eConnectivity Planning: Not Just Another Year

eConnectivity Planning

Not Just Another Year

By Josh Wall, AgGateway

Kids have a unique perspective on life and it is probably worth our time listening to their input. This New Year’s Eve, our family had a small gathering with friends. While we prepared for the event, the television was on and there was talk about the large New Year’s Eve celebrations that would occur that evening all across the country. My 9-year-old son heard there would be “a ball dropping” somewhere and wanted to know what happened after the “ball dropped”. I explained that this was a way to ring in the “New Year” but it was probably not that exciting for him as the ball did not contain candy or video games; it just meant the New Year was here. My son’s response to me was, “Dad, that seems silly to just drop a ball, and there is nothing more that happens”. After a few days of contemplating this conversation, I realized he was absolutely correct. It is silly to celebrate a “New Year” if we do nothing.

I encourage each of you to look at your current eConnectivity plans and set some obtainable goals for 2017. For some, this may be a starting point, and 2017 is the year your company puts together an eConnectivity plan. AgGateway has developed some great resources that will help you get started. These can be found on the “Get Connected” page of the AgGateway website. One of the resources available is an “eConnectivity Readiness Survey”. This survey provides a set of questions to consider as you are getting connected. Once completed with the survey, you can submit it to AgGateway. For no extra charge, a qualified staff member will review your survey and discuss next steps with you, tailored to your business needs.

For those organizations that are eConnectivity veterans, maybe 2017 is the year to add additional trading partners or tackle adding a new connectivity message. 2017 may be the year to improve or formulate an Ag Industry Identification System (AGIIS) synchronization plan to ensure you are keeping your unique identifiers synchronized with your trading partners. This may seem like a little detail, but if unique identifiers are not in-sync with trading partners, the automated seamless process starts to break down. For this reason, it is important to have a plan in place, ensuring that when changes are made, your organization keeps up.

At the end of the day, it does not matter how small or large your eConnectivity goals are for 2017. It is just important that you have goals that are attainable. So don’t let the “ball drop” and “drop the ball” – make 2017 a year of action. 

If your organization does not have an eConnectivity plan, contact AgGateway’s Member Services at Member.Services@aggateway.org or at (+1) 866-251-8618 to learn more about data synchronization, eConnectivity projects, and AGIIS.

2017 January/February Articles