Case study: Los Grobo

How Real-Time information transformed decision-making for producers and agribusiness suppliers at Los Grobo.

Initial challenges and customer context

Gathering information in a field planted with Legacy Systems

The complexity and delay in accessing information affect producers and advisors in their agribusinesses.

1

At the start of the day, an agricultural producer needs to know the weather forecast, the dollar exchange rate, market fluctuations, and all the latest sector news. They also need to review their financial status and operations, such as grain sales or input purchases.

However, producers faced difficulties accessing information about their operations with Los Grobo. For example, to find out their financial status, they had to either visit a branch in person or contact their trusted commercial advisor, who would manually generate a report. This report required collecting data from several systems and areas, taking up valuable time for advisors not only in generating the report but also in reviewing it.

Los Grobo and EDSA began by evaluating the company’s commercial activities and identifying improvement opportunities. This led to the development of a roadmap to create a digital tool that would assist producers in managing their operations, simplify the tasks of the company’s commercial advisors, and streamline the operations of Los Grobo's current and future business ecosystem.

Solution Development

Modernizing the technological ecosystem to achieve a harvest of valuable information

The complexity and delay in accessing information affect producers and advisors in their agribusinesses.

2

To design this digital solution, the roadmap was advanced. The main effort of the project focused on addressing the needs of all stakeholders and simplifying access to and use of information from legacy systems. To achieve this, a cloud-based microservices architecture was built and implemented, integrating the extensive field of legacy applications (composed of in-house developments, Tier 1 solutions like SAP, and third-party applications) into a single platform called Maua, available in mobile (iOS and Android) and desktop (Web) versions.

HIGHLIGHT: The developed microservices architecture allowed for the integration of a dozen systems, including SAP, legacy applications, and third-party applications into a single application.

This Azure-hosted architecture enabled rapid modernization, breathing new life into the old forest of legacy applications without the need for redevelopment and reusing functionalities that had taken years to develop and evolve, all in record time.

Additionally, to meet the needs of all stakeholders, a cultural shift regarding application development in the organization was generated, focusing on putting the customer at the center. To achieve this, the five stages of Design Thinking were followed: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and evaluate, resulting in a solution that considered not only business needs but also those of the entire Los Grobo business ecosystem, including agricultural producers, agronomists, service providers, and administrative staff.

As an example, during the UX/UI design process, all stakeholders in the ecosystem were interviewed, flows were designed to include all requested needs, and prototypes were generated following the design patterns defined by the client. User-centered uses were the driving force behind the transformation into an essential tool for everyone.

Impact and Achieved Benefits

Data Harvest

Real-time data that enables agile and well-informed decision-making.

3

The result of Maua, the digital tool from Los Grobo, allowed producers to perform the following tasks, among others:

  • Manage balances and movements of their current accounts (in both dollars and pesos) or grain accounts belonging to one or more companies.
  • Access details of their input purchases and control the specifics of what has been delivered or is pending.
  • Request quotes or estimates and download receipts.
  • Know the real-time status of the grain market, the dollar exchange rate, and the value of each cereal.
  • Access weather forecasts (daily, extended, and historical) and maps of rainfall, clouds, temperature, and frost, with alerts sent to their mobile devices.
  • Review the status of their crops using satellite images of their fields.
  • Stay updated on news and events in the sector.
  • Have another direct communication channel with their Los Grobo commercial advisor.
EDSA Quote

Mauá is a new communication channel between agricultural producers, clients, and the agribusiness community in general with Los Grobo. Producers have the details of their transactions with us in the palm of their hand, as well as centralized information to manage their fields and monitor their crops. In addition to their technical knowledge, the great added value that EDSA provided us was in consulting. They helped us conceptualize the platform, were flexible in adapting to naturally occurring scope changes in this type of implementation, and, above all, provided us with incredibly fast responses during both the development stage and the go-live phase!.

Rafael Rizzo CIO of Los Grobo

All the available information allows producers to make the most of the platform, and even those who want to register can do so, even if they are not clients of Los Grobo, with access to most functionalities.

The staff at Los Grobo uses the same platform as the producers, from the CEO and management to the commercial advisors. The latter can search for any client and quickly review their account information, as well as access a planting plan with the details of purchase and sales agreements to follow up on them.

In this way, they can focus on tasks that add value to the business without spending as much time on administrative tasks.

With Mauá, Los Grobo began its digital transformation journey by building a cloud-based microservices platform that allowed them to place their clients at the center, offering a quick, practical, and secure self-management platform available at any time and place from any mobile device.