HELPING THE DAIRY SECTOR SUCCEED FROM THE GRASSROOTS UP
THE BACK STORY
Formed as part of a merger of two major dairy co-ops, Fonterra has been one of the global leaders in dairy science and innovation since 2001. After previously boasting 30% of global dairy exports, the business has recently shifted its focus on volume to value.
The problem
Collecting, processing, and delivering a majority of New Zealand’s dairy products comes with its challenges, as does the nature of being a co-op. On top of this, Fonterra struggles with retention of suppliers, so it needed to produce a platform that made the transaction process simple and reliable. Fonterra therefore engaged Jade to develop its milk payment system called Aspire.
The solution
Built on the stable Jade Platform, Aspire is a platform that facilitates millions of dollars worth of payments across a complex network of shareholders, contractors, and suppliers. Aspire offers near real-time processing of data and shares information between multiple systems.
The Aspire platform takes into consideration:
- Co-op shareholding rules
- Payments to multiple parties
- Payment deductions to third parties
Pat Moana, IT Service Owner, Fonterra, said:
“I’ve managed 60 or 70 vendors, and I can hand-on-heart say that Jade is one of the easiest vendors that I’ve worked with.”
The outcome
Jade and Fonterra have built a strong relationship based on trust, honesty, and good people. There’s no reliance on contracts to get the service they need; the relationship is never a hassle to manage. If you ask Pat how many escalations Fonterra gets regarding Jade’s performance and support of the Aspire environment, he might have to think long and hard about it, as there have been very few, if any.
- Reliably calculates and makes hundreds of millions worth of payments every month
- Timely flow of collection and quality results back to shareholders
- Flexibility to define new payment bases and supply contract rules
- Managing services to ensure the payment system runs with minimal disruption