30 September 2024
Harnessing the power of digital technology for better customer results and relationships.
Data sharing brings Skretting Norway closer to its customers
The team at Skretting Norway has mobilised their commercial organisation around a digital customer strategy that is helping them create a better experience for the fish farmers they serve. Børge Pedersen, Sales Manager Customer Follow-up at Skretting Norway, explains the purpose of the strategy and how it works.
“Our digital journey started years ago, but it got a jumpstart during COVID,” said Børge. “For Skretting, it has always been important to stay close to our customers, but the way we do this changes over time, to meet our customers’ changing needs. The goal of our digital customer strategy is to work in partnership with fish farmers to help them achieve optimal production and give them more proactive advice.”
Sharing data to optimise production
Skretting Norway’s digital customer strategy centres around a dashboard they use to share production data with customers. “The data sharing started back in 2014, and now 70% of our customers share their production data with us,” said Børge. “We get live data from our customers’ systems, including key parameters such as appetite, mortality, feeding and feed silo status. This has had a huge impact on the way we work and our ability to be a real strategic partner for our customers. In the past, we would get production information too late, and it was difficult to proactively change delivery times or feed type to meet the needs of each farm’s current situation, but now we know what’s happening on the farm in almost real time.”
Our feed ingredients are sourced from around the world, so we’re dealing with long lead times. Being able to better predict what our customers will need also helps us to plan ahead.
Using this shared data, the Skretting team can monitor fish growth and mortality and water temperature. “With this information, our system can accurately predict what the fish will eat and advise farmers about when and how much feed to order.” This is crucial to ensuring that feed silos aren’t overfilled or running empty, resulting in lost feeding time.
Børge also explained how this provides more predictability for Skretting. “Our feed ingredients are sourced from around the world, so we’re dealing with long lead times. Being able to better predict what our customers will need also helps us to plan ahead.”
Collaborating for stronger relationships
The other important move the team has made as part of their digital customer journey is to use software such as Teams to enable more regular customer meetings. “Norway has a long coastline, and our customers are located all the way from the south to the north of the country. In the past, our sales team had to travel many hours by car and even plane to visit our customers,” explained Børge.
“While we still visit fish farms and meet in person, we have added regular virtual meetings with our customers every two to three weeks through Teams. During these meetings, we take a deep dive together, discussing the data available in the dashboard, and adjusting the parameters to fit the customer’s needs,” he said.
For customer advisors and sales reps, the strategy has improved their quality of life by reducing the time they spend in cars and airplanes while giving them a way to immediately respond to customer needs. “We feel like we have more of an impact on production – like we can really help our customers. We feel like true partners,” said Børge.
A brand-new way of partnering
Skretting Norway’s General Manager Håvard Walde sums it up in this way: "Our digital strategy brings integrated business planning to a completely new level, and it gives us so many opportunities in terms of providing our customers with precise nutrition and being a relevant discussion partner. The way we collaborate with our customers on their production data is the most disruptive thing – it’s really a brand-new way of working."
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