SAP’s Internet of Things (IoT) offering is radically changing business. A manufacturer of tractors partners with farmers and SAP to connect people, plants, and machines.

Rogerio Pacheco, the award-winning owner of a midsize farm, is Brazil’s second largest producer of soybean in terms of productivity.

“High productivity is only possible with technology,” says Rogerio. “People didn’t think it would pay off to invest in tractors with infrared sensors. The sensor alone is a third of the price of the tractor, but it allows you to determine the exact amount of fertilizer to apply to each individual plant. In two years I was able to recover my investment and significantly increase productivity.”

Rogerio buys his tractors from a company called Stara, a pioneer in precision farming technology. “The beauty of the deal is that I am not just buying a tractor; I am also buying a package of services which hosts my data in the cloud,” he adds.

Serving the Customer

Stara manufactures farming machines and equipment in Brazil. “The Internet of Things (IoT) revolutionized our business model,” explains Cristiano Buss, Stara’s Director of Research & Development. “Previously, we viewed the machines and the farmers as separate entities. Now we can connect machines to machines and people to machines. We can connect the customers to their business in real time on their handheld devices.”

Stara’s tractors were already equipped with sensors, but they needed a real time system to make valuable use of data for farm management and operations. The company worked with the team at SAP Labs Latin America to integrate the sensors with a Digital Farming platform powered by SAP HANA. Now they can offer data analytic capabilities to farmers so they can gain better insights to make better decisions.

Long-Term Collaboration, New Partnerships

Tanja Rueckert, executive vice president of IOT & Digital Assets at SAP, stresses the need for co-innovation: “We at SAP can provide technology and intelligent software, but we can’t do it alone. We are co-innovating with our customers and partners to reimagine the agribusiness ecosystem. Continuous development of a digital farming platform based on SAP’s IoT technology and SAP HANA allows all players including producers, cooperatives and machine manufacturers to gain new insights through data analytics. This helps farmers produce more high-quality crop per acre and supports sustainable agricultural practices that respect the environment and the farmers.”

IoT touches all industries. At the IoT World 2016 in Santa Clara, SAP unveiled new offerings for customers and partners on the comprehensive SAP HANA Cloud Platform for the IoT. SAP offerings can help capture the real value of the IoT by connecting “things” to the enterprise to provide better insights and proactive actions giving customers the outcomes they want.

There’s no better example than the story of Stara and their customer, a farmer who is increasing yield per acre with the help of technology.

Click here for more details on SAP’s IOT offerings and partnerships with Dell and Hitachi. Check out the SAP Business Transformation study on Stara.