Harvesting True Benefit - SOUTHERN STATES Cooperative's E-Business Projects Success
“CD
Group offers "business guidance"
along with their technical project management
skills. They are not just concerned about the IT
project but the business purposes and goals
behind it.”
Karen
Lankford,
Vice President, Information Systems
Company Overview
Southern States Cooperative (SSC) is one of the
nation’s largest farmer-owned cooperatives. Since
its beginning as Virginia Seed Service in 1923, SSC
has been at the forefront of agricultural advances
throughout its nearly 82 years in business. As a
result of its leadership role in agriculture, SSC
has continued to expand and today encompasses some
1,200 retail locations in 23 states. Owned by more
than 300,000 farmers, the cooperative purchases,
manufactures or processes feed, seed, fertilizer,
farm supplies and fuel. Since its inception, the
co-op has led research efforts in order to make the
business of farming pay better—in fact, it’s why SSC
was founded in the first place.
Challenges Faced
Internet technology’s hyperactive evolution
requires flexibility and commitment.
CD Group and SSC successfully partnered in 2000 to deliver an
enterprise Internet solution. Despite being in
production only a few years, SSC’s solution
architecture began to lag behind the persistent and
aggressive technology curve. SSC wanted to provide
itself with the ability to:
- Avoid the risks of being on non-supported
products,
- Improve the system performance of critical
business functions,
- Provide SSC with a technical foundation to
grow and expand e-business functionality into
other areas of the SSC enterprise,
- Prepare SSC staff to evolve from a service
partner led model to a more collaborative,
self-sufficient support approach where SSC owns
system maintenance and enhancement, and
- Optimize and simplify maintenance processes
supporting the enterprise Internet solution..
The Solution
Recognizing the technological realities and
achievable benefits, SSC made the decision to
migrate the 2000 solution infrastructure to newer
software versions and more robust infrastructures.
SSC and CD Group implemented the solution with IBM’s
“best of breed” e-business solution, WebSphere
Commerce 5.5 and WebSphere MQ providing full
integration between the Internet and SSC’s
JD
Edwards World ERP solution.
SSC partnered with CD Group again in the upgrade and
migration of the integrated web solution that
SSC and CD Group implemented in 2000.
For the second-generation project, the SSC project
manager and SSC project team maintained overall
technical and functional ownership of the initiative
while CD Group provided focused technical expertise
and facilitated knowledge transfer.
Initially, the scope of CD Group’s responsibility
was to:
-
Develop three distinct
e-business functional components for the new
solution, and
-
Make the SSC migration
project as successful as possible.
The CD Group e-business components were:
-
User authentication
functionalities
-
Advanced search functional
enhancements
-
End-user order status inquiry
functionalities.
As the project progressed, the scope of CD
Group’s responsibility expanded into other areas of
the project. Striving to make SSC successful, CD
Group provided additional leadership and assistance
in the following areas of the project:
- Supplementing SSC efforts in database
administration and data migration,
- Providing leadership in development of best
practices and patterns,
- Assisting in the optimization of SSC-owned
business function programs,
- Facilitating technical action plans focused
on making the project successful, and
- Assessing project risks and developing plans
for risk mitigation.
Over several months of SSC and CD Group working
together on the project, the joint venture between
the two companies reinforced the continued
productivity and loyalty of the relationship. Both
companies benefited from the collaboration, and both
companies experienced positive project and service
outcomes.
“CD Group has
continued to provide Southern States with the
project management and technical expertise that
enable us to position our critical applications
where they need to be.”
Suzanne Shockley,
Ebusiness Systems Development Manager
The project accomplishments included:
- A successful cut-over from the existing
solution infrastructure to the new one. The
end-user community experienced few issues
relating to the sizable technical change.
- System performance improvements enhancing
the online customer experience.
- Development of new skills by the SSC team,
and resources who are prepared to sustain the
new solution and infrastructure.
Benefits Realized
-
The infrastructure
implemented complies and aligns with progressive
technology trends positioning SSC to leverage
and scale the solution for future initiatives.
-
Customer satisfaction
improved due to performance efficiencies gained
from the new infrastructure.
-
Cost of dependency on
external consulting was reduced significantly
and the skills learned are applicable in other
areas of the business.
Through its partnership
with CD Group, Southern
States Cooperative
realized its goals of
implementing an
up-to-date integrated
web solution throughout
the cooperative’s
enterprise, and the
functionality is a
current part and the
future direction of the
SSC order management
strategy.
“During the five-year relationship, CD Group and
SSC have both grown in a variety of ways. Some
of the growth can be directly attributed to the
projects that have been tackled over that
timeframe. CD Group is not just a good service
provider -- they are a partner. Very few of our
service providers have attained that label.”
Karen
Lankford,
Vice President, Information Systems
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