One of the biggest challenges in AgTech commercialization is gaining trust in your technology from Farmers.

A critical piece of AgTech Eco-system infrastructure is now coming online to reduce this barrier in the form of AgTech Demonstration Farms.

These facilities are being made available around Australia, evolving working Government and University research farms into AgTech Demonstration Farms, which aim to connect Farmers, Researchers and AgTech developers.

AgTech companies can deploy their technology onto these farms providing a robust trial environment to test, develop and prove the capability of their technology.

Following the success of the inaugural AgriFutures Evoke Ag in 2019, this year's event was attended with much anticipation by 1300 delegates from 22 countries. Solidifying its position as Asia Pacific’s largest Agrifood Tech event.

Key Insights:

• AgTech startups have matured their business models.

• Plant based protein and Regenerative Farming are entering the AgTech discussion.

• Farmers call bulls**t on AgTech buzzwords.

• Evoke Ag is heading to Perth in 2021!

Australia’s AgTech ecosystem has evolved rapidly in the past two years. Funding from government, industry and institutional investors has increased. Meanwhile, farmers are showing heightened interest in agricultural technologies to optimise input efficiency and maximise yields.

There is no doubt that these technologies will play a key role in getting Australia’s agribusiness industry to its $100 billion target. But we aren’t there yet. AgTech still faces some significant challenges - the recent Australian British Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) Agribusiness – Australia’s Powerhouse event in Perth discussed how to overcome these issues and get agribusinesses engaging in technology on a wider scale.

For the past few months I've been wishing that the Salesforce Einstein Analytics product was available at price point that matched Tableau. Well today those wishes were, kind of answered.....

Salesforce has just announced that they are acquiring Data Analytics platform Tableau in a $15.3 Billion deal.

Salesforce has been gaining traction in data analytics since the launch of their Einstein Analytics product at Dream Force 2016, however traction has been limited to large SME's and Enterprise.

Whilst Einstein is incredibly powerful, its functionality and price point have been beyond the reach of many businesses seeking a data visualization and reporting tool. On the flip side the price point and depth of functionality of Tableau has made them a market leader across SME and Enterprise.

Last year I wrote a blog “the cloud is a journey not a destination” and whilst many businesses are still on this journey, a new path towards business intelligence is emerging for many. 

Before I detail what the business intelligence journey looks like, it’s important to understand what I mean by business intelligence. The proliferation of data visualisation tools like Power BI, Looker and Futrli have provided a new tool set to gain insights into the information that has been trapped inside excel spreadsheets and legacy information systems.

However these tools have failed to give the full picture as many organisations have only been able to utilise them to visualise siloed business functions like finance or marketing. 

By now, we have all heard of Cryptocurrency. However, the real power of this emerging currency lies in the underlying Blockchain technology. This has the potential to revolutionise the agriculture industry, mitigating risk and supply chain issues in a number of ways.

What is blockchain?

The central concept of Blockchain is that it is a distributed database or ledger, replicated across a network of computers, providing both transparency and security. Blockchain's other key element is that it's cryptographically validated, linking one set (or "block") of transactions to the other. This means once a transaction has been completed, it's impossible for that to be changed because all computers on the network have exactly the same copy.

Partner programs were a vital part of the development of Clear Business Dynamics and Accodex. My consulting practice centred on providing high quality implementation services for a range of cloud software. Over the past 6 years I have partnered with over 40 different software companies and have experienced the good and bad aspects of all of them. 

Building a successful partner program is crucial in todays fast paced and ultra competitive SaaS market. As the rate of product development increases SaaS vendors need to focus their limited resources on creating a market leading product, leaving the tedious implementation process to Partners on the ground that can ensure your product is properly adopted by customers. 

From my experience I have put together a list of must haves for any successful partner program. 

My last blog post detailed how Cloud Software Platforms are emerging as a core part of the tech stack for many companies. This blog goes into more detail on the features and characteristics of a cloud software platform.

There are a lot of software vendors who refer to their product as a software platform, however the reality is that most of these are software tools which manage a specific business function. The key concept to understand is the difference between software tools and software platforms. 

• Software tools - Focus on a narrow function of business such as marketing, finance, project management or collaboration.

• Software platforms - Consolidate information and workflows across a range of business functions. 

Over the past few years “moving to the cloud” has been a key objective for many companies. With full cloud adoption in SME’s expected to reach 60% by 2020, the next challenge comes through the integration and standardisation of business processes across the various cloud software systems, driven largely by the accelerating advancement in machine learning and predictive analytics.

The strategy to move to the cloud was a gradual one for many businesses, over time one business function after the other would be migrated to cloud based SaaS (software) solutions. However, as cloud technologies matured, many companies were left with an expanding stack of cloud software applications that became increasingly misaligned as business and user requirements changed. In fact it takes an average of 15 Cloud Software applications to enable an SME to be 100% cloud. 

At the end of last year I decided it was time to change course in my career and get back to what I love doing. 

The past six weeks has given me the time and perspective to reflect on my very unconventional career and discover the common threads that have lead to various opportunities and experiences since I launched my first business in 2006. 

Over the years I have started everything from a car detailing business, a gym, a real estate portal, a marina development, technology consultancy, even an “adult products” web site. Why? I love the the process of designing and executing new business ventures. 

For me, the process of developing a business goes back to my childhood obsession with Lego. I would spend hours tinkering away building models of cars and spaceships, which I would proudly display on my bookshelf. Rarely did I use the instructions, I always wanted to build what was in my imagination, I wanted to build the spaceship I dreamt about with the oversized wings and rocket launchers. 

I’ve just got back from the craziest tech conference on the planet, Dreamforce. 

Since becoming a Salesforce customer, attending Dreamforce has been high on my priority list after countless tales from others in the Salesforce community. 

I’ve been to a lot of big tech conferences over the years, but the stats on this years Dreamforce were on another level.

• 171,000 Attendees
• 3,200 sessions
• 600 Product workshops
• Attendees from 83 Countries. 

All of this spread out of about 5 city blocks of San Francisco. 

Trying to summarise the learnings and experience in a blog post is difficult, so here are my highlights.

Cloud software vendors are at war.

For the past few years, the cloud software world has been dominated by the concept of add on’s. Each software add-on will generally focus on a specific industry vertical or business function, such as retail, point of sale, reporting or time management. 

These front-end software applications focus on making a set of business processes more efficient than their non-cloud counterparts, before shipping pieces of information (data) into a complementary application such as Xero or Quickbooks, where further processing of the data occurs. 

Recently i've been reviewing past cloud software implementations to find trends in successful implementations. Through this process I have confirmed a theory i've had for a number of years, moving to "the cloud" is a journey, not a destination. 

Watching the excitement building for the start of the 2016 Formula One season got me thinking and making comparisons between Formula One and my other passion, Startups.

Watching the way teams go about a race weekend has many similarities to the daily challenges of running a startup. You also see the impact of varying levels of funding and technical ability, together with constant need to manage PR and the expectations of fans.

Here are some F1 insights that you can apply to your startup.