Transforming Agribusiness for the Digital World - Introducing the Elusive Pegasus Unicorn

Similar to the industrial revolution that forever changed industry, the Farm to Fork value chain (agriculture through food retailing) is on the precipice of its own revolution, but this one relies less on steam and steel and more on analysis and algorithms. While the last agricultural revolution focused on science based technology, this one focuses on data and information technology. All players across the Farm to Fork value chain have a unique opportunity to leverage breakthroughs in Big Data and IoT to find new ways to meet the needs of Food2040 and feeding 9 billion people high quality nutrition.

Perspective on the Problem

Having founded and/or led the five largest global food and agricultural professional service practices over the last 2 decades, I’ve seen agriculture move from needing turnaround management to the march towards consolidation to the radical advances in agronomy and husbandry science based technologies provided. The next great revolution in agriculture will be tied to data science and information technology. Food and agriculture is the least digitized industry and will have to become digital at a dizzying pace, much like how many emerging countries avoided copper wire in telecommunications and went straight to digital. Such is the leap agriculture and food need to make to reach the total factor productivity needed to feed 9 billion people by 2040 and the needs of 4 billion new middle class members (and for individual companies to realize the opportunity associated with such a radical global shift in demographics).

The truth is the lack of digitization in food and agriculture is as much the fault of the information technology industry. Agriculture and food have historically been “back burner” industries for IT which has chased retail, technology, healthcare and other “hotter” sectors.

Agriculture and food companies have had to make significant compromises when trying to digitize. . . until now. Let me explain the conflict of the Pegasus versus the Unicorn and how Luxoft is the first global Big IT firm to provide a complete suite of high technology solutions with a deep understanding of individual sectors and needs across the Farm to Fork Value chain from pre-farm gate inputs to post-farm gate grain and protein processing all the way to distribution and food retail.

The Pegasus

Global businesses offering new breakthroughs for other industries are considered to be Pegasus types. A worthy name, indeed - the term originates from the Pegasus Company of the British military that does training and selection but creates “cookie cutter” soldiers which the branches then have to train for specific billets or purposes. They do quality work if you are a square hole for their square peg.

But on the flipside, they are spread out too thin. They work with many industries, and focus on “hot” industries like healthcare, technology and telecommunications to focus what little sector expertise they can muster. Food and agriculture were just “lumped into” other practices (often spread to over a dozen different practices) versus being treated as something different and special. As a result, Pegasus types have little industry expertise in general and even less expertise in an industry they have largely treated

as a “fly over”. Agriculture and food production are areas where only a tiny percent of the population has direct experience. Being one of the most regulated and counterintuitive industries, you have to know it specifically versus assume it will be similar to adjacent industries. Disaster happens if you treat animal health like human health or try to create a commodity trade risk management platform for soft commodities like you do for hard commodities. It gets even worse when IoT teams with traditional light and heavy manufacturing experience try to take that to a grain processing or animal slaughter facility. They just don’t understand what they are looking at or how you make a profit (or where you are liable to take a loss). Not to mention, they just don’t fit in or win the trust of your production employees.

The Unicorn

On the other hand, the Unicorn is an organization that solves a specific issue. They also really know their industry, so they don’t make the rookie mistakes of the Pegasus due to that knowledge. But only working with a Unicorn type business also has its pitfalls. In agriculture and food, many small technology firms have been created by industry “insiders” that solve real problems but simply lack the disciplined coding and technology skills and/or won’t integrate with the dozen or more other Unicorns you would have to work with to get a real end-to-end solution. They often lack the cutting edge solutions and are a generation or two behind in critical areas like satellite imagery analysis, IoT or Big Data. They also are at constant risk of being taken over by a hostile competitor or simply running out of funding. They rarely update as quickly as the industry changes (particularly on regulatory matters). So they quickly go “out of date”.

The Unicorn is just as frustrating as the Pegasus.

Combining the Two

For this reason, many agriculture and food companies tried to create their own solutions at great cost. Essentially, they would buy a series of Unicorns hoping that through sheer size these combined Unicorns would act like a true Big IT company. They never did. Or they would decide to use their multi-billion-dollar turnover to create a scalable Pegasus that had Unicorn understanding of the industry because it was staffed by internal resources. But, inevitably, often being engineering and science based companies, they weren’t suited for the change of thinking required to create high technology and software or work with Big Data and analytics. And even if they were somewhat successful, what was the cost? They invested their most expensive and innovative labor into something far removed from their core mission.

What was needed was not for agriculture and food to suddenly transform into high technology and data science, but for a Big IT company to build a team that knows end-to-end each major Farm to Fork value chain sector.

Enter Luxoft, the Pegasus Unicorn everyone in agribusiness was waiting for.

What They Need

Luxoft is a NYSE traded global technology company that’s home to some of the brightest minds and sharpest solutions in technology. It’s no wonder we work with leaders of finance, automotive, high technology, retail, healthcare, and other areas to improve their situations both inside and out.

So when it comes to Luxoft’s agriculture team, they’re nothing to scoff at. Over 70% of the team has master’s degrees or PhDs, and their years of experience are unmatched by other global players. In addition, over 20% have direct farming experience. This allows them to conceptualize visually what actual farm or agribusiness functions encompass, no matter how complicated. Being knowledgeable in all areas of what you create is a strength Luxoft greatly excels at.

With Luxoft as the Pegasus Unicorn agribusiness needs, technology can move forward at a brisker pace through increasing productivity and creating applicable and smart software at a lower cost. The agribusiness industry doesn’t have to bother with creating tech, and can have more time for the unique “one thing” they do better than anyone else. The Luxoft Pegasus Unicorn is truly the mythical creature they have all been searching for.

Be sure to check out our brochure that expands on our influence in agribusiness, and feel free to drop me a line at:

(314) 570-2631rkottmeyer@luxoft.com

Richard Kottmeyer