Technology and AI, are a growing imperative, even in the most traditional sectors.
Agriculture may be 10,000 years old, but it is no stranger to evolution. Today, innovation is seeping into it at a faster rate than ever before.
Across the globe, the industry as a whole is faced with rapid change and mounting challenges, from the rising costs of resources and labor to climate change or shifts in market demand for transparency and sustainability.
Complement innovative solutions to help them sequently, agribusinesses are looking to be competitive in a transforming market. While innovations that allow better crop outputs and increased efficiency in this area are the first choices, visionary companies are also looking at AI to boost the “back-office” activities, taking a cue from other more flexible customer-facing industries.
The Challenge
A growing number of businesses are moving towards a more customer-centric approach as differentiation on the market becomes increasingly complex, and consumer pressures more urgent. Agriculture is no different. In Romania, the leader of the agribusiness market was in search of a means to better answer customer needs and improve sales results by enhancing the speed and flexibility of the sales process.
The Solution
The solution, born from the collaboration with DRUID, was Amira, a sales support virtual assistant designed to facilitate the work of sales agents by providing real-time information about hybrids, active substances, and specific products used by farmers.
The virtual AI assistant is integrated with the company’s pre-existing Microsoft Teams platform. It acts as a search engine, sifting through internal databases to ensure immediate answers for a team of more than 200 sales agents on any topic, from plant protection products to seeds or producer prices.
Amira’s technological advantage is its capability to constantly update its knowledge and utilize it to make recommendations or draft detailed reports. For instance, for a corn crop, Amira displays the hybrid options offered by the producers and, after selecting the desired brand communicates the standard price and payment options.
All proposals consider the crop, sowing rules for each variety, active substances, or concentrations. With access to all this information, coupled with solid processing power, the sales agent is free to compute and offer discounts or other advantages on the spot to both speed up and improve the sales process.
Learnings
AI is a business game-changer that has truly arrived. Companies are increasingly open to using technology to bolster different aspects of their operations to cope with fast-changing market conditions and increased challenges.
While sales still invariably rely on the two-way human relationship sales agents can build, the process can still be automated at various stages with excellent results. In fact, in 2020, 61% of businesses leveraging sales automation reported exceeding revenue targets, according to HubSpot's Sales Automation Stats.
AI Conversational Assistants are particularly efficient at computation – they can look up data, make fast calculations and look at millions of fact-based options to select and present the best one in a matter of mere seconds.
This underlines their extraordinary ability to massively augment the quality of conversations between humans and improve the overall sales process.