F4F welcomes a number of new buyers and sellers to the trading community in August, including Dowdens Pumping in Queensland, Agriseeds in New Zealand and Inghams Enterprises spanning New Zealand and Australia. As the need increases for more efficient business operations, so does the internal and external drive for order to cash (O2C) process automation, one of F4F's three core activities.

RD1 is New Zealand's largest rural supplies retailer servicing dairy farmers and a one-stop-shop for all farming and lifestyle solutions. So it's no coincidence that when F4F initially approached the New Zealand agriculture industry about electronic messaging, RD1 was amongst the first to put their hand up. After several initial meetings, a pilot project was under way and in April 2011, RD1 were live with two of their suppliers.

Being a new process for RD1 the project was not without its challenges - however F4F was there to support RD1 with their broad experience in integrating even the most complex systems. Now enjoying the efficiencies that are gained through electronic messaging, RD1 are seeking to further capitalise on their F4F investment by commencing F4F projects with their larger suppliers. Through F4F's close relationship with the global operations of many New Zealand companies, setting up initial commercial and technical meetings and getting projects under way was not a problem.

The benefits of electronic messaging have been tried and tested in many agricultural industries around the world. In the current marketplace, where an efficient supply chain is paramount, there is no place for unnecessary manual processing of orders, invoices and other documents. To remain competitive both in the domestic and global markets, electronic messaging is an essential consideration for New Zealand agribusiness and with RD1's bold first steps, this goal is closer than ever.

WebSupplier version 2 was launched in Australia in March 2011, making available many new capabilities for buyers and sellers alike and improving the speed and "look and feel" of the application.

All existing users of WebSupplier, who have been using the system from as far back as 2005 with their customers Elders, Landmark, Ruralco and IHD (and members), were migrated from version one to version two earlier in 2011. New sellers (suppliers) will begin using WebSupplier from April on the version 2 system.

The new WebSupplier provides all the same features as the earlier version, plus a number of new features that have been requested by our clients including:

1. Remittance Advices
2. Monthly Statements
3. Credit Notes
4. Goods Received Notes
5. Invoice Approval Status

The new functionality requires buyers and sellers to meet certain data requirements before they can be switched on and F4F will be working with buyers and sellers over the next 12 months to help them get the most out of WebSupplier.

Dodson & Horrell has chosen to connect with F4F to help drive forward a range of new supply-chain initiatives aimed at improving service and productivity. D&H is one of Europes leading horse feed manufacturers and an internationally respected authority of animal nutrition, which export to 40 countries world-wide. In addition to the horse feed range D&H also manufacturer dog, pet and traditional farm food.

Speed, efficiency and quality are paramount to D&H, so partnering with F4F will help the business connect directly with customers and suppliers IT systems. This will allow D&H to automate the order to cash cycle, exchange quality and testing data and maintain full traceability. Utilising F4F will enable D&H to continually improve customer service and business performance investments delivered through the web, which we believe will help D&H maintain its market leading position.

“As one of the leading animal health wholesalers in the UK Trilanco is always looking for new ways of better servicing its customer and making business easier to do”, says Gary Molloy (Trilanco Business Systems Manager).

“Trilanco has been aggressively investing in its internal systems and web services over the last couple of years and so choosing to work with F4F was a natural choice due to their penetration of the UK agricultural and equestrian marketplace.

Through F4F we are able to receive electronic orders from any customer and able to submit invoices to the F4F partner base. Trilanco are always looking for new ways of further improving its service and business processes and taking advantage of being able to automate our order processing and support customers with better invoice management makes complete sense”, says Gary. F4F is delighted to welcome Trilanco to the community and is looking forward to helping them maximise their connectivity and value.

The New Zealand agribusiness community, in conjunction with F4F APAC and GS1 New Zealand, has now completed the definition of data requirements and standards for eBusiness in New Zealand agriculture. The requirements and standards, based on the existing F4F and GS1 standards, enable buyers, sellers and other supply chain participants to commence eBusiness in New Zealand in a consistent way that supports the future of supply chain in a lowest total cost approach.

Bayer Healthcare (Bayer) healthcare have recently engaged F4F to expand the scope of their Betaferon web portal. The portal, which went live in mid 2010, takes orders from Pharmacy customers via a web-browser, takes credit card payment and provides information from Bayer back to their Pharmacy customers.

The primary deliverable, which went live late 2010, was the integration of the portal into Bayer's SAP system. Cost savings and process efficiencies have been delivered by the project, which automated the placement of orders into SAP and also automated the delivery of order status information back to the portal and to the pharmacy customers.

Agrinet Limited based in Centurion South Africa is a supplier of industrial products, agricultural requisites and related products to retailers and industrial end-users in Sub-Saharan Africa. Agrinet's direct involvement with more than 500 agricultural retail outlets in South Africa, establishes the company as a leading supplier of irrigation products and general industrial requisites on a wholesale level in the region.

