Farmers have long benefited from the personal consulting KWS’ sales team provides. That was complemented some years ago by free digital services as part of KWS CULTIVENT and myKWS. Yet like in other regions, beet growers in the Nordzucker region previously purchased their seed exclusively from the sugar industry. A joint initiative by Nordzucker and the Sugarbeet Growers Association means they have been able to use other channels since the spring of 2019: Pursuant to an amendment to the industry agreement, farmers in Germany’s Nordzucker region in Deutschland can order sugarbeet seed not only from Nordzucker, but also directly from seed breeders. KWS offers an online shop for that. Denmark and Sweden also adopted the model in the winter of 2019. It gives farmers a one-stop shop for seed as well as digital consulting services – and it can be expanded in the future, for example to integrate new digital communication and sales channels.

Direct sales: A project with many players

Direct sales isn’t a sure-fire recipe for success. It requires KWS employees to rethink and collaborate across all departments. “Apart from B2B business with its small number of customers, you’re also in the B2C business, so there are a lot of new tasks,” says Tobias Huth, Head of the BU Sugarbeet. There is direct contact with customers, i.e. farmers, compared to the previous situation, where sales were handled through Nordzucker. The project has resulted in many new processes, alongside established ones, for a lot of departments.

Sandra Kaminski, who is responsible for marketing at the BU Sugarbeet, accompanied the project. “It was a big challenge and an intense time,” she says. Many KWS departments sat around the table, including IT specialists, logisticians, and legal, finance, accounting and SAP experts. Interfaces had to be defined for the holistic solution and new processes developed on the basis of that.

Agile project management and rapid response times are vital in creating country-specific solutions. “We can become even stronger in that area,” says Tobias Huth. The experience gathered will now be used to tackle a project for a standardized e-commerce shop for all units. Challenges there include integrating the new payment methods farmers want as well as other services to enhance the shop’s user-friendliness. Internal order handling processes are also to be made more efficient.

Experience with the energy beet

Yet selling beet seed over an online platform is not something completely new: Eight years ago, KWS took the opportunity to sell energy beet seed directly. There was increasing demand from farmers for this beet, which is ideal for use in biogas plants and as feed for dairy cattle, and they wanted to order their seed directly from KWS.

KWS is leveraging the shop it set up back then, and the experience with it, as a platform to establish the new offering. “We took this step in cooperation with the sugar industry,” says Alexander Coenen, who is based in Einbeck and is responsible for selling sugarbeet in Germany and Austria. He saw direct sales as being possible only with a digital offering. “It’s the best-possible service for farmers – with a user-friendly system and an incredibly wide range of potential uses.”

The Beet Seed Service

“There’s already huge demand,” he says. Farmers order the seed directly from KWS in the shop and KWS delivers it to their farm. And there’s even more: “We offer a package for beet growing,” states Alexander Coenen – with service on top of the seed. Farmers can use the Beet Seed Service to record areas they have planted with KWS beet seed on digital maps, for example. If the satellite images, which are updated every five days, indicate an outbreak of disease, they can discuss the problem with their consultant. The system is also connected to 500 weather stations in Germany and issues frost warnings, for instance. And the Beet Seed Service offers more than just support for crop cultivation. It can also protect farmers’ livelihood: KWS customers are given a fifty percent discount if they have to resow KWS sugarbeet seed due to frost or soil capping, for example. It goes without saying that this offer is also open to all customers who buy their KWS seed through the regional sugar companies.

So will everything be digitized in the future? No, KWS’ consultants have a close relationship with customers in their regions. True to the motto #Beet For Future, they work with farmers to create strategies on how best to grow sugarbeet. KWS will still maintain its proverbial proximity to customers and engage with them in analog fashion as well.

If farmers have questions about direct sales, technical equipment or sowing beet, employees from Sugarbeet Sales Germany can help them over a special hotline. And: The better KWS and its customers know each other, the more fertile the collaboration. The responsible persons at KWS can also imagine expanding direct sales of sugarbeet seed to other markets. But one thing is for sure: That will only be done in cooperation with the sugar industry.

A new world in Scandinavia

Farmers in Northern Europe, or Denmark and Sweden to be more precise, have been able to order sugarbeet seed directly from KWS since December 2019. There is now also the possibility at Nordic Sugar to order sugarbeet seed directly from the breeder – in addition to buying it from the sugar industry. Direct selling was launched in Denmark and Sweden in the 2019/2020 sales season. Farmers in those countries can now also order their sugarbeet seed online from KWS. After an order has been placed and processed at KWS, direct shipment of it to the farm is organized so that the seed can reach the farmer on time.

“It’s a major change, a new world,” says Cesar Ruano, Head of Sugarbeet Northern Europe. He adds that there is intensive dialogue with farmers, who are interested in new digital offerings and always looking for the best products and consulting. He calls implementing the new approach a big challenge. However, it also brought colleagues closer together and intensified dialogue with the many departments involved at Einbeck. His verdict: “The move has been a great success in Denmark and Sweden.”

Sugarbeet is only the beginning

Direct selling of sugarbeet seed is only to be the beginning. All the lessons learned are already being leveraged in a further project various departments are now working on: establishment of a new KWS-wide shop system. Apart from a user-friendly shop, the team is pressing ahead with developing tailored digital consulting services.

KWS plans to extend its cultivation know-how and experience in direct sales to other crops – so that even more farmers can benefit from the additional services and excellent service. Alexandra Molitor, who is responsible for Strategic Planning, notes: “It’s an extremely exciting time – strategically and above all in view of the benefits for our customers.” |