Integrated Business Planning for Agribusiness

INTEGRATED BUSINESS PLANNING FOR AGRIBUSINESS DATA SHEET

Steelwedge Integrated Business Planningfor Agribusiness

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Is there anything more critical to the global economy than its food supply? Agribusiness companies bear the signi�cant responsibility of feeding the world in the midst of incredible volatility. While facing the universal challenges of a sluggish global economy and increasing competition, agribusiness companies encounter incredible risk from climate instability, natural disasters, and growing global markets. This creates a greater need for control as they deal with issues such as:

These uncertainties require agribusiness companies to more frequently review and adjust supply plans, demand forecasts, and inventory positions. At the same time, they must implement approaches that reduce costs without sacri�cing quality and customer satisfaction. To remain successful, you must eliminate siloed processes that restrict your ability to closely collaborate with suppliers and quickly respond to demand �uctuations.

Leading information technology research and advisory company, Gartner, summarized in a recent report:

Short product life cycles: Existing chemical solutions ultimately can become ineffective to pests and diseases that grow resistant to them.

Variable seasons by crop and geography: Growing seasons vary by both crop and growing region. Many countries have multiple seasons per year.

Genetically modi�ed seeds: As the use of genetically modi�ed seeds grows, the demand for pesticides and fertilizers could be reduced. These seeds are designed to resist infestation and generate higher yields with less fertilizer.

Limited suppliers: A small number of companies maintain the capacity to produce many fertilizer and pesticide chemicals. This concentrated production network may encourage customers to �nd replacement products.

Regulatory policies: Approval of biotech hybrid seeds vary by country, complicating both supply and market side planning variables. And, evolving agrichemical technologies complicate supply and demand variables.

Organic foods: Organic foods, which restrict the use of pesticides in the production, continue to grow in popularity. As a result, demand for agricultural chemicals could drop proportionally.

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“ Market volatility in the chemical industry drives more frequent review and operating adjustments than a monthly S&OP cycle can support. Leading chemical companies are synchronizing supply planning and scheduling to enable agile translation of volatile demand into a pro�table response. Gartner, “�e Role of Planning and Scheduling in a Demand-Driven Chemical Supply Chain Response,” September 2012

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Role of Integrated Business Planning in AgriculturalBiotechnology Manufacturing

For the Sales Team:

Enable collaborative forecasting for sales reps and sales management

Align crop plan commitments to current year sales plan

Power plans at any level of detail

Integrate with sales pipeline from CRM to support opportunity management

Provide annual operating plan (AOP) visibility as part of S&OP process

View cross-functional demand plans (sales, marketing, product management, etc.)

Access reporting and analytics capabilities including through a mobile platform

For the Product Management Team:

Develop product bundle forecasts to drive mix forecasting for complex chemical products

Forecast using regional requirements to develop products that merge seed characteristics with

crop protection for better results

Provide extended functionality that will support Fixed Bill of Material (BOM), Planning BOMs or

“derived attach” rates for strategic products based on actual history or pipeline

Robust control of planning granularity with intuitive, slider-based data selection

For the Planning Team:

Drive company-speci�c planning processes with One-Click Planning™ alert-driven work�ow

Provide planning process visibility and progress reporting

Drive assigned or exception-based review policies

Integrate with ERP, SCM, CRM and �nancial systems that widely differ in their taxonomy or

granularity

Establish role-speci�c planning views, automatic semantic resolution, parent analysis and

user-driven catalogs

Leverage deep domain expertise embedded in reporting and analytics capabilities,

including mobile

The right planning creates an integrated current and future year(s) volume program plan based on top-down �nancial budget considerations, global capacity, material restrictions and customer demand. Using an integrated technology that provides insight into multiple data sources, you can:

Steelwedge Advantages for Agribusiness

With deep industry expertise and a tool set con�gurable to the speci�c requirements of the industry, Steelwedge offers unique bene�ts to agribusiness companies. The agribusiness industry is global and requires the ability to manage big data in the integrated business planning process. Steelwedge is uniquely positioned to scale to big data levels across global business units and distribution channels with a large number of products. Steelwedge provides these role-based capabilities for agribusiness companies:

Manage a global �nancial budget tied to sales numbers, revenues and operational forecasts

Maintain high-level, global visibility into external demand requirements

Anticipate internal and external supply constraints and react to long lead times for

chemicals

Optimize inventory levels and maximize customer service levels

Assess actual sales and redistribute remaining inventory according to changing demand

Allocate capacity and raw materials across multiple suppliers based on overall capacity

utilization and pro�ts

Introduce new products based on the ebb and �ow of weather, seasonality, and crop year



Steelwedge Software, Inc.

Steelwedge integrated sales, operations and �nance planning solutions provide the "shock absorbers" to recognize, recalibrate and respond in a volatile environment. Business agility starts with Steelwedge for a clear line of sight from plan to performance to pro�t. For additional information, please email us: [email protected].


Best Practice Spotlight: Global Agribusiness Leader

See data in new ways, including across both seeds and crops, as well as separately

Extract data from the system in real time

Maintain a �exible calendar that enables agility across the ebb and �ow of seasonality,

weather and crop year

Redistribute unsold inventory to meet changing demand

Keep up with currency conversions in international business

In recent years, there has been an increase in the hybridization of crops to make them genetically resistant to threats such as drought, insects, and fungus. This trend served as a growth driver for a global leader in pest management and biotechnology products, which looked to create better yield management for its end customer base of farmers growing crops for food consumption and livestock grain feed. With the need to plan seed production a full year in advance of the growing season, this agribusiness manufacturer looked to Steelwedge to help it implement S&OP technology that would enable it to understand what demand would look like in 12 and 24 months. In addition, they required in-depth supply planning for active ingredients. By implementing the Steelwedge integrated S&OP platform to replace dozens of spreadsheets and a legacy system that didn’t let it plan with the detail or timeliness necessary, the agribusiness leader can now:

Steelwedge maintains the customer’s S&OP process in the cloud to ensure scalability, and offers specialized integration tools that allow rapid integration with its ERP and other systems, enabling the agribusiness company to have a tighter focus on increasing pro�tability and service levels.


For the Executive Team:

Consolidate supply, demand and �nance views into one comprehensive model

Enable more detailed planning assumptions via relationship attributes

(e.g., customer-speci�c pricing, source-speci�c costing)

Leverage mobile reporting, which provides information at the �nger tips that is highly

synchronized with the planning data (planning analytics)



Integrated Business Planning for Agribusiness

Technology

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