DFMC enjoy less stress and more control in a share registry environment built for co-operatives
Dairy Farmers Milk Co-operative (DFMC) are a supply cooperative, representing over 200 members from more than 120 farms in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Together they supply over 150 million litres of milk every year.
DFMC’s struggle to get its registry in order has been long-term. In seeking solutions they first maintained data in-house, then trialled an out-sourced model, only to bring it back in-house. It appeared to be a choice between manual and laborious in-house management or outsourcing, which left them without control of their data. Additionally the third party offering wasn’t designed for the co-op structure and their needs were not met in this system.
“We were trying to fit our ‘round-peg-data’ into a square.” - Mark Kebbell, Executive Officer, DFMC.
Bringing it back in-house was a return to the same old struggles with copious excel sheets: it wasn’t easy to maintain, it was clunky and any changes had to be made in 2,3 or 4 places to keep it in synch. They needed a better way.
BCCM’s official tech partner
An introduction to Syndex (via BCCM) led to a SaaS solution designed for co-operatives that allowed for the modernisation they had long craved.
“The Syndex share registry is gold!” - Kebbell.
The share registry is now DFMC’s source of truth, eliminating double-handling of data and simplifying functions. Data is easier to read, dissect and gain intelligence from. Importantly the data is theirs to control, when they want and with ease.
Members have access to a DFMC-branded member portal linking them to their data, further reducing admin touchpoints.
DFMC long knew that excel wasn’t a database platform, but struggled to find a suitable alternative. In taking on Syndex’s toolbox of solutions DFMC are now 97% digital (opposed to paper-based) and will reduce admin by at least 20%.
The grand scale of Australia
As one of the first Australian co-operatives using the platform the onboarding process included some workshopping to delve into what an Australian co-op needed, outside of how NZ co-ops are serviced. Besides federal legislative and state differences Syndex tailored the platform to work across different regions. Geographical recording and communication were necessary for DFMC to accommodate differences in commercial agreements across areas.
“We can now select a region for a number of functions which has simplified our operations.” - Kebbell.
Dividend and conquer
DFMC’s dividend and rebate distribution process has undergone a stark transformation since moving to the Syndex platform. Kebbell recalls the endless manual calculations against milk records, the tedious mail merging and the checking, checking and more checking for mistakes. The apprehension of making an error weighed on the employees involved. Their latest distribution process was free from any processing stress.
“Pulling together all the data, templated letters and forms is fantastic. To get to a state of readiness to press ‘go’ is a result of simple steps with so much time saved.”
Security with Salesforce
Kebbell has an appreciation for the platform’s back end that is built on Salesforce. Favoured by C-suite execs it’s the biggest cloud-based tech app in the world that operates to a high level of scrutiny, security and compliance.
“Salesforce brings rigour, and with that brings confidence.” Kebbell.
