Ag Tech Sunday - Ag Inputs Distribution: Is E-commerce the only way to go to digital?

By Fabiane Astolpho - Market Research and Market Access specialized in Brazilian Agribusiness.

See the original article here

With all the current social isolation and the obligation of being efficient, we (re)discovered and (re)evaluated some tools that help us in this matter. The most notorious one is the efficiency of virtual communication, with the good old Skype and other tools like Zoom, Webex, Hangout etc., it is unanimous the focus on meetings, the quick resolution of issues, the large number of meetings, the reduction of travel expenses, which in Agriculture sectors are large, and yet, by keeping availability to solve other problems of the distributor's day-to-day, or for the family.

And this efficiency of digital communication in this period of social isolation, leads us to rethink about digitalization in the Distribution of Inputs. And why, when we talk about digitalization in distribution, does everyone just talk about e-commerce?

· Does everyone, in your team, have notebooks to work remotely and safely?

· Do you already have the facial recognition check-in or timestamp for home-office work? (which is already legally accepted and protects the distributor from labor problems).

· Do you already have a digital signature? (which has also been legally accepted since long time).

· Do you make use of any cloud storage of your files, so that the whole team can work remotely?

· Do you already have a customer relationship portal / website, which can also interact with farmers via WhatsApp?

· Do you have your inventory and logistics digitalized and tracked, so that the customer knows when he will receive the products he bought, and where the truck is in real time?

We track what happens in the distribution of agricultural inputs in other countries, and observe that sales through the e-commerce model are still very small, and being reality for products with low added-value. We do not see a model for e-commerce in technical assistance and recommendations, as it is very different to recommend a rust fungicide, than to buy a refrigerator. But we need to remember that our farmers are the ones who use WhatsApp the most in the world. Brazilians have always been the biggest users of social networks, since Orkut. In addition, the agricultural recommendation is compared to a prescription, and many did not assume online consultation, and saw it as a commoditization of medicine. And what do we see during social isolation? We see fantastic examples of telemedicine assisting people not to overload hospitals. And, on top of that, patients crying out for telemedicine to continue, even after isolation period!

With all these facts taking place in this period, we need to rethink the digitalization of the agricultural inputs´ distribution. Do we need to have an e-commerce to be digital? Or can we think about improve farmers' shopping experiences just with what we already have? Just using chatbot with WhatsApp? Can we improve our relationship with farmers through our own portal + social network? I mean a social network of its own, local and focused on relevant information from the agricultural sector. The relationship I refer here to is the professional relationship, exchange of market information, technical assistance, recommendations, crop or year planning, as well as opportunities, campaigns, discounts. Can we scan the stock and logistics so that the farmer receives messages showing where the product he bought currently is? In other words, highlighted where Distribution adds value to customers, both in recommendation and technical assistance, in agility and in capillarity.

These tools make it possible to work with Market Intelligence, gather information and even allow to do some types of Market Research reaching your target audience (this is my cup of tea, I love it!).

Can we think about “New Retail” in Brazilian Agribusiness, without thinking only about e-commerce? Just focusing on the relationship, linking “online” and “offline”?

We need to “break” this word DIGITALIZATION in all the possibilities that it can offer us, and not just thinking about e-commerce. Because there are several possibilities that we need to explore to strengthen the Distribution of Inputs in Agribusiness, with Innovation and going through Digitalization.

I am passionate about Agribusiness and I love to discuss Business Innovation on Agro, so I will love to discuss this topic! If you also like it, we can discuss it here or in private. Just send me your ideas or questions.