Enhancing Field Force Effectiveness

in Agri-Inputs Industry
A Practitioner’s Perspective
As per a McKinsey report, the US $5 trillion Food and
Agribusiness industry is set for a significant growth. By
2050, the human calorific demand will increase by 70%
and crop demand for human and animal feed
will increase by 100% . Correspondingly, agri-inputs
industry, consisting of fertilizers, pesticides, seeds,
crop insurance, credit etc., is set for a significant
growth. For example, the pesticides industry has
grown from US $10 Bn to US $ 50 Bn from 1960 to
2018 . In some of the regions, such as India, agri-inputs
market is expected to grow in double-digits in the
near future .

The field force teams are involved in

activities such as demand generation, demand
fulfillment, product development trials, etc.,

Field force teams of agribusiness firms have

a significant role to play in realizing the above
mentioned growth opportunity. By its very nature,
agri-inputs business is distribution intensive. The field
force teams are involved in activities such as demand
generation, demand fulfillment, product development
trials, etc., which form critical part of the value
chain and have direct impact on revenue.

Digital transformation of field force can add a lot of

value in the agri-inputs industry. In particular, mobility
and associated initiatives for field force can bring in a
significant value addition in terms of data aggregation,
analysis and corresponding action. However,
execution of digital transformation of field force,
especially in agri-inputs industry, is fraught with many
challenges.

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IT leaders in agri-inputs industry grapple with
many ground level issues such as :

Poor adoption rate of digital initiatives by field employees

Due to very nature of the business, many of field force representatives work remotely in
the agri-inputs industry. Also, the work is seasonal, which results in regular churn of
employees. Moreover, as many of the field workers come from farming back-ground,
they may or may not be very IT savvy. These issues lead to significant adoption
challenges. The mobile app shared with the employee may have best of the features, but
these do not get adopted by field force causing a lot of friction between IT leaders
and business leaders of the organization.

Diversity of mobile devices

As Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) is becoming a norm in the industry, IT leaders are
confronted with the challenge of making their applications work on multiple mobile
device configurations. This issue is particularly acute in agri-inputs industry, where teams
are spread far and wide across a given region and use practically the entire spectrum of
devices and OSs. The IT leaders have to accommodate multiple OS versions, multiple
device form factors and telecom-networks to make their digital assets perform optimally.
This causes a significant amount of issue in roll-out and adoption of digital initiatives.

Fast data aggregation, analysis and dissemination

Since agriculture is a time-critical business, IT leaders are faced with a challenge that as
soon as all the data is assimilated from various sources, it needs to be aggregated,
sanitized, analyzed and shared with relevant stakeholders fast. If the time window is
missed, then it will be difficult for the organization to benefit from the entire digital
transformation exercise, and the ROI will be impacted.

02
One of the ways to address the above challenge is to have a multi-tiered solution approach consisting
of robust mobile applications, pre-built analytical platforms and adoption support. In Visionet, we
call it the MEGA (Mobility, Education, Geo-spatial analysis and Adoption Support) solution
framework. This solution framework consists of following key components

1 Mobility
Robust mobile apps with offline storage information which can perform well in low network
conditions are a must. Field executives in agri-inputs industry brave some of the toughest working
condition in any industry. Hence, they need to be supported with appropriate mobile app
infrastructure that resonates with their working environment. The apps have to be visual, should
not require too much of data typing and should be intuitive to understand.

1 2 3

Concept in Action: A remotely located supervisor needs to look at the information of the field
executives. He can do so by logging into the mobile app with customized key performance indicators
as shown in the screenshot #1.
The field executive can be given intelligence, reminders and on-the-go information as shown in
screenshots #2 and #3.

mortgage.visionetsystems.com 02
03
2 Education and Training
Since many of the workers in agri-Inputs industry work remotely, training provisions on digital
transformation initiatives is critical to ensure that the field force team members understand its
importance. In the agri-inputs industry, a structured training initiative is a must.

1 Help Desk connect with

2 Via Screen share app access
3 Provide required tranning
Field Representative FR’s mobile Screen to the Field Representative

Concept in Action: As shown in the diagrams, the user of the field force application should have
seamless access to the application support for any training and troubleshooting requirement.

3 Geospatial Analysis
Agri-Inputs industry by its very nature is
dependent on environmental factors, which
in turn depend on location. In our
experience, we have seen a lot of value
creation in agri-inputs industry by
juxtaposing the field data with a live
digital map for geospatial analysis. Impact
of variables such as weather patterns,
insect infestations, seed germination ratios,
etc., came out clearly by undertaking
geospatial analysis.

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Concept in Action: The application should allow the Field information to be plotted on the actual
geographic location as shown in the diagram. Geo Spatial analysis is an important tool to
strategically analyze the emerging patterns and respond to them in-time.

4 Proactive Adoption and Monitoring

Teams which can proactively reach out to field team members for supporting them, remotely take
control of mobile apps, guide them on day to day usage, monitor their usage and can speak in
a language which is familiar to them, are as critical for the success of the digital transformation
initiative as features of the mobile app.

1 Help Desk monitors the Field Representative

2 Follow up with the Field Representative
activities based on client’s standards ensure they meet the client’s expectation

Concept in Action: : A help-desk routinely monitors the usage of mobile apps among users. It
pro-actively reaches out to the field executives who are not using digital assets and trains them,
ensuring better adoption. In agri-inputs industry, most of the time there are no “common” offices for
supervisors to meet the team members and ensure digital adoption. Hence, digital monitoring
and training of field employees greatly improves the chance of successful adoption.

05
Visionet has successfully used its MEGA
framework in multiple countries and it
is currently being used by 10,000 + field
users across the globe.

Conclusion :
Digital transformation of field force is usually on top of the agenda of many IT leaders.
However, agri-inputs industry is different from other industries in terms of the
complexities it faces due to distributed nature of business, seasonal factors, education
level of field employees etc. Hence, in agri-inputs industry, just providing a mobile app
to field force alone will not address the issue. A comprehensive MEGA approach
consisting of Mobility, Education, Geo Spatial Analytics and Proactive Adoption
Monitoring can bring the desired result. In our experience, a combination of field force
solution, which helps in aggregation of information, combined with data analytics
in which we overlay data of publically available sources on top of organization
performance, has created a tremendous value for our clients.

i. “Global Agriculture’s many opportunities”; McKinsey 2015

ii. “Evolution of the Crop Protection industry since 1960”; Phillips McDougall; Nov 2018
iii. “Agri-inputs firm expect double digit growth in sales, net profit in 2019”; Business
Standard; April 2019
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776 085 8534

send us an email on :
VSPL@visionet.com