Digital Transformation at Elders

A key player within Australia’s agriculture industry, Elders’ mission has remained the same since its inception 185 years ago: to support the profitability and productivity of farmers and agribusinesses across the country. Offering a comprehensive range of products and services, from livestock and wool trading to farm supplies and real estate services, Elders operates within a framework — dubbed internally as the ”Eight Point Plan” — designed to achieve sustainable growth and deliver customer service excellence across all facets of the business.

Within this strategy, Elders also placed priority on modernizing its technology infrastructure. Indeed, upgrading its IT environment — a long history of legacy systems and in-house platforms across departments — became a critical priority to ensure Elders could continue delivering value to its clients and remain competitive in a digitally connected world.

These disparate systems limited Elders’ timely responses to market changes and efficient communication across the numerous areas of its business. Compounded with a rapidly changing environment, it became clear that maintaining ageing technology was unsustainable and posed risks to Elders’ growth ambition and their ability to meet strategic goals.

Faced with these challenges, Elders sought a comprehensive solution that could integrate its operations, drive consistent processes across the business, and support a culture of continuous improvement. The goal emerged: an IT infrastructure refresh that not only aligned with Elders’ Eight Point Plan but could also help future-proof its operations against emerging risks and opportunities.

The collaboration between Elders and Deloitte was built on trust and a shared commitment to success. From the outset, a “one team” approach was taken, ensuring that Deloitte’s offering portfolios were fully integrated with Elders’ internal teams and industry experts.

Cultural alignment was critical to navigating the complexities of the transformation, as both teams focused on delivering outcomes that aligned with Elders’ strategic objectives.

“Deloitte proved to be very collaborative,” says La Vista. “Elders have their own culture, and what we found is, as soon as Deloitte came in, they quickly fitted in. The Elders subject matter experts (SMEs) were quite comfortable working with Deloitte and vice versa. It was a natural relationship that developed with a lot of respect and trust between the two organizations.”

Deloitte’s experience was instrumental in ensuring that the technology solution was tailored to Elders’ business needs. Conducting around 130 design and future-state workshops with Elders’ key SMEs, Deloitte worked with the Elders team to understand the synergies between their people, processes, and technology to effectively determine a future-proof system architecture.

“In the first stage [of a transformation] you have to think about the end goal. How is the future going to look? Who is the end user? How will they most efficiently use the system to serve clients and achieve the intended business outcomes?” explains Pimentel. “The workshop and early-phase discovery allowed us to get a deep understanding of Elders’ agricultural operations and uncover processes where efficiencies could be improved.”

It was during these workshops that Elders and Deloitte finalized much of the design required to commence the build process. Deloitte’s role also extended beyond supporting Elders’ SMEs with implementing the technology.