Case Study

Nedspice is a privately-owned group of companies with worldwide activities in the sourcing, processing and distribution of spices, herbs and dehydrated vegetables.

Nedspice is headquartered in the Netherlands and operates processing facilities in India and Vietnam. Sales offices, warehouses and distribution facilities are located in the Netherlands, India, Vietnam, United States of America, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and China.

Nedspice has a Farmers Partnership Programme (NFPP) that trains farmers to make their cultivation practices more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. Through training and on-farm support they help to develop sustainable and profitable farms that produce high-quality and safe spices. Over 4,000 farmers have enrolled into this program covering over 22,000 ha of land across multiple crops.

Challenges

Nedspice is not new to application of technologies in agriculture. They were using a very extensive farm management software from a pioneer in the industry. However there were many gaps from their expectations.

  • Complicated data collection system: Field Executives found the mobile application too complicated to use. This led to huge backlogs in data capture, defeating the whole purpose of the software.
  • Privacy and Security of farmers data: Data privacy and security is of utmost importance for Nedspice and non-negotiable. The supplier of the software they were using had to keep all the data on their own server. For Nedspice this is a potential risk to the privacy and security of their data.
  • Too much data gathering : The software system they were using asked the field executives to collect a lot of field data. Many of these data were not used at all in any of their reports or analysis. This was a waste of resources.
  • Difficulty in tracking movement of the Field Executive: Nedspice was finding it difficult to look into the daily activities of their field staff. 
  • Lack of customisation: Nedspice has evolved a unique system of working with farmers and has created their own farm practice recommendations based on years of experience and research. The existing software did not allow Nedspice to fully utilise the potential of their knowledge base.

Strategy

Corbel did not get down to creating a software solution.

  • The Corbel team travelled to the farms under the Nedspice’s program and spent days with the farmers and the field executives. 
  • We discussed with the Management team for clarity on the below points:
    • Their expectations from this program
    • Critical factors affecting the success of the program
    • Deviation indicators
    • Control points
  • Working backwards: Based on the inputs from the farmers, field executives and the requirements from management team, we worked out a system highly focused and customised to Nedspice’s requirements.

Solution

  • Data on Nedspice’s own server: All data are stored only on the server owned by Nedspice. This ensures 100% control over the data by Nedspice. 
  • Simplified geo-tagging/geo-fencing so that the field executive did not have to walk around 2-10 hectares of land in the sun
  • Very intuitive screens for data collection. Data collection from a farm now completed in less than a minute.
  • Collected only those data that would help in decision making 
  • Visit Module: Field executives login using the NFPP mobile app when they visit a farmer by taking a picture with the farmer. This picture is geolocation and the time are stamped into the picture automatically, helping in making detailed analysis regarding the visits. 
  • Solution provided mirrored all of Nedspice’s processes and systems
  • Provided all reports that Nedspice management wanted and in their formats
  • Software is customised to Nedspice.

Result

  • Nedspice is the owner of all their data. No data sitting on any external server.
  • Nedspice has a custom configured software meeting 100% of their requirements.
  • Data collection from the field happens smoothly and on time. Reduces time and energy spent on reminders and follow ups.
  • Field Executives are now able to spend more time solving farmer problems than worrying about data entry into the mobile app.
  • Decision making is faster and real time.
  • Visit report module gives full control to the manager over the field executives visits.