extend the capabilities of online solutions, ensuring that they continue to compete in the grain industry in the area of extranet-based services.

With Business Objects, farmers have access to online services that provide customers with the convenience of doing business over the Internet. Grower customers are able to track deliveries and make transfers online, and buyer customers can also conduct transactions and process market prices online.

This supply chain extranet has helped Australian grain storage, handler and marketer, GrainCorp Limited, substantially increase overall operational success. Through using Business Objects to provide customers and suppliers with the latest supply chain information, GrainCorp believes its online initiative will continue to differentiate its services and develop closer relationships with its customers.

"We selected Business Objects after extensive evaluation over other vendors such as Brio and Cognos," said Brian Dickinson, information services manager at GrainCorp. "The information screens that will be used by growers and buyers are simple and easy to use. Also, the comprehensive security architecture and strong levels of service from Business Objects were critical factors."

The cost of the implementation was not revealed, but the extranet is expected to pay for itself in its first year of operation.

"Technology is changing faster than you can predict. If we can`t get an investment back in 12 months to two years maximum, there is no point in introducing it," said Dickinson. "The extranet gives us a technological edge in the market to provide a greater number of services and attract customers. We expect a fast return on our investment with this technology."

"We are delighted that GrainCorp has selected Business Objects to extend its already successful online services and we look forward to working closely with them to further improve their business service capabilities," said Dave Kellogg, senior group vice-president, worldwide marketing, at Business Objects. "GrainCorp has extended beyond online commerce by adding an important new service that will create even stronger relationships with their customers and suppliers."

As with GrainCorp, the extranet will provide grain buyers and sellers access to information in simple summary tables and can be broken down by site, storage, and commodity. Using the extranet, farmers are able to track business KPIs such as number of tons per man hour, cost in dollars per ton, or truck turnaround time - the time taken for trucks to get from start to finish. A truck can take an average of 40 minutes to process at one loading station, and at some terminals which process 300 trucks a day, being able to process a truck in 30 minutes instead of 45 minutes ultimately increases the return to growers.