GrainCorp harvesting the benefits of SAP SuccessFactors installation
Australian agribusiness GrainCorp says it has achieved “a huge leap forward” and a significant reduction in costs after completing a process to replace a number of manual and disparate HR systems with SAP’s SuccessFactors platform.
The move is one of a number of tech-driven priorities for Sydney-based GrainCorp, which operates the largest grain storage and handling network on the east coast of Australia, including more than 160 grain receival sites and seven bulk grain port terminals. This helps more than 10,000 growers of wheat, barley, canola, sorghum and specialty commodities to turn their grain into foods and animal feedstock, and to connect with customers worldwide.
GrainCorp’s Chief People and Transformation Officer, Cate Hathaway, says a move from in-person to online quality control training sessions company saved approximately $1 million. Meanwhile, reported employee satisfaction levels with the recruitment and onboarding experience soared above 90%, while GrainCorp also experienced 20% faster onboarding of new hires.
“SAP SuccessFactors has been a huge leap forward in the technology we use to engage our workforce,” said Hathaway. “We brought in hundreds of permanent employees and thousands of seasonal workers on-time and within budget, while facing the greatest global talent shortage in the past 50 years.”
Impressively, these results were recorded against challenging weather conditions, supply chain disruptions and ongoing structural challenges created by the global pandemic.
“We have the data to understand and act on moments that matter within the employee lifecycle,” Hathaway says. “We can better identify and nurture top talent, and proactively conduct workforce planning to mobilise talent for peak business periods, such as the Australian harvest season.”
GrainCorp also worked with Eka, a digital transformation specialist in commodity management, to create a Supplier Collaboration Portal which Eka integrated into GrainCorp’s SAP ECC platform across four different locations. This helped GrainCorp to create a framework for price establishment, as well as efficient contract management and documentation.
GrainCorp is also accelerating into the developing world of artificial intelligence (AI), which it believes has the potential to transform the industry via large-scale data analysis. This has the potential to improve management of natural capital, inputs and operations.
It has commissioned Katrina Swift, a grain farmer from Parkes in New South Wales, to study these opportunities as part of its Nuffield scholarship program.
“Rather than seeing AI as something to be scared of, I’m excited to embrace this technology and learn off the back of other industries,” Swift says.
“I’m keen to see improvements in biodiversity monitoring, crop inputs and management of data gathered in the course of our routine operations, to drive better economic and environmental decisions on farm.”
GrainCorp’s General Manager of Sustainability, Michael Anderson, says investing in the future of sustainable and innovative agriculture is a top priority.
“We’re already using artificial intelligence and similar technologies to change and improve our operations, and recognise the role they can play in supporting sustainable agriculture,” he says.