Elders will run the final two “waves” of a multi-year transformation strategy in parallel, culminating in the switch-off of a SAP enterprise resource planning system and IBM AS/400 infrastructure.
The agribusiness group has been working through a modernisation project known as SysMod project in “waves”, of which it is working through wave two.
The first wave in 2023 saw Elders implement Workday for internal human resource management, Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) modules for indirect procurement and fixed assets, a new data analytics platform, and make upgrades to its intranet and website.
D365 came into Elders under a five-year deal with Microsoft that also covers other Azure services, cyber security and Power BI.
Wave two sees the company adopt D365 for retail and supply chain operations, which it described at the end of last year as “a significant step toward enhancing the customer experience and supporting the business into the future.”
Handing down its first-half results on Monday, managing director and CEO Mark Allison said the retail upgrades in wave two would run “through to the end of this year” at Elders’ branches.
So far, work in Tasmania is complete, and is progressing in South Australia and Queensland, according to the Elders slide deck.
The final two waves will see Elders replace its “livestock and trading settlements, remaining financial systems and customer relationship management systems, plus the decommissioning of the 35-year-old legacy AS/400 platform,” the company said at the end of last year.
The design phase of wave three is underway, focusing on livestock, trading settlements and remaining financial and customer relationship management systems.
Wave four’s business plan is now kicking off, covering a full transition away from legacy technology to a modern ERP.
Decommissioning the older system is expected to bring in benefits such as continuous improvement from a modern ERP.
Allison said Elders has “been very transparent on our progress” and will “provide the detailed numbers as each business case for each wave is approved by the board” – consistent with how it has run previous transformation phases.
Elders announced a statutory profit after tax of $33.6 million for HY25, up 190 percent year-on-year.
