What is everyone connected on? What isn't connected? What do we do to get connected?

-Last three messages developed in 2019, and no one has implemented changes yet. 

Update message:
Ship Notice, Invoice, Price Sheet, PMR, Order to Bookings, Replant, Transfers, Returns
 -Bayer is live on most, replant is on the calendar to begin, and transfers are in development. Implementation for returns and transfers is generally expected to be ready September of this year for 2023 (returns), and early next year (Transfers).
    - Natasha - can returns be pushed and focus on Transfers? 
    - Kim - IT has started on returns, so they're running with it
    
Bayer - when bayer gets requirements, they try to create documentation and sample files so that it can be researched  while development is under way, in order to help reduce wait for software development. 
   - call set up for messages on returns, and they're looking at Transfers. 

Land O'Lakes - all messages are live with primarily two allied providers. Replant, transfers, and returns have been built first on their web evolved platform. Those just went live recently. We would probably not initiate any of those until we know we have a partner ready to implement those. 
     - Ann - within the web based portal that the retailer would key information into manually to utilize replant, returns, and transfers at this moment?
     - Jim - we would present that information to them, yes. If there was a partner ready to utilitize it, it would be a while. We've spent the last year and a half focued on the CVP side, so that's where the efforts have gone. Our primary customer base is 24 providers, so the pivot was to get functionality out on Evolved. Most retailers we work with are never going to have B2B capabilities. I would like to know what the interest and opportunity is so we can plan for 2023.

Syngenta - Ship notice, invoice, and PMR are established. A lot of what we do is on the chem side, so as we move more to seed side, we can build more. We're on our second year right now. It's a slower expansion, though there is interest in speeding up. It's new for everyone on our side. Replant, transfer, and returns is something we want to be a bit more stabilized on the booking side of things before we put that in the pipeline. I don't have a timeline on that
   - Ann - Where are you with price sheet?
   - There's been a lot of interest in the last six months. Besides the pricing on billing, we don't have a real price sheet, as things are more manual right now. We're just seeing so much more interest, and we're getting a lot of information to upper management that this is wanted. This is in the same bucket as replant, transfer, and returns. 
  
  -BASF - not at all
   - Corteva - partially

Retailers:
   How many are interested in those last three messages?
     The Equity, Key Cooperative, and Co-Alliance. Growmark at some point, but resources are a hinderance. 

   The Equity - we would connect every possible thing we can to every possible seed vendor
    - Ann - have you branched out of seed?
    - Natasha - I don't feel we can. We're stuck on what identifier we're going to use, and frustrated we don't have a GTIN
   - Co-Alliance - same answer. We're connected with everything we can, and just waiting.
   - Growmark - we are connected as we can be, and as the opportunity arrises we try to add them.

    - Key Cooperative - We are fully prepared on all message. All of our crop protection ship notices from our supplier are electronic, which is amazing. It does all the conversions for us which helps our counter staff and helps our counter staff. We use the GTIN if it's there, and if it is not there, we are using Winfield on all of our crop protection. We use their propriatary identifier if there is no GTIN available. 

   - Ann - the retailers are trying to connect as fast as the manufacturers are ready to implement. Those are the two biggest hang ups for the retailer, as we are at the mercy of the provider to help us bridge that gap.

 - That's how crop protection has done it for years. 

 - How do we move the mark? How do we get additional retailers? How do we get them to connect?

•    - the more retailers we have, the faster we can push for changes
     - we've talked about doing seed treatment
      - will require tracking and reporting. If we put the message together and it takes four or five years to implement, will it be done in time? The mark won't move without active participation?
  
    - How can retailers help move that mark?
     - Manufacturers - how can retailers help?
       - Bayer - you have to get in front of the right people, people who understand the decision makers. You need to get new contacts. Everyone here is familiar with how valuable it is, but we need to build outside this group to other partners who may not be as familiar with some of the standards that are available today. What are the opportunities? other Ag conferences and shows? The annual farm show held in Iowa or Illinois? That could be an option. That approach needs to be looked at. 
             - Ann - it feels like we aren't getting people to walk in the doors, new people. How do we branch outside of that? To get them interested in AgGateway?
       - A lot of it is coming out of ground level, grass-roots things. So much is dictated through the sales teams. The connection between the retailers and sales teams. That's always the way to get a pressure point, to speak with the sales reps and tell them you want something. That shoots right up the ladder. A lot, too, is showing a different way of doing things. There's so many different ways...companies that work the same way and it's hard to break out of that cycle. If you aren't already doing it, it's a change, and you have to manage that change. It's not always smooth, and there will be hiccups. You have to be realistic that there is going to be a transition period
     - Explain the value proposition. Unless they know it impacts them, they aren't going to be interested. Creating a clear picture of the value proposition.
     - On the seed side, something that is always puzzling is that we have retailers on the same allied provider that are very successful when they use these, and we have people on the same package that are frustrated and hate it. What is the optimal process? how are the people that are successful actually running their process? It's a process question, and we could help with that. I would love to have more intelligence about how the succesful retailers are using these processing and doing it differently than those who gave it up. The technology is not the hard part. It's the people and the process. 
     - Are we not selling the process? Are we not doing a good job of saying what the changes and processes are?
   - Natasha - for these retailers who are failing, it would be a great point to know the process. Are they involved in AgGateway? 
    
  -Technology part is the easy part.
  -Partnership between the retailer and manufacturer needs better managing. Maybe a template that explains the roles and how it works. 
  
  -If the BSV is successful, it goes back to being that it's a process part and we are failing on getting the information to people. Maybe it's a cheat sheet on how to figure out the GTINs for each item. What steps come first instead of just signing on and hoping for the best.
  
  A retailer looking to connect now is going to want that order booking message. You can't start with the big message. You have to start with ship notice. That makes sure that the GTIN is in there. Start with the small wins versus the bigger that you might not be quite ready with. 

• Some customers might need extra help. Some might be the ERP side, and the customer would determine where the help is needed in order to make that connection. It's a partnership between the three parties to make that retailer side have a great experience when they use it.
• We can build things to connect with trading partners, but working through software providers? if they aren't hearing their customers, the providers, talk about what they need? We can't get traction there. It's a communication thing. 
• Bayer has done analysis on priorities on what needs to be done to get to x percent of customers to get to utilizing electronic processes for seed. We don't want to just build it and say they're done, they want to see it utilized and figure out how to get implementation. What's the value proposition? We know there are benefits to streamlined accuracy, but if we tell someone to implement something, we would want to tell them the value metrics. That's how we've been successful so far, sharing the value in the changes. 
  • Ann - what percentage of connectivity do you have with your retailers? We started off, obviously, at 0 percent. I'm curious where that mark is. We used to have Marilyn's list of who is connected, and we don't have that anymore. Where is that scale?
    • Bayer - We're over 50%. In some cases we're much higher than that. 
  • Ann - Are there pain points out there not associated with the current messages that we are missing the mark in developing as an industry standard? Other than seed treatment. 
    • We are hearing from customers that there are other things outside the traditional order cache space around marketing and sales that would be great to exchange that information more seamlessly than spreadsheets or price cards. 
    • Data analytics and insights that can help with their business. Sales forecasting. 
    • There's still a reluctance to have accurate grower orders. It's less maintenance to maintain it in the system with substitutions than in a spreadsheet or web entry application