Based on my conversations with dealers during the last few months, some have learned hard economic lessons due to an inability or unwillingness to arm themselves with the tools, training or talent to change with the times.

While in-person meetings provide valuable face-to-face contact, the chaotic schedules of precision managers don’t always allow for coordinated sessions. In 2018, a group of John Deere precision farming managers, organized by Phil Moskal from Mid-State Equipment, began communicating via text message to assist each other with troubleshooting in-field problems or trading insight on new products or services.

So what kind of business climate can we expect in the next 6, 12 or even 18 months? Chances are, it will be more similar to what we are experiencing today than what we did a year ago.

Scaling pre-season spring planting projects is as much an art as it is a science for Lance Larsen, precision service coordinator with Agtegra, a 5,000-plus farmer cooperative based in Aberdeen, S.D., and 2014 Most Valuable Dealership.

When you integrate a solution, two events can happen: either the solution works well together and you reduce a lot of risk for the customer, or you become part of the customer’s fabric. You can do software integration or data integration.

Anticipation can be a frustrating and ambiguous objective when it comes to forecasting the when and how the next ag tech innovation will influence a dealership’s precision farming business.