en.Wedoany.com Report on Mar 26th, The grain industry is enhancing procurement efficiency and creating more profit margins for farmers through the introduction of back-office software. In a market with thin profit margins, technology applications provide multiple advantages for grain businesses.
Ali Piper is a member of the FS Grain team, which operates 18 grain elevators in northern Illinois. She points out that a decade ago, the team relied on manual processes to handle procurement information, hedging trades, and contract entry, a process that was cumbersome and prone to errors. "Then, at the end of the day, they had to manually mark this information as entered for end-of-day balance processing," she said.
Kaylee Heap, IT lead for Growmark's retail grain division, stated that the grain industry has unique technological needs to drive business value. She is leading a team to standardize software solutions, providing the group with a unified "grain stack" system. "We reviewed a curated list of software vendors and finalized a suite of products to implement across our grain companies," Heap said. "It covers commodity management, hedging, quote management, accounting, CRM, customer applications, and more."
Heap emphasized that optimizing the grain procurement process is a current priority. "Our work is to solve complex problems in a systematic way, whereas historically we relied on spreadsheets. Now, grain buyers have a more seamless experience, and due to the information available, they are now able to strengthen relationships when interacting with customers or prospects," Heap said.
Contango software is one of the partners, handling manual processes, improving efficiency, and uncovering business opportunities. Piper explained that technology addresses the complexity of selling across multiple markets. "We have several terminals, we load trains and containers, we sell into the Illinois River market, multiple ethanol markets, and several soybean processing plants," Piper said. "Contango pulls in all these quotes, providing heat maps and best quote calculations based on the farmer's location—and it's all in real-time."
The FS Grain team compared the old method with Contango's effectiveness through A-B testing. The team using technology-supported methods bought basis per bushel two cents lower than the control group. "The grain industry is a high-volume, low-margin business. Considering all the nuances and potential time delays, all those half-cents add up," Piper said. She also mentioned that the software helps the team optimize daily operations, such as creating call lists and discovering new customers.
The digital transformation of grain procurement is irreversible. Piper concluded: "There's no going back now. The process has been streamlined, and results have improved. No more needing to flip through a clipboard with 50 quotes all day." This change is driving grain procurement towards a more efficient, data-driven direction.
