Best Technology Services harvests data for agriculture data analytics firm The Yield

Agriculture data analytics company The Yield contracted IoT specialist Best Technology Services to install and manage sensors on farms across Australia, which allowed it to scale and continue operations during COVID-19 travel restrictions.

The Yield provides predictions around weather and harvest quality and quantity which allow harvesters to mitigate risks, maximise returns and improve commercial outcomes and accountability.

The Yield operations manager Taimoor Qasim said the company's clients were perennial harvesters scattered in remote areas across the nation from far north Queensland to the north coast of Tasmania and South Australia’s wine regions.

“If a company with resources only in Sydney covered all our locations, it would just be impossible,” Qasim said.

The Yield first turned to Best Technology Services in December 2017 when it realised that it could scale by outsourcing its servicing, connection and installation responsibilities to a managed services provider, but that the extent of the partnership’s benefits revealed itself during pandemic restrictions.

“Through its partnership with Best, The Yield was able to de-risk its operating model by upskilling people within each state and ultimately mitigate the pandemic’s impact on its customers,” Qasim said.

Qasim said that the partnership had allowed The Yield to focus on the network design, setup, integration of its IoT solution, and data analytics services instead of installing and managing the sensors.

“Using IoT on farms is just brand new, it’s cutting edge. To make something that fresh work, you need to be agile, you need to learn from your mistakes and have patience to let the system work itself.”

“We had the best project manager, John Burrows specifically, and the Best project management
team was super agile. They were very keen to learn from mistakes and turn them into successes.”

Best Technology Services launched its field support services BestCare in March this year, which delivers on-site technology field services like network technology installation and support services to the MSPs IT and telco channel partner clients.