Agrinet, in conjunction with First4Farming South Africa, are currently rolling out an integrated solution to all of their suppliers. The process will cover orders, order responses, goods received vouchers, invoices and invoice status updates between Agrinet and their supplier base of approximately 400 suppliers.

In order to cater for the large scale and rapid rollout, a two pronged approach is being adopted whereby suppliers can either opt for a web trading portal or for direct integrated solutions for the various message types. This approach allows for a fast rollout to all suppliers and the achievement of Agrinets goals to trade electronically with all of their suppliers by October 2010.

A number of sites have been chosen for testing on both the web trading portal and the fully integrated solutions. Feedback and responses from all engaged have been very positive. Suppliers engaged to date have noted that the web trading portal dubbed web supplier 2 is an easy tool to use. With a previous version of web supplier deployed in South Africa web supplier 2 has been enhanced in order to cater for feedback received from the suppliers in making it more user friendly.

The process continues through August and September with national road shows with groups of suppliers in order to inform, educate and enable the suppliers to trade electronically with Agrinet.

Jaco Kriel (Financial Director at Agrinet) notes: The solution is moving along nicely with positive feedback received from the majority of suppliers. The integration project is just one of a number of initiatives that Agrinet has embarked on to streamline the business process and contain costs. Further items identified by the suppliers in the group sessions will be investigated and may be added to the solution going forward.

Helena Korb (Project Manager at Agrinet) states, The project and approach has allowed for a faster adoption of an integrated trading solution than was previously thought possible. Although much work still needs to be completed, we are excited and encouraged by the progress to date.

Bayer Healthcare (Bayer) recently chose F4F to create and host their Betaferon web portal. The portal takes orders from Pharmacy customers via a web-browser based portal, takes credit card payment and provides information from Bayer back to their Pharmacy customers. Bayer desired the portal to create an even stronger relationship with their Pharmacy customer base, whilst at the same time reducing their impact on the environment by automating the fax ordering process.

Bayer chose F4F to deliver the portal as F4F passed their global security requirements, was the most cost effective solution and had existing infrastructure which could link to Bayer's SAP system. Bayer reported that F4F supported their requirements well, met all deadlines on time, met Bayer's standards and that they would work with F4F again if the opportunity arose.

Since the portal go-live Bayer has realised the expected cost savings and manual process automation, tracking of orders between Bayer and Pharmacies has improved, and traffic to other Bayer value-add websites has increased. Bayer have now engaged F4F to link the portal to their SAP system to further drive cost savings and to automate the delivery of information back to their Pharmacy customers.

Dow AgroSciences LLC, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, is a top-tier agricultural company providing innovative agrochemical and biotechnology solutions globally. The company, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, has worldwide sales of $4.5 billion.  

Dow AgroSciences has been a customer of F4F Agriculture in Australia since July 2004 utilising the industry standard b2b transactional document exchange solution with their major distributor customers. In a recent announcement Dow AgroScience has selected F4F to deliver its b2b requirements in the New Zealand market also, leveraging the same system interfaces as they already utilise for Australia.

Glen Andrews, Managing Director for F4F Agriculture in Asia Pacific, in making the announcement, noted that it was particularly pleasing to see Dow expanding the utilisation of their existing solution. “It makes logical and economic sense for the substantial business that Dow has in New Zealand to re-use the same mappings, the same schemas, the same platform, the same back office connectivity as we have already deployed for Dow AgroScience in Australia” he stated.

Glen Andrews, Managing Director for F4F Agriculture in Asia Pacific is delighted to welcome Becker Underwood Pty Ltd into the F4F community in Australia and New Zealand.

The Becker Underwood Group is the world leader in the development, manufacture and marketing of biotech specialties, bio-pesticides, seed enhancements, legume inoculants, and turf and landscape products. Becker Underwood will commence their activities in the F4F community by implementing b2b transactional document exchange with their distributor customers in Australia, with a view to utilising the same solution in other territories over time

Beiselen GmbH (www.beiselen.de), one of the leading private agricultural commercial businesses in Germany and neighbouring countries, has selected F4F Agriculture to implement business document exchange with their major suppliers. Beiselen, founded in 1890, started with the production and sale of fertilizers and has today become a modern commercial enterprise for the core businesses of fertilizers, crop protection, seeds, agricultural products, foils and binding twine, as well as for products for home and garden requirements.

During its 100 years and more of history, Beiselen has experienced continuous change and has regularly embraced new developments. As the only self-sufficient and independent commercial enterprise in Germany, Beiselen has actively accompanied customers and suppliers in the agricultural field on the journey into the future, and will continue to do so.

“Continuous improvement in all business areas is driving the company: therefore it was the next logical step to use F4F, as the leading provider for eBusiness solutions in the agricultural industry, to improve business processes in our supply chain”, says Ralf Tannhäuser, project manager for eBusiness at Beiselen.”

June 2010