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“The technology segment of the ag market is where most of the new innovation is happening. We're trying to keep our eye on the next big technology piece that our customers really want. We want to make sure we're there to support them.”

— Sam Christianson, Director of Precision and Machine Control Systems, Titan Machinery

Case IH dealer Titan Machinery recently announced a new partnership with agtech company Augmenta to offer customers a smart and automated variable rate application system.

Titan Machinery has more than 100 locations in the U.S. and Europe, but the partnership will give farmers in the Midwest in particular access to Augmenta’s VRA control device.

This is the latest of Titan Machinery’s ongoing partnerships with agtech companies. Such relationships ensure dealers have the technology customers want, says Sam Christianson, Titan Machinery’s director of precision and machine control systems.

In this episode of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast, Sam explains how the partnership conversation started between Titan Machinery and Augmenta, what benefits the dealership and its customers will receive from working with Augmenta, and what other precision initiatives Titan Machinery currently has in the works. 

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[Technology Corner] Dealers, Customers Benefit from Titan Machinery-Augmenta Partnership

Titan Machinery Partners with Augmenta

Full Transcript

Michaela Paukner:

Welcome to the latest episode of the Precision Farming Dealer Podcast. I'm Michaela Paukner, associate editor of Precision Farming Dealer. New episodes of this series are available wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe to get an alert when upcoming episodes are released. Case IH dealer, Titan Machinery, recently announced a new partnership with ag tech company, Augmenta, to offer customers a smart and automated variable rate application system. Titan Machinery has more than 100 locations in the US and Europe, but the partnership will give farmers in the Midwest in particular, access to Augmenta's VRA controlled device. This is the latest of Titan Machinery's ongoing partnerships with ag tech companies, such relationships ensure dealers have the technology customers want, says Sam Christianson, Titan Machinery's director of precision and machine control systems. In this episode of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast, Sam explains how the partnership conversation started between Titan Machinery and Augmenta, what benefits the dealership and its customers will receive from working with Augmenta, and what other precision initiatives Titan Machinery currently has in the works. Here's Sam to start us off with a description of Augmenta's product.

Sam Christianson:

Right now, it currently is a real time variable rate application device. So it is utilizing a stereo camera, which they just came out with their third generation of it, so very new hardware that was engineered, very forward looking, with the computing power engineered into it to add some of the features that they're working on. So there's a stereo camera up on your roof. It's got, I believe there are six forward facing cameras and then there's also a weather camera that looks up at the sky. And those are reading infrared and light spectrums, so they're reading the biomass of the crop. And then they're also analyzing the chlorophyll saturation and content. So real time crop health reading. And they're looking out approximately 60 feet in front of your, whether it's a sprayer or a tractor, can mount it on really anything.

So that's the device. And then it's controlled by a tablet in your cab. And that just tees into your harness for your ISO monitor. It's going to splice in information, essentially, it's reading what you're telling your sprayer to do, and it's going to change that message on the way through. It's not currently going to vary by section on your sprayer. It's varying your whole boom, but your section control or your variable rate prescription that you have would be still doing whatever that was going to vary, as far as sectionality goes. So if you have an AIM FLEX 2 system and that does turn compensating, let's say, or a Hawkeye 2 system, that system on its own is still going to be doing that variability. This system is just bumping rate up or down based on what it's seeing for crop health and crop dancing.

Michaela Paukner:

So then is the program and the system itself making the changes automatically, the farmer doesn't have to go in there?

Sam Christianson:

Correct.

Michaela Paukner:

Okay.

Sam Christianson:

And it makes you a map of that that you can overlay. So if you had a prescription map from your agronomist, this is one of the cool things, other technologies like this kind of, it seems like, aim to replace your agronomist, where the name of this system is Augmenta and it's truly augmenting whatever you or your agronomist or your machine are trying to do.

So if you're using a prescription from an agronomist and you have that variable rate loaded in there, your machine is still going to utilize that for controlling its base. All this system is doing is relaying back the crop density and crop health and it's going to take that base up or down. And you put in the parameters for what controls that. So as the grower, if the system logic to you is that I want to spend what I was going to spend on my inputs anyway and I want to go for a yield bump, then you could maybe put that target rate a little bit higher than you originally intended to, and put the minimum down a little bit lower than you originally intended to go. And it's going to give your healthier areas of your field a little bit more than your base rate, and it's going to cut those unhealthy areas to a little bit less than your base rate, automatically, on the go.

Michaela Paukner:

That seems like it would be really valuable, especially now with the high input prices.

Sam Christianson:

Exactly. That was why I thought it would be super attractive. Your ROI is even faster right now in this current environment with the inputs being what they are. And then the other thing that was really exciting about it, which timing is a little bit of... Timing is everything, as they say. But you have, whether it's Deere or Precision Planting at their winter conference, I'm sure you've heard a lot about that. Everybody's focusing on that segment of the market right now, and this is what a lot of them are talking about having in a year or two. This already has some of those capabilities.

I think this is already really breakthrough in itself because nobody else is able to do this real time variable on the fly. Looking forward, a lot of what we've heard from potential competitors to this, John Deere and Precision Planting, because I feel like they're probably the two biggest megaphones in this marketing area, either of their two products it looks like, their systems are going to take multiple devices to cover your boom. And this is all running off of that one camera device and it's covering up to 150 foot area. Where investment wise, this is going to be significantly at a cost advantage compared to our competitors. Those ones, from what I've heard, it could be anywhere from six to 10 devices to cover your boom. And then you've got devices on a boom, maybe getting dew or mud or chemical splashed on them, where this one's going to be up on top of your cab, safely out of the way of all those other elements.

Michaela Paukner:

Recently Titan Machinery announced that it was partnering with Augmenta and how did that partnership come about?

Sam Christianson:

So I've been the director of precision farming and machine control since, I believe, August 1st was kind of effective date, but then I had to continue running the two dealerships I was running for a month or two after that. But in July, so even before we had announced anything as far as me changing my position, Preston Tolstad, the representative for Augmenta, be our regional sales rep, was already coming into me. He knows one of my sales guys. So he was already coming into me, kind of putting the bug in my ear about it. And then as soon as the announcement was made, with me changing positions, he started asking me about how it works to get all of Titan signed up as a dealer. And so really, I kind of had to explain to him, which we do with most vendors, that the way we're set up, I don't, at our corporate office, I don't order stuff for stores and I can't flick my pen and sign them up for something that none of them have asked to be signed up for.

So the way I told it to him was, I facilitated several meetings, teams meetings and stuff, and then he had invited us to send as many people as we wanted down to a field day that they had this winter in Arkansas, and basically to kind of see real world, so that we're not just talking about what it does. I had lined up the meetings and I had several stores interested in the technology.

And then I did get a store to send one of our more senior specialists down there who's particularly focused on sprayers. And when that guy came back from that field demo, he told me, "This is the real deal. It really works." Once he was on board, he talked to his manager and he ordered up. And then one of our other stores that was very interested in it also ordered up early. And from there we had to meet a minimum order requirement, which, like I had told him before, I can't just order stuff. But so Preston then went store to store to the other stores that we had talked to and accumulated the orders required to meet that minimum. And so once we met the minimum, then we could sign up as a dealer.

Michaela Paukner:

So you talked a lot about the customer benefits of this and what are some of the benefits to the dealership to have this partnership with Augmenta?

Sam Christianson:

Well, as far as a product offering, for the dealer side of it, this works on any brand of sprayer, as long as it's got an ISO monitor. But we can go on a competitor's farm. We can go on our normal customer basis farm. We can market this to people pulling pull type sprayers, or pull type side dress applicators, or we can stick with the self-propelled guys. Our audience is very broad with it. And then it's got a decent margin to it. Our pool of prospective buyers is really big. And then we're going to make money on each product that we sell. From a support side, it's a non repairable device, or a non serviceable device. If that makes sense, the way I say that. So we aren't going to be out with a screwdriver taking apart that camera, if something doesn't work in there. And then the tablet, we're obviously not going to be taking apart your tablet.

So if those don't work, troubleshoot over the phone. We might go out and push buttons in person, but if we can't get to it that way, the support is over the air from Augmenta, which I think is pretty cool. And they can tell when they log in or take your device, if it needs to be sent in, they tell you to send it in, they do the repair or replace the device and send you a new one. So from a service requirement standpoint, it's not huge. The install time is very short, like an hour, maybe hour and a half, and you've got this thing installed. And then if this thing fails, if something's not working on it, this fails off to the side, you can bypass it. Worst case scenario, you maybe have to spray for that day or two, just doing your normal variable rate application or your normal flat rate application. That's worst case scenario. So it's not like having a row clutch fail and then that row is not planting, basically this is just something you can bypass if you want to, if you need to.

Michaela Paukner:

Right. So that's another benefit on both the customer and dealer side, it sounds like.

Sam Christianson:

Correct. Yeah. It's like a fail safe if you want to call it that.

Michaela Paukner:

And then I know you mentioned that Titan had to meet that minimum order requirement for this partnership to happen, so just wondering if there's any other things that you guys have to do as part of the partnership.

