Yellowfin Case Studies RURALCO HOLDINGS LIMITED: How a leading Australian agribusiness enhanced its competitive edge

Edit This Case Study Record

	RURALCO HOLDINGS LIMITED: How a leading Australian agribusiness enhanced its competitive edge Yellowfin

RURALCO HOLDINGS LIMITED: How a leading Australian agribusiness enhanced its competitive edge

Yellowfin

Technology Category	Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Applicable Industries	Agriculture Retail
Applicable Functions	Sales & Marketing Warehouse & Inventory Management
Use Cases	Inventory Management
Services	System Integration Data Science Services
Challenge	Extracting intellectual property from management in a comprehensive, fast-paced business environment was a challenge for Ruralco. Additionally, the presence of multiple data streams from incongruent systems made it impossible to identify a single source of truth with respect to overall business performance. The company saw two key areas as obstacles to fostering potential growth; a lack of in-house expertise in business intelligence and analytics, coupled with the absence of a structured and timely reporting program. While there was no deficit of available data from various streams, Ruralco lacked the facility to access accurate business-wide information in real-time. The company recognised that harnessing existing data and presenting it in visual format would not only deliver a detailed snapshot of current performance, but also cultivate an ethos of better and more timely decision-making across the business. Read More
About Customer	Ruralco is a leading player in the Australian agricultural and retail services sector, with more than 2000 employees and $1.6 billion annual operating revenue. A leading Australian agribusiness with more than forty specialist businesses, Ruralco provides real estate, insurance, auctioneer services, agricultural equipment and other services to the Australian rural community. The group caters to the diverse needs of regional and rural Australia, operating 40 separate businesses through a network of 500 outlets nation-wide. Read More
Solution	Toustone collaborated with Ruralco to develop a business intelligence strategy that would deliver the optimum outcome, utilising the Yellowfin Cloud powered by Toustone platform. The solution automatically draws data from each of the separate sources and presents it via customised, interactive dashboards, ensuring management always has easy and intuitive access to the most up-to-date information. For the sales team, visibility of accurate and current information is invaluable. Client transactions can be accessed in the field via any smart device, with no delay or reliance on back-office admin staff. Email broadcasts show earnings on a MTD and YTD basis, so managers can measure, benchmark and reward the team objectively. Leveraging from the available information, Ruralco combines its own data with that provided from third-parties to generate tailored reports that deliver additional valuable BI and analytics insights, allowing management to rapidly respond to the changing environment and to improve business performance overall. By linking sales and inventory data, the company has full visibility into the performance of each and every product line, facilitating inventory adjustments based on fact, not gut feel. Having that real time operational insight allows Ruralco to resolve potential issues — including supply problems — before there is any discernible customer impact. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization

Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms

Applicable Industries

Agriculture

Retail

Applicable Functions

Sales & Marketing

Warehouse & Inventory Management

Use Cases

Inventory Management

Services

System Integration

Data Science Services

Challenge

Extracting intellectual property from management in a comprehensive, fast-paced business environment was a challenge for Ruralco. Additionally, the presence of multiple data streams from incongruent systems made it impossible to identify a single source of truth with respect to overall business performance. The company saw two key areas as obstacles to fostering potential growth; a lack of in-house expertise in business intelligence and analytics, coupled with the absence of a structured and timely reporting program. While there was no deficit of available data from various streams, Ruralco lacked the facility to access accurate business-wide information in real-time. The company recognised that harnessing existing data and presenting it in visual format would not only deliver a detailed snapshot of current performance, but also cultivate an ethos of better and more timely decision-making across the business.

About Customer

Ruralco is a leading player in the Australian agricultural and retail services sector, with more than 2000 employees and $1.6 billion annual operating revenue. A leading Australian agribusiness with more than forty specialist businesses, Ruralco provides real estate, insurance, auctioneer services, agricultural equipment and other services to the Australian rural community. The group caters to the diverse needs of regional and rural Australia, operating 40 separate businesses through a network of 500 outlets nation-wide.

Solution

Toustone collaborated with Ruralco to develop a business intelligence strategy that would deliver the optimum outcome, utilising the Yellowfin Cloud powered by Toustone platform. The solution automatically draws data from each of the separate sources and presents it via customised, interactive dashboards, ensuring management always has easy and intuitive access to the most up-to-date information. For the sales team, visibility of accurate and current information is invaluable. Client transactions can be accessed in the field via any smart device, with no delay or reliance on back-office admin staff. Email broadcasts show earnings on a MTD and YTD basis, so managers can measure, benchmark and reward the team objectively. Leveraging from the available information, Ruralco combines its own data with that provided from third-parties to generate tailored reports that deliver additional valuable BI and analytics insights, allowing management to rapidly respond to the changing environment and to improve business performance overall. By linking sales and inventory data, the company has full visibility into the performance of each and every product line, facilitating inventory adjustments based on fact, not gut feel. Having that real time operational insight allows Ruralco to resolve potential issues — including supply problems — before there is any discernible customer impact.

Impact #1	Fully automated daily business reporting including: geo-mapping of sales to provide territory and location analysis; data-mining across multi-disciplined data, such as sales by territory and revenue/margin by profit centre and; performance target measurement and business insights.
Impact #2	Inventory reductions and warehouse efficiency improvements: Linking sales and inventory data means sales trajectories, inventory shortfalls and overruns are quickly identified, facilitating reduced inventory holdings without any sales impact. Analysis of sales patterns exposes products that require monitoring based on demand variability and profitability, enabling Ruralco to optimise stock levels on those lines.
Impact #3	Deferred terms analysis: delivered significant working capital savings.

Impact #1

Fully automated daily business reporting including: geo-mapping of sales to provide territory and location analysis; data-mining across multi-disciplined data, such as sales by territory and revenue/margin by profit centre and; performance target measurement and business insights.

Impact #2

Inventory reductions and warehouse efficiency improvements: Linking sales and inventory data means sales trajectories, inventory shortfalls and overruns are quickly identified, facilitating reduced inventory holdings without any sales impact. Analysis of sales patterns exposes products that require monitoring based on demand variability and profitability, enabling Ruralco to optimise stock levels on those lines.

Impact #3

Deferred terms analysis: delivered significant working capital savings.

Benefit #1	A daily time saving of 20-30% via automated reporting.
Benefit #2	$1.6 billion annual operating revenue.

Benefit #1

A daily time saving of 20-30% via automated reporting.

Benefit #2

$1.6 billion annual operating revenue.

Download PDF Version

Overview

RURALCO HOLDINGS LIMITED: How a leading Australian agribusiness enhanced its competitive edge

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit