Bushel streamlines and shares agricultural data that would otherwise be siloed. To serve its customers, Bushel needs to be able to collaborate at any time, anywhere, and does so using Google Workspace.
Bushel is a digital infrastructure company working in the agricultural supply chain. Since launching in 2017, the company’s digital platform now powers 2,500 grain facilities across the U.S. and Canada with real-time business information for their producers. Every month, 100,000 producers use Bushel products and services.
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Fargo, North Dakota
Bushel streamlines and shares agricultural data that would otherwise be siloed. To serve its customers, Bushel needs to be able to collaborate at any time, anywhere, and does so using Google Workspace.
Google Workspace Results
Quadrupled in size and still able to collaborate seamlessly
• Presents slides to customers, even in rural places, with offline mode
• Offers mobility to let employees go where they’re needed
• Security features have increased customer satisfaction and retention
president and co-founder Ryan Raguse grew up on a farm, and every spring and fall, he returns home to help his family in the field. He’s well aware of the challenges farmers face, from inconsistent weather patterns to fluctuating crop prices.
This was one of the insights that led Raguse and his co-founder Jake Joraanstad to set up Bushel in 2017. They also noticed how many operators in the agricultural industry have data inside their supply chains, siloed and hard to access. "It's not standardized," says Raguse. "It's all over the place, and we saw an opportunity to take that data, streamline it, and share it."
Their mobile app allows farmers to track market prices in real time, instantly buy and sell grain, analyze inventory and transactions, and securely share verified information between agribusinesses and producers.
Since its launch, Bushel has gone from a small scale platform that delivered grain contracts, cash bids, and receipts for a few hundred farmers to serving 2,500 grain facilities across the U.S. and Canada. Every month, 100,000 producers use Bushel products and services. That’s approximately 45% of all U.S. and Canada grain transactions.
Bushel set out to solve a vacuum in innovation within the agricultural supply chain. The ability to deliver a scale ticket from an agribusiness to a farmer without using paper was not obvious or previously possible.
Bushel is digitizing this complicated pen and paper process with the first mobile app to track grain market prices and analyze inventory. It turned to to build its industry changing app and The company also uses for its employees to ensure collaboration and cooperation. Since it started, Bushel has quadrupled in size, and needed a software solution that could keep pace.
"The success of any company is, of course, good business strategy and getting the right people in the right spots," says Bushel’s Chief Marketing Officer, Camille Grade. "Communication and collaboration are two key components of that. You need the right tools to facilitate communication and collaboration and we’ve found that in Google Workspace."
Enabling remote work from the remotest of locations
“As a company, we’ve grown quite a bit and Google Workspace has scaled with us every step of the way. We’ve never even thought about going somewhere else because it just keeps working.” - Ryan Raguse, Founder and President, Bushel
Bushel is a Google Workspace native company because of the opportunity for seamless collaboration, according to Raguse. "As a company, we’ve grown quite a bit, and Google Workspace has scaled with us every step of the way. We’ve never even thought about going somewhere else, because it just keeps working," he says.
The way that Google Workspace supported ease of communication and collaboration became even more apparent during the pandemic, when Bushel members worked anywhere, even Employees were already familiar working both synchronously and asynchronously on , , and more. So when COVID-19 hit, they could keep working without a hitch.
Today, approximately 25% of Bushel’s employees work remotely, including at farms and sometimes even in the middle of a field. By using Bushel employees have the mobility to go where they are needed and when they are needed, even if cell phone service is spotty. Sales and customer success team members regularly go onsite and share Slides, Sheets, and Docs with ease, thanks to Google Workspace’s offline capabilities.
"Having the offline capability has been really helpful," Grade says. "We need the mobility to best serve our customers where they're at. It's just a reality still that there are some pockets of the country where connectivity is not quite where it needs to be."
Attention to detail translates into better customer service overall
“We work with some of the largest companies in the world and we have to demonstrate we’ll keep their data secure. We’re able to do that by using Google Cloud and Google Workspace.” - Ryan Raguse, Founder and President, Bushel
The top Google Workspace solutions Bushel uses are Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Bushel employees use Docs as a catchall for meeting notes, business ideas, and all text-based collaboration. They use Sheets to capture data for everything from capitalization tables to customer segmentation, and Slides helps to create board reports, strategy presentations, and product updates.
Calendar has also quickly become an integral part of Bushel’s daily activities. It’s connected to Bushel’s in-person conference rooms, so that an employee can book a room, schedule meetings, and share agendas all at the same time. Raguse is excited to see what comes next, and he appreciates the way that Google Workspace is constantly releasing new features to improve its functionality.
"New versions keep coming and I love that I’m able to, for instance, embed Slides or Sheets into Docs. Everything keeps getting better," he says. "As a SaaS company ourselves, we understand and enjoy Google Cloud’s level of attention to detail to its solutions."
That attention to detail translates into better service for Bushel’s customers. Anecdotally, customers have reflected that Bushel responds quickly to support requests and can easily collaborate. They’ve also mentioned how much they value Google Workspace’s security features, and that has meant increased satisfaction and customer retention for Bushel.
"We work with some of the largest companies in the world, and we have to demonstrate we’ll keep their data secure. We’re able to do that by using Google Cloud and Google Workspace," Raguse says.
Grade adds, "Having the right technology allies, like Google Cloud, is the core foundation of security at Bushel and is mission critical to our success moving forward."
Creating possibilities for its customers
“We’re getting our customers into the realm of possibility, moving beyond the space of limitation they’re currently operating under because they don’t have the right technology.” - Camille Grade, Chief Marketing Officer, Bushel
Looking ahead, Bushel plans to keep growing and executing new solutions to serve the agriculture industry, such as a digital platform to facilitate payments. Bushel Wallet, which is enabled by Google Cloud, allows businesses to conveniently move money in real time across the agriculture supply chain, instead of using paper checks. Bushel is focusing on what it does best: problem solving and possibility creating.
"We’re getting our customers into the realm of possibility, moving beyond the space of limitation they’re currently operating under because they don’t have the right technology," Grade says.