Silver Fern Farms(MIS100 2009)

By CIO staff | Friday, July 24 2009

2008 ranking: 41

Senior IS executive: Eduard Walthert, MIS manager
Reports to: GM corporate
Size of IS shop: 22

PCs: 780
Mobile PCs: 227
Terminals: 65
Hand-held devices: 50
Total screens: 1122

Industry: Manufacturing
PC environment: HP; Windows 2000, XP
Server environment: HP, Windows 2003
DBMS: SQL
Address: 218 George Street, Dunedin
Website: www.silverfernfarms.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: CRM, HRIS, BI, mail archiving.

Silver Fern Farms seeks to be an integrated, market-led company that invests in consumer products, which will differentiate and add value to supplier partners and customers. IT and system platforms are aligned to support the organisation’s business strategy, says MIS manager Eduard Walthert.

While SFF will continue to invest in the upgrade of it’s server and network infrastructure, the most significant investment for 2009 will be focused on e-business enhancements, along with ERP, ERM, CRM and HRIS solutions. Silver Fern Farms has a small but highly skilled engineering and development team, with support from third parties including Gen-i, Computer Concepts, IDS Dunedin and Wired Christchurch. Telecom looks after the datacentre.

As New Zealand’s largest meat processor, Silver Fern Farms is a farmer-owned co-operative and was formerly known as PPCS. It reported a surplus of $37.7 million after tax and rebates paid to farmers, for the financial year ending 31 August 2008.

At the time, Chairman Eoin Garden said one of the company’s main priorities was to reduce debt during the 2008 financial year, which was achieved through tighter inventory control, improved margins and disposal of non-core assets.

Garden says SFF expects results for the 2009 financial year to return to a more realistic profit level from lower projected buying volumes. Firm international market returns will see prices paid for livestock increase, but company margins may reduce. He also says the co-operative was confident further benefits would come over the next few years, because of improvements in the company’s processing operations and branding and marketing initiatives.