A technological revolution in agriculture

Real-time management is a concept that has emerged with the advancement of new technologies. In agricultural production, this progress has been made at a very accelerated pace in recent years. Whether in the plant or animal production sectors, progress is extraordinary; let us highlight, for example, the contribution of GPS, drones, milking and feeding systems or the evaluation of inventories.

Context

Simply to better put this advancement into context, some will remember mail-in milk monitoring. At the time, the person responsible for the herd filled out a form to record the daily milk production for each lactating cow. They sent everything by mail and in the following days, even weeks, they received recommendations for feeding the dairy cows. Today, we are truly elsewhere and it is inconceivable to imagine going back in time. We must therefore look forward!

Real-time management is based on immediately available results or information allowing managers to analyze them in order to act as quickly as possible. It allows business leaders and stakeholders to anticipate a problem and not just respond to it.

Real-time management today

What about the economic and financial management of today’s agricultural business? The evolution did not happen so quickly. Of course, we have tools that make bookkeeping easier, but the objective remains to collect data on an annual basis. It is only a few months later, once the data has been analyzed, that we can use this information to act and take action on the company.

Of course, it is possible to follow up throughout the year, observe cumulative income and expenses, then compare it to a budget, or simply to the previous year. But the comparison is not easy.

Is it possible to obtain annual results… every month? In other words, after each month for which data was entered, could we observe the company's results on an annual basis? Visualizing the results using graphs could make it easier to observe trends in important items to monitor (indicators) on an annual basis.

This way of analyzing results becomes very dynamic, allowing us to obtain indicators that were not available more than once a year before. Where is the company going? Obtaining annual results monthly gives us the notion of “12 moving months”; There is no beginning of fiscal years anymore, we are constantly observing the ends of the year. In a nutshell, Aleop allows you to

See results over 3 fiscal years

• At the end of each month, it is relevant to accumulate the data of 12 months in order to obtain annual results on a monthly basis.
• The horizontal bars represent the possibility of obtaining 25 year-ends in comparison to 3.

Annual results available on a monthly basis

• This graphic represents the evolution of 3 fiscal years in real-time.
• On this basis, we have the possibility of conducting three analysis of the company results.

Management 4.0

The agricultural businesses should adapt and adopt real-time economic and financial management, supported by tools that facilitate the collection of information and production of results. After all, these tools should be accessible from different platforms such as tablets and smartphones. This will allow the company directors, as well as those responsible for bookkeeping, to share information.

Moreover, certain information could be accessible to a multidisciplinary team revolving around the company with the owner’s consent. This type of intervention mitigates the impression of isolation of the company’s leader in his daily work.