The secret to Sun World’s emergence as a top grower playing on the world stage is that it brings together the business intelligence and the world-class research capability to breed the specialty varieties that meet customer and consumer demand. At the core is an advanced analytics capability that enables Sun World to optimize nearly every aspect of its operations, from planting and harvest to storage and distribution. On the basis of the insights it generates, Sun World is reducing costs, increasing yields and focusing on its most profitable opportunities.

1. Smarter Planet
Leadership Series
Sun World International
A case study in smarter planet leadership
Harvesting business insights to Leadership
maximize profitability Spotlight
If you look at the world of commercial farming on the surface, it looks a lot like When Sun World International
needs to make important business
it always has. It conjures a sentimental image that resonates with most. But on
decisions, Steve Greenwood, the
a deeper level, the increasingly globalized nature of the commercial farming company’s Budget Manager, plays
industry today leaves little room for sentimentality when profits are at stake. That’s a strong but silent role. His team
provides the decision support that
Steve Greenwood, why producers are increasingly looking to a new kind of harvest — the helps elevate Sun World — a mid-
Budget Manager
for Sun World
ability to extract insights from data — as the key to their future success. sized company — to a world-class
International breeder and provider of specialty
branded produce.
Steve Greenwood, Budget Manager for Sun World International — a mid-sized
grower based in Bakersfield, CA has seen this shift firsthand. Greenwood and his How Sun World
team have a direct impact on what crops go into the ground and what Sun World got smarter
The secret to Sun World’s
ultimately brings to market. It’s a decision where — in Sun World’s case — rational
emergence as a top grower playing
analysis trumps sentimentality. You’d think, for example, that as the first company on the world stage is that it brings
to develop seedless watermelons, Sun World’s planners might hold a special together the business intelligence
and the world-class research capa-
place for them in their hearts. But when a closer look at the numbers showed that bility to breed the specialty varieties
the company was bringing more and more product to market just as prices were that meet customer and consumer
plunging, Sun World abruptly changed course, dramatically cutting acreage and demand. At the core is an advanced
analytics capability that enables Sun
shifting to a new breed of table grape that now produces twice as much profit on World to optimize nearly every aspect
a quarter of the acreage. of its operations, from planting and
harvest to storage and distribution.
On the basis of the insights it gener-
ates, Sun World is reducing costs,
increasing yields and focusing on its
most profitable opportunities.
Let’s Build a Smarter Planet

2. The seeds of smarter planning
The lesson of this story isn’t just that there are no sacred cows in commercial agriculture. Nor does
it signal a change in the importance of supply and demand in determining profitability. Instead, it is
more a reflection of how — in an industry where market globalization has increased risk and made
profitability more elusive — timely and accurate decision support is more important than ever.
As Greenwood explains it, profitability in commercial agriculture is in large measure a function of a
provider’s ability to come to market with the right product at the right time. But it’s not as easy as
it sounds. While the rhythms of seasonality may be a basic part of life to the average consumer in
The benefits of
the produce aisle, commercial growers see them as a sort of moving landscape from which evolve Sun World’s data-driven
threats and opportunities. To be avoided, he says, are crops whose harvests come due when the agricultural practices
market is crowded with abundant supplies and falling prices. “Our aim is to produce quality products • Five percent reduction in
harvesting costs, a 20 percent
when they’re currently not available,” says Greenwood. “It’s about hitting the market window when reduction in fuel usage and a
nobody else can.” 50 percent increase in yield
over the past five years through
the targeted use of drip
One key dimension of Sun World’s targeting strategy is its worldclass breeding center, located on irrigation practices
a 180-acre experimental farm not far from the company’s headquarters. A complement to Sun
• Increased margins driven
World’s focus on specialty-branded (as opposed to commodity) produce, the center seeks to breed through customer segmentation
and patent crop varieties with targeted characteristics (such as red seedless grapes that harvest and negotiations
in September, which, as grapes go, is late on the calendar). That’s where the second important • Eight fold increase in profit
dimension comes in. Greenwood explains: “Pursuing a proactive market targeting strategy requires per acre due to a data-driven
change in one element of its
accurate, granular and up-to-date forecasts of what’s going on in the market. That’s how we find crop strategy
opportunity and catch our competitors flat-footed.”
• Better market planning
through more accurate and
granular forecasting
A new culture takes root
Greenwood was at Sun World when the pieces of this capability began falling into place. The water-
shed moment was a change in management and a corresponding shift in the company’s competitive
strategy. Sun World’s executives recognized that successfully competing on a global level required a
more information-driven decision-making culture. It also realized that for such a culture to take root,
Sun World needed to fundamentally transform the way it managed key business data.
One holdover of its old way of doing business was a reliance on manually updated spreadsheet data,
which, for the purpose of decision-making, became stale the moment it was entered. What’s more,
beyond being inefficient and error prone, this fragmented approach made it impossible to perform
the analytical functions Sun World would need to execute intelligent market planning, as well as the