Sam Christianson:

Yeah. When we sell, so for the dealerships who haven't ordered a device yet, when they order their first device, they're going to have some training required as far as how to install the system and then how to set up the system. And then likely they'll have Preston or some member of their team will go out to the field with them when they actually, when they do their first field startup.

Michaela Paukner:

Okay.

Sam Christianson:

So they do train us on how to run the device and everything.

Michaela Paukner:

If you are listening to this podcast, there's a good chance that you're a part of a dealership focused on continually improving your precision practices, or you know high achieving dealers who do just that. Now is the time to nominate a dealer for Precision Farming Dealer's 2023 Most Valuable Dealership. Now in its 11th year, our annual program recognizes the organization demonstrating the best in sales, service and support of precision farming technology. Go to precisionfarmingdealer.com/mvd to nominate a dealer for our 2023 MVD award and help us recognize North America's premier precision farming operation. Now let's get back to the conversation.

I had read that CNH industrial has an investment partnership with Augmenta. So I was wondering if, as a Case IH dealer, if that relationship benefited Titan in the partnership process?

Sam Christianson:

Yeah. I can't really speak for what CNH's plans are long term, because we're a dealer of theirs, but I obviously don't have any sway over what they do. I can tell them if I like something or not, but being that they're an investor partner or a strategic partner with Augmenta, it made me a little bit more at ease with it thinking like, "Hey, if this does really catch on as the next technology, it's with my partner, we're kind of aligned in that way." But that wasn't all that drove my decision, I guess. It was a benefit for them to be able to say that to me though.

Michaela Paukner:

We at Precision Farming Dealer have reported on Titan partnerships with other companies in the past, some that I saw from 2018 were partnerships with Farmers Edge and AgriSync. So why do you think it's a good strategic move for Titan to create these types of relationships with different precision technology companies?

Sam Christianson:

So we know that... This is part of why I took my current position. The technology segment of the ag market right now is kind of where most of the new innovation is happening, where all the exciting stuff is going on. And we're trying to keep our eye on what that next big technology piece is that our customers really want. And we want to make sure that we're there to support them and we're doing what they're wanting to do.

When it comes to AgriSync, we were very willing to look at trying that as a way to better service our customers. When it came to like Farmers Edge, if you had those rainbow farms or whatever you want to call them, like a really nice way to tie all those into one portal, that was when the buzz was all about having a cloud space where it's going to dump all your data. And the appeal for us there, more than their agronomy side, and this is where we're an equipment dealer so we're maybe thinking of it differently than the agronomy company thinks of it. They were really interested in selling the agronomy service side of it and we really just were more attracted to the cloud side of that service and able to dump that data into one place.

So if it's something that can provide a benefit to our customer, we really want to make sure that we're able to offer it, if that makes sense. And I thought, and several of our general managers thought, and my precision farming specialist team, several of them agreed, that this has a real benefit to it and a real value. It can provide return on the investment that we're asking people to make. And so that's kind of how we ended up being in the seat that we're in now.

Michaela Paukner:

Do you have your eyes on any other partnerships or technologies that you think would be of benefit to your customers?

Sam Christianson:

We want to support our main vendor and so we've really shifted our focus right now to AFS Connect and trying to get that off the ground. And a lot of that is just based on the... Now that we have more of a population of the vehicles out, we want to make sure that we're providing some of the functionality that creates the value our customers are paying for when they're buying a connected vehicle. So making sure our service departments are incorporating the remote support capabilities of a connected tractor, things like that are what we're really focusing on. We're trying to mainstream this AFS Connect idea so that our field team is all able to, whether it's helping their customers set up an account or maybe showing them how to look at something in the fleet side of it or trying to help them navigate through the farm side of this thing, that's more of your farm management software. We want more of our staff to be able to talk about that competently and help people navigate through it.

So really focusing on customer success with this new system, temporarily right now is what we're looking at. But as new stuff comes out, I get a steady flow of people wanting us to look at stuff. This has just been the latest one. Some of what we're looking at is from our own, whether it's Raven or Case IH. We've also had a focus on Raven, with [inaudible 00:19:15] getting more integrated with them, we're aligned with Case IH and that [inaudible 00:19:20] for them, with their acquisition of Raven. We want to make sure, kind of like this AFS Connect stuff, that we're getting familiar with that across our whole team, because it's traditionally been something that our precision farming department has kind of taken and ran with, and so we want to make sure everybody's competent when they're talking about that.

