66 | RURAL SERVICES » Catalyst Performance Agronomy/Westpac Awards But when you get recognised by the wider industry, and even outside of your own industry, by entering an awards process like this, your staff, your leaders and your board all feel vindicated for the strategy that has been applied. It gives you huge confidence about what you’re doing and it opens doors to new opportunities.” When Patrick commenced his role in 2015, a gap was identified in the pastoral sector for agronomic services. The pastoral sector embraces red meat and dairy farm operations and includes anything from a lifestyle block to extensive stations. “We felt that sector was really under serviced and under valued and had been the poor cousin to the arable sector. We wanted to raise the level of service offering to be at least as good as the other sectors. We brought on staff that were very professional, we paid them well, but we set clear expectations for them and we put robust processes in place as to how they delivered their service. All staff are tertiary level educated and the company also has an internal training programme. We have an agronomy skill matrix, with twelve macro skills that staff are expected to be proficient in, with a professional development plan built around that.” Patrick and the management team also entered into a fixed price agronomy model called Sureyield™, which is one component of the service delivery where a price per hectare is set for growing a crop, with the company penalised or incentivised based upon performance. “That’s the basis of our model. We sell product on the back of the service that we provide to our Herbicides Insecticides Fungicides Adjuvants Supporting Wholesale Seeds with our range of: Seed, chemical and fertiliser inputs are formulated for each paddock. Soil, plant tissue, and yield testing are other services. • from page 65 “We sell product on the back of the service that we provide to our customers and it’s all about results and accountability. That was the gap that we identified in the market.” • to page 68
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