Founded in 1995, RDF is one of the leading regional distributors of agricultural inputs (chemical fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides) and a major grain trader. Since 2019, following its partnership with Roca Investments, the company has become the foundation of the ROCA Agri RDF Holding, which today includes the companies RDF Agricultură, Adidana, Dachim, and Supliment. In 2022, the ROCA Agri RDF Holding cultivated over 2,000 hectares of farmland and generated revenues of more than €156 million.
The holding is continuously expanding through the acquisition of farms and high-quality land, the integration of other relevant companies, the development of its production and logistics areas, and climate zoning. Today, it cultivates 4,500 hectares. RDF places particular emphasis on sustainable development and on ensuring the prosperity of farming communities by providing access to innovation, advanced technologies, and digitalized business processes.
“We are a very ambitious organization, and our goal is to become a one-stop-shop for farmers, offering integrated products and services tailored to modern agriculture. Technology is one of our allies in this process, helping us gain visibility and control over our operations.”
Florin Deznan – Founder and Chairman of the Board, ROCA Agri RDF
Initial situation
RDF carries out a complex range of activities, cultivating both its own land and leased land, conducting grain trading operations (purchasing and selling to third parties), as well as distributing agricultural inputs (seeds, insecticides, pesticides, etc.). RDF’s operations follow specific agribusiness market mechanisms, which include financing farmers for the value of contracted inputs until payment is made through the harvest, while also offering farmers discounts based on contracted volumes.
This activity requires strict financial and accounting records to correlate all transactions and obtain a coherent overview of economic indicators across various profit centers.
In 2020, alongside the partnership with Roca Investments, which also became the majority shareholder, RDF launched an extensive operational digitalization project, aiming to achieve a transparent and consistent way of managing its activities and reporting its economic results.
For its digitalization project, RDF selected ELIAN Solutions, the most relevant local Microsoft partner for implementing the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP system. In choosing ELIAN Solutions, the RDF Group’s management analyzed multiple references and assessed the implementer’s ability to understand the agribusiness sector, including the availability of solutions dedicated to agricultural production.
“In 2020 – 2021, we carried out a large-scale investment project within RDF, totaling €3.9 million. The objective was the accelerated development of our business – from grain processing and storage capacities to the opening of new business lines, as well as the modernization of workflows. Digitalization was a key component of this project, and in this context we launched the implementation of an ERP system for managing the group’s entire activity.” – Florin Deznan
The solution
ELIAN Solutions implemented a complex solution based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, enhanced with multiple modules and functionalities developed specifically for RDF’s needs. The entire development and implementation project lasted six months and involved close collaboration between the implementer and the client. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the core of the solution, integrating all data and operations and supporting the management of the company’s entire activity: Financial Management, Agricultural Production, Sales and Marketing, Purchasing and Payables, Resource Planning, Service Management, Warehouse, and Human Resource.
The Agricultural Production module manages RDF’s specific activity parameters: types of crops and areas, specific works, allocated resources and equipment, lease contracts, etc. It includes a day-laborer registry and integrates with Google Maps for accurate on-field visualization of all managed plots.
The system correlates all data and automatically generates consumption vouchers (fuel, seeds, fertilizers), analyses of the works performed (allocated resources, costs, yields), as well as reports to APIA. ELIAN Solutions also integrated into the Microsoft ERP specific modules for grain trading and silo management. The Trading module is highly complex and fully manages the specific operations, from signing a sales commitment with delivery agreements on quantities and quality parameters (moisture, impurities) to the actual receipt of the harvest and the correlation of indicators.
The system consolidates operations and data from all business lines, and thus Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central enables close monitoring of all cost and profit centers. To ensure the level of visibility required by RDF, the ERP system is integrated with Microsoft Power BI for real-time business analytics and with a managerial reporting module dedicated to interactions with the Roca Group.
Benefits
Through digitalization, RDF has laid the foundation for a continuous process of operational modernization and business development. With the data provided by the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP system, RDF’s management team has gained complete visibility over operations and a clear view of each business line: field crops, leases, grain trading, silos, distribution of agricultural inputs, etc. At the same time, the company has full operational control down to the level of plot, crop, or equipment. Thus, all decisions that influence RDF’s activity are made with full knowledge and understanding of their future effects.
As a result of the collaboration with ELIAN and the use of a high-performance ERP system, RDF has achieved continuous business growth and an increase in turnover.
The successful results of the project led the Roca Holding management team to expand its collaboration with ELIAN Solutions and to choose the implementation of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP system in other companies within the group.
” We successfully implemented the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP system for the integrated management of the company’s operations, and this, along with other measures taken, led us the following year to an increase in turnover of approximately 50% compared to the previous year.” – Florin Deznan
Project benefits
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Creating a foundation for long-term development through the operational unification of the main business lines and the integration of data into a single system
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Visibility over operations and control of profit and loss centers
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Modernization of activities and transition to precision agriculture
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Simplification of financial reporting at group level and to the authorities
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Support in managing commercial contracts, both for grain trading and for land leases
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Automation of data collection and reporting to APIA
The digitalization and modernization of RDF’s operations also resulted in the company’s alignment with international best practices across multiple areas: strategy, innovation, governance, and financial management.
For these achievements, RDF received the Best Managed Companies certification in both 2022 and 2023, an award granted to entrepreneurial companies whose practices meet a set of objective international standards, evaluated according to a methodology validated by Deloitte.
“The collaboration with ELIAN and the implementation of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP system had a positive impact on RDF’s operations. It helped us reorganize our business lines, modernize our activity, and introduce new working procedures. Alongside other investments, digitalization enabled us, in just two years, to manage more than twice the agricultural area and to increase our turnover by 50.”
Florin Deznan – Founder and Chairman of the Board of ROCA Agri RDF