Michaela Paukner:

Okay. So when you're talking everybody, is that all the other techs and the sales people and-

Sam Christianson:

Yep. We want our technicians able to do more of the servicing side of this than our precision farming specialist. We're kind of making a shift internally culturalized to this. So our service departments will do more of the nuts and bolts and wrenching side of it, and our precision farming specialists will be helping with customer success a little bit more and showing people the button pushes and calibrations and all that kind of stuff and helping our field team. And then our field team, we also want to be able to help with the button pushes and that kind of stuff.

And we're trying to get parts people more familiar with what all these components are when we're talking about them. Not that we're going to eliminate precision farming specialists going out and selling you a system, but if you walk into one of our dealerships and our precision farming specialist is out in the field, you should be able to walk up to our parts counter and say, "Hey, I need a 372 receiver. Mine's shot." Those guys need to know what you mean when you say a 372 receiver and then know that, "Hey, that's in the parts system where I look up all the other parts." A shift in how we've done it. Our business model has focused right now, pretty intensively, on the precision farming guy doing all that. And it gets to be really a lot for one person to handle. And in some cases, that one guy has every customer of the dealership calling him for service and it's not realistic.

Michaela Paukner:

That's exactly what I was thinking when you were saying that, is that the customer can walk up to the parts guy and get his question answered instead of all of those questions being funneled through the precision specialists who always have too much to do, it seems like.

Sam Christianson:

Exactly. Yeah, you've covered it and written articles in the Day in the Cab series and during the season, those guys are good. But we've had one guy pull up his call log and he had almost 300 calls in a day so it was like, how is he going to get anything done that day with his phone ringing [inaudible 00:22:08]?

Michaela Paukner:

I guess one more follow up question to the AgriSync issue, have you guys found an alternative to AgriSync?

Sam Christianson:

So we're just working on that right now. That's as far as my top initiatives go. My next thing when we're done with this couple weeks of training I've done is, I've been working on this in the background, but we want to have a call center. This is coming to us from the field. Customer request and store request. This new software can take a bit of training to go through as far as, once you have your account and you go into AFS Connect, it's a whole portal of stuff and you've got products you can set up and lines to migrate and all sorts of data you can manipulate. And so they want somebody to be able to walk their grower through that software. Because even when you get them familiar, they're not experts at it. And so I'm making a call center with... We're going to start with two people and see how that goes. We might need to add more, but these would be people you can call into if you're stuck, whether it's on a tractor question, like a setting in your armrest or something like that.

Or if you're trying to use your desktop software and you're stumped on something, or you want to know how to do something, you'd be able to call into this team in a nutshell. The biggest thing I'm working on right now. And that's a big change for us, to have that central support center. And so the AgriSync thing, we're seeing if we need a program like that to have this call center.

Or, we already have an internet based phone system, just because our network is so big, but that service is called RingCentral, and RingCentral offers a couple different help center type programs within their service. So before we look at getting a whole nother software provider, we may just look at what the help center feature is we're subscribed to right now. I have been in communication with the AFS team at Case IH and I do know they're working on a new support structure. And so I have talked with them about the software they're going to use for their support center. We just set up a meeting to discuss, but if there would be any benefit in us using the same software as them, because this team, the way that we're setting this up, will kind of have a hotline to their support team. They know this isn't a customer calling with a question. This is somebody who's already trouble shot, so this might skip to level two support

Michaela Paukner:

Oh, sure.

Sam Christianson:

Where something else would be routed to the step one guy.

Michaela Paukner:

So it sounds like you have some good options in the works.

Sam Christianson:

Yeah. Video calling side of it. I don't know if that is as important as I've kind of surveyed the landscape a little bit and called around and talked to people. Actually, with our screen sharing capability on the new tractors, and then also the other thing I had heard was coverage can be an issue when you're doing video calling. So the feature that's actually been more popular when I talked to somebody at [inaudible 00:25:41] and some Farmers Edge support people, was the ability to text, like a text support hotline, was more popular than the video option. So we want to make sure we have that functionality in whatever we go with. I've been training customers now for two weeks on how to use all that stuff, and that was where that focus is on our end internally, to make sure that we know how to do it as the dealer to back that up when they're requesting the remote service tool or screen sharing or something like that, we got to know how to do that.

Michaela Paukner:

Thanks to Sam Christianson for joining me for today's conversation. If you'd like to read more about Titan Machinery's partnership with Augmenta, we have links to our ongoing coverage in the web story for this podcast. Let me know what you've thought about this episode by emailing me at mpaukner@lessiter media.com or calling me at (262) 777-2441. And if you're looking for more podcasts about precision farming, visit precisionfarmingdealer.com/podcasts, or check out our episode library wherever you get your podcasts. From all of us here at Precision Farming Dealer, I'm Michaela Paukner. Thanks for listening.