AgReliant Genetics increased scenario planning frequency 3x within months

Agricultural business cycles are atypical, requiring more forecasting than organizations of the same size in other industries. With just one sale per year, AgReliant Genetics needed an adaptable planning solution to support more frequent forecasting. Before adopting Jedox, AgReliant’s planning and reporting processes were completely manual and relied on disconnected Excel spreadsheets. This required transferring data from their source systems into Excel. Migrating their general ledger to SAP in 2020 enabled a higher degree of scalability, but their business needs called for more than an updated general ledger.

The organization’s planning cycle took nearly three weeks because they had to develop templates in Excel. Emailing templates back and forth meant each file had to be reviewed and consolidated, which delayed decision-making and hampered their ability to plan more frequently. This lengthy process meant that the finance team and analysts didn’t have enough time to focus on more strategic, value-adding tasks. Their heavily manual processes also meant they had no real ability to perform product profitability analyses.

AgReliant Genetics adopted the Jedox integrated business planning (IBP) solution. AgReliant Genetics needed the finance team to manage the new planning solution with minimal back-and-forth with the IT department. With their planning cycles and business structure requiring a high level of adaptability, they needed to not have to go back to IT every time a business requirement changed. The Jedox capabilities exceeded expectations compared to previous experiences, according to Walt Pisarski, Director of Financial Planning & Analysis at AgReliant.

Using Jedox, they can now separate their planning from financial reporting. Using SAP as their general ledger, the accounting team relies on Jedox for its financial reporting statements. They don’t have to rely solely on their general ledger to close the books and review statements, which is valuable in closing the information gaps in their reporting. They were hopeful about achieving this, but it wasn’t part of the original project scope.

Integrating Jedox with UKG, their payroll system, also enabled the team to perform all labor and workforce planning directly in Jedox for wages and benefits. They also integrated Jedox with their in-house enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, using SQL to extract product profitability data. This created an up-to-date single source of truth for AgReliant Genetics.

“The level of detail and accuracy we achieve in our planning is so much higher with Jedox.”

– Walt Pisarski, Director of Financial Planning & Analysis, AgReliant

The product profitability analysis capabilities within Jedox provide AgReliant Genetics with a more complete picture of their products than ever before. Instead of giving executive leadership a wide range of possibilities, the team provides accurate numbers that drive more confident decision-making. Creating a what-if scenario for a product they anticipate selling relative to their budget and understanding that impact is the greatest insight they’ve delivered. This significantly boosted confidence in the accuracy of their data. They can now properly measure their forecasts, easily see if they missed a target, and make any necessary adjustments – a previously impossible task.

“Jedox provided us with a growing list of new capabilities.”

– Walt Pisarski, Director of Financial Planning & Analysis at AgReliant

“The Jedox planning solution offers the highest degree of adaptability I have seen,” Walt Pisarski, Director of Financial Planning & Analysis stated “Frankly I have been impressed with the infrastructure. The system just works very well and is very efficient. The ability to customize Jedox to meet our requirements has been the greatest payoff.”