In this decade, technology has changed almost every aspect in our day-to-day lives, and the agriculture industry is no exception. Just like with other industries - new data, information, and technologies have emerged to simplify, automate, and streamline agribusiness workflows.

As the Ag industry has evolved, naturally, so have the roles of the agricultural professionals needed to support these new Ag workflows. Skillsets focused on data analysis, machine learning, and predictive analytics are required to turn raw data into actionable insights.

Executives in agriculture are increasingly tasked with building a culture that attracts technology talent and cultivating a mindset that encourages building these skill sets within their existing employees. Only by investing in their people, and the tools to support them, can firms position themselves for a long-term competitive advantage.

This data-forward mindset is now required not only at firms operating globally, but also at smaller firms that need to provide competitive advisory services in order to secure the volume and margin they require.

There are many tools that exist today which agribusinesses can use to streamline and automate their workflows. One common workflow that still hasn’t been fully automated, despite there being tools available, is the consumption and tracking of cash grain bid data.

We previously conducted a grain workflow survey to uncover how agribusinesses manage cash grain workflows. Doing so, we found that only 30% of agribusinesses have adopted market data software and data feeds for the provision of this content, putting those firms at an obvious competitive advantage. These data-forward firms can use real-time price updates to schedule alerts and automate updates to their pricing strategy based on streaming market intelligence.

Going even further, agribusinesses with access to cash grain data feeds can utilize historical data to build predictive seasonality models that can drive reduction of risk, and improve margins in grain buying and selling. By automating the information that they need to drive real-time risk and operational decisions, agribusiness can build processes that allow the business to scale in both the present and future.

These types of workflows have direct results on the bottom line by reducing slippage on cash trades, freeing up time for employees to perform value added tasks, and ultimately getting more volume by providing improved pricing outcomes for producers.

Our flagship commodity trading platform, cmdtyView allows users to manage their cash business, futures execution, and analytics all in one place. The cmdtyView platform also includes our best-in-class local grain bid data, allowing users to analyze this data in order to make better decisions for their agribusiness. To learn more about cmdtyView or any of our services, drop us a line at cmdty@barchart.com or reach out here.