|
 |
|
|
|||
|
 |
|
Dec. 2, 2024 by the AgWeb.com editors It's not the first time Dean Williams has grabbed a tiger by the tail and dug his heels into ag retail's foundations. The grizzled veteran from Louisiana's farm country has cut his teeth across a mountain of warehouses, chem totes, international logistics, mergers, and startups over the last 3 decades. Now he's leaving the comfort of Simplot's diversified deep pockets to wrestle a decade's old startup into crop protection supremacy. "I've always thought that this industry was very inefficient," explains Williams, now president of FBN Direct. "I think efficiency drives me and I'm very passionate about it because I think we need to make this industry a lot more efficient for our farmers and for suppliers." Hired to work alongside new FBN Chief Executive Officer, Diego Casanello, Williams will lean on his experience at United Ag Products (UAP), as a founder of Pinnacle Agriculture, and as a leader at Simplot Grower Solutions and Terral Seed. "When FBN was introduced in 2014 I saw the things that they were trying to do and I thought it was a great e-commerce platform creating a new future for the farmers," says Williams. "In hockey, like retail, the puck's always moving, and to stay ahead of the puck, you have to skate to where the puck is going. For me, this whole move to FBN was about skating to where the puck was going." To help him grow the FBN book of business outside his traditional warehouse comfort zone, Williams is leaning on another ag retail veteran, Matt Stacey as the senior director of sales. The two have worked alongside each other at numerous companies over the past 20 years. "Our goal is to bring more suppliers and products to the platform," said Stacey. "We're going to take some of the experiences that Dean and I have had in traditional ag retail and marry those with FBN's innovative farmer-direct platform to bring new value to farmers." The duo is already hard at work building out its crop protection team, hiring key reps with known reputations for outstanding customer service and driving sales. While crop protection is the primary focus, other crop inputs and expanded livestock offerings are also on the way. "We're really concentrating on our crop protection sales now, but we have pilots going into fertilizer where we can get farmers more dynamic pricing and suppliers expand farmer access," said Williams. "As far as seed, we see opportunity getting farmers connected with the right manufacturers, and getting competitive brands to market faster." "I think for several years people that are forward thinking have said that they know what the values are around traditional ag retail that are successful," adds Stacey. "It's a changing world and I expect those farmers and suppliers eyeing the future are going to embrace online-platforms that deliver superior experiences." FBN corporate is also seeing changes under new leadership with Casanello at the helm. Strategically, the company is now building out its footprint in the Midwest and south along the Mississippi corridor down to the delta. "This is an area where we excel," said Williams. "We have a great product portfolio for the crops and we have terrific customer density, so our , supply chain and logistics processes can be hyper efficient." To read the entire article click here. Tweet |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||
