Key Takeaways:
- After serving as Growers Edge’s Chief Innovation Officer, Ahraz Husain is now Chief Commercial Officer.
- The new role will focus on iterating faster on customer feedback to improve existing products and launch new ones.
- Ahraz will work personally with partners to develop bespoke products for niche agricultural audiences.
Current market realities mean that many farmers are barely staying afloat financially. At the same time, thanks to digitization and innovation in the agriculture space, they may feel like they’re drowning in data while trying to wade through an abundance of input choices on retailer shelves.
That’s a lot to navigate. In his new role as Chief Commercial Officer, Ahraz Husain is helping farm input providers (including retailers and manufacturers) help farmers cut through the noise so they can manage their crops confidently and as profitably as possible.
We’re delighted that Ahraz is taking over this role; by the time you finish this piece, we hope you will be, too. Here’s a look at how he’s planning to use his experience as our Chief Innovation Officer to redefine our approach to developing and launching products that make a difference for farmers.
Gather Customer Feedback, React Faster, Improve Products
As the head of innovation, Ahraz focused on the innovation principles that lead to breakthroughs: try new things, learn as quickly as possible, and adjust accordingly.
Crop Plan Warranty is one result of such experiments. An outcome guarantee product, Crop Plan Warranty helps farm input providers drive adoption of new products by reducing the risk farmers face when trying new things.
If you’re a retailer or manufacturer who uses Crop Plan Warranty, you’re familiar with how it can help drive product adoption, attract new customers, and encourage specific behaviors (like regenerative ag practices) while also easing farmers’ concerns about trying new things.
But maybe you didn’t realize that Ahraz and his team are constantly looking for ways to improve this offering.
For example, last year, we acquired FarmTest, which means we can now offer side-by-side warranties. If you’re a farm input provider who has hard data showing that one of your products outperforms similar products, a side-by-side assurance program is a cost-effective way to cut through the noise and get that product into farmers’ fields.
With Ahraz now in the CCO seat, he’ll weave innovation principles more tightly into typical product development and improvement cycles, ensuring that your feedback leads to product improvements as fast as possible. Ultimately, of course, this will mean the farmers you serve are better able to choose and confidently use the best crop inputs for their land.
More Opportunity for Custom Products
A big part of Ahraz’s job is talking to farm input providers and others about the problems their customers are facing with the goal of building products to solve those problems.
Many of these conversations lead to custom products – warranties and other financial tools that help drive farmer behavior, often by removing enough risk that farmers feel comfortable doing something new, whether that’s trying biologicals or investing in a fertilizer that increases phosphorus availability and so requires less product overall.
As a CCO with an innovation background, Ahraz approaches product development with a partnership mindset: how can Growers Edge partner with others in the ag ecosystem to make things work better?
Everything’s on the Table
Today’s farmers are dealing with threats to their profitability that come from not only constantly evolving weather and climate realities but also new levels of uncertainty from federal subsidy programs and ever-shifting international trade realities.
The solutions that worked a few years ago might not work today. And that’s the real value Ahraz is bringing to the table: he and his team understand that the only way to meet this moment is to continuously evolve.
He’s looking not just at what kind of assurance programs are possible but also what pricing models work, how risk can be redistributed, how our digital tools might better serve everyone, and even how our customer engagements are structured.
So if you’re trying to figure out…
- How to make capital flow better;
- How to drive new behavior among farmers;
- How to encourage the adoption of new products;
- How to share risk differently;
… then it’s time for a conversation with Ahraz. He can help you figure out whether an existing product might help or whether you could benefit from a customized or bespoke product.
With an Innovation-Driven CCO, Better Ag Outcomes Happen Faster
Growers Edge has always been focused on creating innovative products that help farm input providers better serve their farmer customers.
With Ahraz in the role of Chief Commercial Officer, that work will continue and accelerate. In the months ahead, we look forward to conversations about the persistent challenges shaping daily life for ag professionals and to collaborating to develop solutions.