Leaders from 3 major equipment manufacturing companies jumped at the chance to address some of the top precision dealers in North America during an OEM panel session at the 2025 Precision Farming Dealer Summit in Louisville, Ky.

Casey Dray, global precision technology portfolio manager at CNH, Bob Armstrong, vice president of product and marketing at Claas and Jake Ridenour, channel sales manager at PTx Trimble, fielded questions on the 2025 market outlook, technology adoption trends, AI and more. Here are some highlights from the discussion.

What are the qualities that separated your top-performing precision ag dealers from the rest of the pack in 2024?

Ridenour: Definitely their intimacy with the grower. The sales strategy with precision agriculture moved from just being able to provide an ROI on paper to more of a consultive sales style where you’re going to a farm and looking at their entire operation to provide a more holistic solution instead of focusing on an individual product.

Armstrong: It’s all about two main components — sales and service (after the sale). I think that’s what separated our top dealers on the precision side. They made sure that their whole team was prepared to support the product after the sale to make it a good experience for the end user. We have dealers that are doing a fantastic job at this and others that are still evolving and trying to get their staff on board to support the product the way they’d like to.

Dray: The other piece I’ll add is training. It’s one thing to buy a piece of technology, and it’s another thing to use it. The dealers who take the time to do the setup and truly understand how to use the technology on the customer’s operation are going to get much better results. Those are the dealers who separate themselves.

What programs are you implementing to ensure your dealers are equipped to service and sell new technology?

Armstrong: The key to me is training, training, training. When we went through COVID, we used more e-learning methods. Those are valuable tools, but nothing beats in-field training. We call it an “expert camp,” where we bring them in for a particular product. Salespeople have evolved to the point, too, where they realize they need to be well-versed on the precision side just as much as the iron side because the buying decision encompasses both. 

Ridenour: AGCO and PTx Trimble have partnered with colleges and high schools to set up locations for educational demonstrations and training sessions. We’ve tried to spread the locations out across North America, so it’s a little cheaper for our dealers to attend the training sessions, instead of having to go to our main facility

Dray: We’ve implemented an extensive precision dealer certification program that we’re asking our dealers to really sit down and adhere to. It starts with the strategy of the dealership and how they want to be known from a technology perspective. It flows into the key components of training, but it’s also about getting the mentality of technology instilled through every department in the dealership — sales, parts and service. It’s a good habit to get everybody in the dealership talking about technology. 

How have tough commodity prices affected spending habits? Are farmers more likely to adopt precision technology to save money and solve labor challenges?

Dray: 2024 was a tough year as it relates to new ag equipment sales. Certainly, technology is one of the leading items customers look at now because it can either improve their yields or lower their cost of operation. When they choose to buy a new piece of equipment, we work to have that technology integrated into the equipment so that when it hits their field, it’s ready for them to utilize. We also have aftermarket solutions they can leverage, even something as simple as a guidance system or rate control functions. Technology has a great value, and I think aftermarket is going to be a main focus for dealers as they have conversations with their customers in 2025.

Armstrong: The customers who buy new or used equipment are more open to listen to the value-add proposition, whether it’s on iron or precision because they’re in tune with making their operation more efficient. I think customers now are more interested in learning about how to save fuel, put more grain in the tank and what precision can actually offer them as a tool, not just, “Oh yeah, I’ve got that on my machine.” In a down market, we’re going to get the ear of the buyer a little bit more.

Ridenour: We keep hearing from customers that labor continues to be one thing that no one can solve. At PTx Trimble, that’s one thing we’ve really focused on over the last year. How can we help a farm find a lower qualified candidate to go inside the tractor?

What are you doing to make sure smaller acreage farms can afford advanced technology?

Dray: Leveraging the aftermarket option — selling products that aren’t just on new equipment, but kits that can go on existing machinery. We also offer performance upgrade kits to customers, and when they purchase those, they can take their used piece of technology and sell that to a smaller acreage farm. Marketing used and new equipment to those smaller customers is extremely important because we want them to come on the technology journey just as much as we do the larger operations.   

Armstrong: I go back to economies of scale. When systems first came out, the price level was quite high. Now, as volume picks up, production can go down a little bit on it. I think that will help the smaller farmer benefit. We’ve already seen in some of our machines, things that used to be options, are now part of standard equipment. We try to create bundles that the dealer can use with their high-end user to decide what is the best technology level to bring their customer up to. We are seeing more affordable packages come out, and we are making those available to all users so they can see the real value and can upgrade after sales if they’d like a more sophisticated system.

Ridenour: It’s important to make sure that we’re priced in the right spot — taking older inventory and adjusting the price to create an entry level spot for a smaller grower. We also teach dealers how to make sure their customer lines up with the solution they’re trying to provide and make sure they’re not overselling.

How are you addressing the technician shortage?

Armstrong: This is something I’ve been aware of since I was a dealer back in the 1960s, so we’re always going to struggle with it. We’re exploring new ways to not only work with universities but with dealers to put together training programs. A lot of that is apprenticeship style or a 2-year graduate trainee program. We bring somebody in right from college and they spend 18-24 months in a program that develops them in one specific direction but also gives them the complete view of the organization. That’s worked well, as we’ve seen individuals not only move up into different positions within our company but then also leave to help support dealers in the organization as well. 