3. optimization of its everyday operations. Sun World put that building block into place when it worked Leadership is...
with Applied Analytix, Inc., an IBM Business Partner with vast experience transforming data into Changing the decision-
making culture
actionable insights. Applied Analytix implemented IBM Cognos® TM1 and redesigned Sun World’s
processes to take full advantage of its advanced functionality. A new business model—with
more upside and more risk —
made rigorous, data-driven
Sun World’s 16,000 acres of farmland are clustered into four growing areas in the San Joaquin and decision-making a necessity.
Coachella Valleys of California, each of which is directed by a farm manager. Greenwood is on a first “We’ve aimed to transform the
name basis with all of them, the result of a close and ongoing working relationship. Once a month, company culture from where
you grow and ‘hope for the
they come to Bakersfield to sit down and go through the numbers, discussing budgets, costs and best’ to one that uses informa-
productivity. That is, unless it’s harvest time, when their 18 hour days make it more practical for tion analytics to get an accurate
Greenwood to make the drive to them. measurement of business.”
– Steve Greenwood,
The aim of these meetings is to take stock, identify trends and figure out the best way forward. With Budget Manager,
IBM Cognos TM1 helping Greenwood and the managers to glean insights and improve forecast Sun World International
accuracy and granularity, these sessions have become much more fruitful. Fed from Sun World’s
ERP system, the analytics solution can provide a granular breakdown of sales, costs and profitability
by product type, variety, region and individual ranch. Part of what makes a solution such a valuable
forward-looking tool is its ability to do “what-if” analysis around parameters like water costs, fuel
costs and changes in consumer buying patterns, and to use these insights to optimize its planting
mix.
Data-driven insights complement intuition Lesson learned
Positioning is everything
Like most experienced farmers, Sun World’s farm managers and their foremen have learned to trust When Sun World’s new man-
their gut in determining which practices — in areas like irrigation and fertilizing — work best. Greenwood agement ushered a new kind of
decision-making into a culture
doesn’t dispute the value of experience, but he sees the insights derived from Cognos TM1 as adding
steeped in experience and intuition,
the level of precision needed to optimize everyday farming practices. Take irrigation as an example. initial resistance wasn’t a surprise.
Given the water shortages endemic to the region, high-efficiency drip irrigation methods are gaining
“The key to making it stick was to
in favor as an alternative to traditional surface irrigation. Because Sun World can compare the costs of show how data-driven insights
both at a granular level, it’s been able to make better judgments about where to apply are a complement to — not a
substitute for — the knowledge,
drip irrigation, resulting in lower water usage and better nourished produce. In the growing of table
judgment and intuition of our
grapes, the targeted use of drip irrigation has resulted in a five percent reduction in harvesting costs, a farming, sales and administra-
20 percent reduction in fuel usage and a 50 percent increase in yield over the past five years. tive staffs.”
– Steve Greenwood

4. Harvest time produces a series of important decisions that impact the cost and efficiency of the
harvest—and thus the bottom line. There was a time when Sun World executives and farm managers
didn’t see the productivity numbers until the harvest was done, when it was too late to do anything dif-
ferent. Today, farm managers out in the field during the harvest can use their cell phone or PDA to get
an up-to-date view of productivity metrics at the level of individual ranches or work crews. “This means
that if a manager finds something wrong with a particular ranch or crew, he can find out the root prob-
lem and address it proactively to maximize the overall productivity of the harvest — as it’s happening,
not after it’s done,” says Greenwood. “In the same way, we can flag superior practices among specific
crews and try to promote them where it makes sense.”
In addition to the vagaries of nature, Sun World’s profitability also depends on its ability to negotiate the
best prices with retailers in a fluctuating market. The ongoing consolidation of the grocery business
has exacerbated this challenge. To ensure that the sales staff has the most up-to-the-minute price
data as they negotiate with their customers around the world, Sun World displays them on the sell-
ing floor via a ticker display, drawn from a near-real-time feed from Cognos TM1. “This gives our sales The parameters
people the ability to continually understand market conditions,” explains Greenwood. “A penny here, of Sun World’s
smarter agriculture
a penny there matters when you’re shipping 11,000,000 boxes per year.”
Instrumented
Highly granular sales and cost
data is fed from Sun World’s ERP
system to Cognos TM1 in real
time.
Interconnected
Farm managers in the field can
access reports from wireless
devices, enabling them to take
immediate action in the event of
abnormalities.
Intelligent
Advanced analytics enables Sun
World to pinpoint best practices
around irrigation and fertilizing
and apply those practices where
“A penny here, a penny there matters when it makes most sense.
you’re shipping 11,000,000 boxes per year.”
– Steve Greenwood
A new breed of commercial grower
The combination of operational efficiency and world-class breeding capability has provided Sun
World with a powerful advantage over competitors. That success is perhaps best exemplified by
the Scarlotta red grape, a late-season variety that’s proven to be a winner for the company. But as
Greenwood is quick to point out, advantage in the premium produce arena is a fluid thing. “Once
you have a winner, it doesn’t take a whole lot of years for everybody else to have it,” Greenwood
explains, “and the cycle repeats over and over again.”
So what’s next? “What the industry doesn’t have right now is a late white or green seedless table
grape, and that’s what our Breeding Center is working on everyday,” says Greenwood. “The fact that
we can make smart decisions based on advanced analytics ensures that we’ll make the most of that
opportunity when the time comes to bring it to market.”

5. “The fact that we can make smart decisions based
on advanced analytics ensures that we’ll make the
most of that opportunity when the time comes to
bring it to market.” – Steve Greenwood
Sun World’s analytics
solution uses…
Software
IBM Cognos® TM1, IBM DB2®
Hardware
IBM Power SystemsTM
IBM Business Partner
Applied Analytix, Inc.
For more information
Please contact your
IBM sales representative or
IBM Business Partner.
Or visit us at:
ibm.com/smarterplanet/food
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