Industry — Agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture businesses operate across moving parts, seasons, assets, inventory, finance and field activity. JBI helps bring practical visibility to the information needed for better planning and decisions.
In Ricky's Words
Why I enjoy working in agriculture
Agriculture is a business with a very long feedback loop and a lot of variables you cannot control, so the ones you can control matter more. I grew up around practical people who fix things themselves, and that is exactly who runs a farm business. I enjoy helping them get visibility across machinery, inputs, labour and finance without adding office work to an already full day.
Common Challenges
What we see most often
- Manual field reporting
- Poor asset visibility
- Inventory tracking issues
- Seasonal planning challenges
- Lack of financial visibility
- Disconnected systems
- Spreadsheet-heavy processes
- Remote data capture challenges
Capability 01
Business Intelligence and Reporting
Agriculture runs on yield, input cost and price at the point of sale. Reporting brings paddock or shed performance together with input spend and market price so decisions are made on margin per hectare, not gut feel.
Examples
- Yield and quality by paddock, block or shed, season on season
- Input cost per hectare or per head, tracked against budget
- Margin modelling combining yield, grade and current commodity price
- Water, fuel and energy use against production
- Compliance and traceability reporting produced without a scramble
KPIs that matter
KPI reference for agriculture
The measures we most often build for this industry, why each one matters, how it is calculated and the bands we benchmark against.
| KPI | Why it matters | How to measure | World class | Benchmark | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yield per hectare | Are we producing well? | Total output ÷ productive hectares. | Top decile for district | District average | Below average |
| Input cost per hectare | Is spend under control? | Total input cost ÷ productive hectares. | Falling per unit output | Flat | Rising |
| Gross margin per hectare | Is the paddock paying? | (Revenue − variable cost) ÷ hectares. | Tracked per block | Whole farm only | Not measured |
| Water use efficiency | Are we getting value from water? | Output ÷ megalitres applied. | Top quartile | Median | Not measured |
| Compliance record completeness % | Can we prove it? | Required records complete ÷ required records. | 100% | 90–98% | <85% |
Capability 02
Data Engineering, Fabric and AI Readiness
Farm data lives in agronomy tools, machinery telematics, scales and spreadsheets. We bring it together so a season can be compared to the last one.
Examples
- Join agronomy, machinery, weather and finance data in one model
- Standardise paddock, block, crop and livestock structures
- Automate season-on-season history capture
- Data quality checks on missing weights, yields and applications
- A history strong enough for forecasting and benchmarking
Capability 03
Power Platform and Business Applications
Records still get written on the ute dash. We build simple capture that works offline and keeps compliance evidence intact.
Examples
- Spray, fertiliser and treatment records captured in the field, offline
- Livestock movement and weight capture
- Machinery pre-start and maintenance logging
- Contractor and casual hours capture with approval
- Automated compliance record packs
Capability 04
Continuous Improvement and Business Process Improvement
Seasonal work rewards a good routine. We tighten the planning and record cycle so the season is not run twice.
Examples
- Present trial outcomes in a clear, professional format that gives growers useful feedback and customers confidence in the results
- Map the seasonal planning to harvest to sale cycle
- Remove double handling between paddock records and the office
- Standard operating procedures for repeatable seasonal tasks
- Input purchasing and application decisions driven by real data
- Improvement register measured in margin per hectare
What we work on here
- Manual field reporting
- Poor asset visibility
- Inventory tracking issues
- Seasonal planning challenges
- Lack of financial visibility
- Disconnected systems
What changes for you
- Better operational visibility
- Less manual reporting
- Better planning
- Improved asset and inventory confidence
- Stronger financial insight