Ridenour: AGCO embraces going in and helping universities with the iron side and really teaching them about what opportunities are available from manufacturing to assembly all the way into precision agriculture. I think it's all about putting your arms around the youth and making sure that they're aware of what options are available to them in the future.

Dray: We have a program called “Top Tech.” We’ve got over 75 technical colleges across the U.S. that we work with to bring candidates into dealerships. They go through a 2-year program and come out as a level one technician. But what I think is really important, from a dealer’s perspective, is to cultivate those relationships with local schools to start identifying talent as young as sophomores in high school. You can develop that relationship and then foster them into those colleges where it makes sense.  

Ridenour: Another good way to make connections with schools — take some of that used equipment that you trade in and take a good hard look at the value that the manufacturer is going to offer you. And if that doesn’t line up with what you want, then make sure it gets dumped into high schools or universities. If there’s a school that you’re not quite connected with yet, that’s a really good way to get some friends in a hurry.

How is customer feedback heard at the OEM level? How do you differentiate good information and bad information and determine if a product is worth developing?

Ridenour: The sales staff is always the tip of the sword. When a request comes in, we ask them how often they hear it. The second question is now how does that move us into autonomy faster? Any idea that’s brought in — does it get us to semi-autonomous or fully autonomous? And following that, what does that mean to the complete solution for a grower? And is there any data coming from it that can then be used to make better decisions for next season?

Armstrong: You’ve got to be good listeners because we all have our own ideas, but we have to go into a discussion asking customers about what they need. Then when they tell us, we have to ask them why they need it. They put a value on it so we can understand the value better and help us rank what’s priority in development.  

Dray: We take a farmer first approach. When we think about ideas or challenges that we’re looking to tackle, it’s typically coming from our customers through our dealers. The hard part is we don’t have unlimited funds, so we have to make tough decisions. We do need to see a return on our dollars for ourselves as well as a shareholder. We have to make a product that’s going to address the needs of the customer, but also to be profitable at the same time. It’s a combination of understanding the customer’s pain point, taking into consideration how much of the market we can meet, and whether it’s profitable for the company, customers and shareholders.

How are you supporting dealers to adopt AI to help scale talent at the dealership?

Dray: We have a tool that helps our dealers identify early problems before failure actually happens on machines. Leveraging that technology can help bring someone on board to maybe not have to know the ins and outs of a transmission, engine, clutch or whatever the component is that could fail on a machine. People can use this technology to build their vocabulary and grow into a technical role or a service manager role.

Armstrong: We have different systems and approaches that are developed and others that we’re developing to help AI prevent failures. As a company, we’re still trying to learn how to best utilize AI to support the dealerships.

Ridenour: I think migrating the training material and anything that we've had to previously go fetch in a library and putting in search tools so it's easier to get the information in the field to do what you need to do. That's what we've been working on over the past 18 months. Again, it’s a huge question. It's (AI) moving very quickly. I do know that we have a team from Trimble and Precision Planting that’s working on this specific topic. They want to get you information faster as you're quoting out a system and as you're servicing that system. 

Are OEMs focusing on improving in-field support to visit dealers in a region and help them diagnose and resolve issues in season?

Ridenour: I’m in a unique position as we’ve merged 3-4 different groups together. We’re taking large steps internally to help each individual employee have a broader knowledge base across Precision Planting, HeadSight and Trimble so we can build a bigger army in the field to make sure dealers are getting all the support they need. 

Armstrong: Claas of America has made a big investment in putting more feet on the ground for support. We aren’t going to make experts out of everyone, but we need to heighten our product teams’ education on precision products and make sure they’re involved in supporting our dealers.

Dray: I want to thank the dealers for being the front line. The expectation is that dealers manage the relationship with the customers and understand what’s going on with the machine and their operation. Having boots on the ground is important. We have product specialists and field teams that can be tapped on the shoulder and leveraged as needed. But what’s really important is taking the information from the field and getting it back to the corporation for us to truly understand what’s going on. There could be a singular event that could actually impact a lot of customers. Getting that documentation into our system is critically important. 

What are the biggest technology trends you’re keeping an eye on for 2025?

Dray: First and foremost, we continue to see farm consolidation as well as success plans as the current folks farming today age out. The second one is government regulations, specifically what an updated farm bill would look like. And third, weeds and herbicides. There’s a lot of technology in that space right now. Another one would be business models on how technology is offered to customers. 

Armstrong: We’ve invested quite a bit on the digital side in the past 10 years. We’re growing in that department as we move into the future. And part of that, as we look at technology on our machines (autonomy and automation), I think you’ve got to make sure, specifically if it’s a harvesting piece of equipment, that the machines can monitor themselves and make the right adjustments to make it totally operator-free. We’ll spend a lot of time on that with the Claas electronic machine optimization system and continue to refine it as we move forward. 

Ridenour: AGCO really wants to focus on smart implements, making sure that we’re taking technology that we already have within the cab to steer and control a power unit and making that more applicable to the implement. Whether that means a smarter cultivator or a smarter planter, those are some things we’re really focusing on.