30,000 people from over a hundred countries gathered in Orlando to be a part of SAPPHIRE NOW 2019, SAP’s annual three day celebration of business and technology. SAP is helping organisations combine operational data and experience data, to help them discover new growth initiatives and lead in their industries. Dave Scullin from Ballance Agri-Nutrients, Tony Costa of Bumble Bee Foods, and Helle Huss from KMD, discuss their businesses’ journeys.

Dave Scullin: We’re finding the demographic of farmers in New Zealand changing. And that demand for a great digital experience increasing over time.

The farming demographic is changing – younger ones are coming through, farms are getting larger and more complex in New Zealand. There’s a lot more corporate farming. And they’re demanding 24/7 access to information, they’re demanding an easy way of doing business with us. They’re demanding what I term a unique blend of customer experience e-commerce type capability and agri-tech capability.

So that’s why we’re investing, and that’s why I’m pleased to be seeing SAP invest in bringing experience and operational data together at scale.

Tony Costa: The great customer experience for us is increased trust in us as a brand, that we provide the highest level food safety, transparency, in sustainable caught seafood.

Transparency does matter to the consumer. They want that relationship with a company like Bumble Bee; they want full traceability of their product, and they want to know exactly what they’re eating.

So the experience economy to us is providing that value-driven experience for our customers and our retailers.

Helle Huss: The employee experience is also very important. So whenever we develop new business solutions, we always take the point of: what is actually the user experience that you want to achieve, in order to increase the use of the solutions or technology that you’re actually implementing? Because if you don’t understand the user needs of whatever system in the enterprise: usage will go down, and you will have the manual processes taking over.

And so, it’s very much at the core when we develop new solutions, to understand the user journey: their needs, and their behaviour, in order to design the best solution.

The New Economy: For these innovators, adapting to the experience economy is the next digital disruption. And it’s going to completely transform their industries.

Tony Costa: The future as we see it is, the whole supply chain relationship is completely changing. The way that we interact with our suppliers, our retailers, and even the consumer – leveraging technology to balance that relationship is critically important as we move forward.

We really think we’re just scratching the surface of the capabilities. We’ve had a great positive feedback and uplift just in culture, to see that we are doing what we say we’re going to do. Lead the industry in transparency, and providing that to our consumers and our retailers. And our true focus is around food safety and food quality.

Dave Scullin: At the moment we sell nutrients, we manufacture nutrients and animal feed, and we sell them to our farmers.

Ultimately I think we’ll move to an outcomes-based business model where we take control of the whole supply chain. Farmers will pay us for those pasture outcomes or those crop outcomes or those animal outcomes. And we’ll be responsible for managing their pasture to the optimum level, based on weather data, historical fertiliser plan and agronomy data. Soil health data. And the whole way we work with our customers will be very digitally-centric.

Helle Huss: The core of our business is really our ability to understand those user needs. If you don’t understand how to build in behaviour from consumers or employees, you won’t be able to sell.

Many top executives are not born as digital consumers; they may be afraid of technology, they don’t have the experience and the background. And if you don’t have that, how can you develop actually a clear strategy, and new business models.

Therefore it’s extremely critical that top executives get on board with this technology. It’s not frightening. And try to understand – maybe not the bits and bytes of the technology, but more: what can the technology can do, in order to help transform their businesses, and not lose out on competition.