Syngenta – Case study
Company profile:
Syngenta LLC in Ukraine is part of the Syngenta Group – a world leader in the production of plant protection products and seeds.
Syngenta Group’s goal is to help feed the world safely while caring for the planet, and to increase the sustainability, quality and security of agriculture through world-class science and innovative industry solutions. The group’s technologies allow millions of agricultural producers around the world to make more efficient use of limited agricultural resources. In more than 100 countries, the Syngenta Group is working to transform crops and, together with partners, is working to accelerate innovation for farmers and nature, working together on sustainable agriculture, health and safety.
GrainTrack has been cooperating with one of Syngenta’s divisions in Ukraine for almost 5 years.
«Syngenta in Ukraine in 2010 began to develop so-called “barter” programs for consumers of our seeds and plants protection tools – we help customers get quality products of “Syngenta” via grown agricultural products.
— Borchevsky Victor, Business Development Manager,
Syngenta Financial Solutions Group in Ukraine
Five years ago, thanks to a professional team with extensive experience in agricultural trade, we reached the volumes of the trade to the levels of the average trading company in Ukraine.
At the same time, the document flow grew, as well as the array of data that needed to be maintained daily in MS Excel: logistics, contracts, consignments, invoices, etc. Accordingly, the likelihood of human error has increased with the “manual” entry and processing of large numbers of documents and data sets.
The beginning:
We analyzed the professional software solutions available on the market for operational accounting of trade in agricultural products – considering initial costs, simplicity of the setup and cost of maintenance, and, finally, chose GrainTrack, as the best option.
Of course, the integration took place gradually: first it was necessary to set up the main business processes for the purchase and sale of agricultural products, and only then to implement Syngenta’s specific processes. There were some difficulties with the formalization of processes: the requirements on our side changed quickly, depending on the current needs of the business, and the members of the team of integration managers changed on both sides. The trust in the product and the team gradually grew, and later together we achieved some success.
Currently, the results of five years of cooperation with the Ukrainian team of GrainTrack bring significant benefits to our team. We have managed to automate the vast majority of our processes, and get a convenient and flexible tool to support our barter programs.
Now the importance of using financial solutions, when a farmer is unable to sell his harvest for money due to blocked exports, is greater than ever. And Syngenta, understanding these problems, is actively looking for ways to increase the volume of such decisions to give the farmer the opportunity to pay for plants protection tools and Seeds.
Advantages of GrainTrack for Syngenta Financial Solutions Group in Ukraine:
Nowadays, it’s much easier to keep operational records of trade transactions in agricultural products and business processes specific to barter programs of the Financial Solutions Department, including:
- most processes for barter support are automated; created a convenient and flexible system for transactions management, from the request to confirm the agreement to the generation of invoices;
- implemented a full system of approvals of planned agreements: we have the ability to adjust different levels of approvals depending on the amount of the agreement, commodity or incoterms;
- created and maintained loyalty programs for our suppliers and accounting for their costs;
- processes specific to Syngenta’s barter programs have also been implemented – reassignments and offsets between suppliers, distributors and Syngenta (direct, indirect, partial or complete);
- we have automatic formation of invoices for logistics, consignments, or contract;
- we have convenient tools for working with transport registers;
- we have a flexible notification system for participants in business processes, it is possible to configure notifications for any events in the system;
- use the system as a file storage – uploading files to the system simplifies the search for documents, especially in remote work;
- we actively use templates for different types of transactions, including the ability to customize the template for each individual counterparty – it saves a lot of time when creating printed forms of documents;
- Customized reports on the results of individual programs have been developed for different Syngenta divisions, which helps to prepare reports to guide various aspects of barter programs.