Improving supply chain operations to feed the world
UPL uses Databricks to provide sustainable agriculture solutions at scale
Countries where UPL leverages Databricks to provide AI solutions
UPL, a global leader in sustainable agriculture, is dedicated to securing the world’s food supply across 138 countries by enhancing farm productivity and profitability through innovative solutions. Due to their rapid growth, UPL faced significant challenges in managing and analyzing vast amounts of internal and third-party data sources. This fragmented data landscape hindered their ability to generate accurate demand forecasts, leading to potential product spoilage. Implementing the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform transformed UPL’s data management, allowing them to integrate and analyze data in real time, optimize supply chain operations and deploy AI solutions across 20 countries. The advanced machine learning and data governance capabilities of the Databricks Platform, particularly through Unity Catalog, have democratized data access. UPL drives significant improvements in crop management, pest control and overall agricultural productivity, supporting their mission of fostering inclusive growth for farmers worldwide.
UPL hungered for better food supply demand forecasting
UPL, the largest manufacturer and distributor of agrochemicals in India, is a global leader in sustainable agriculture. They’re committed to securing the world’s food supply — 138 countries and counting — by enhancing farm productivity and profitability. Their mission is to provide innovative agricultural solutions and foster inclusive growth for farmers. UPL’s business use cases span crop protection, seeds and post-harvest solutions, leveraging technology to boost efficiency and sustainability.
However, UPL faced significant challenges in managing vast amounts of data from diverse sources such as SAP, SAP BW, Salesforce, plant IoT data and external third-party data — including weather, regulatory and microeconomic information. “In 2022, we were at the end of a massive growth period. We grew 2x in about three to four years,” said Mohan Rao, Global Head of Digital and Analytics at UPL. This rapid growth underscored the need for UPL to leverage data more effectively to sustain their momentum and make informed decisions.
The complexity of demand forecasting in agriculture, influenced by numerous external variables and the critical timing of product applications, further complicated UPL’s data challenges. For instance, misjudging demand could result in spoiled products stuck in transit, where they’d be out of cold storage for extended periods. “A lot of our products have to be timed in such a way that you’ve got a three-day window within which a certain product has to be applied. And if you don’t predict that three-day window and apply, you don’t have a play,” explained Rao.
The fragmented data landscape hindered their ability to generate actionable insights swiftly and accurately, particularly for demand forecasting. UPL needed a unified platform to integrate, process and analyze these disparate data streams to support their decision-making processes and drive innovation in agriculture.
Creating a demand forecasting model with the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform
The Databricks Data Intelligence Platform provided UPL with a robust, scalable platform to unify their data sources and streamline analytics. The solution integrated data from all their internal and external sources, creating a centralized data lake for comprehensive analysis. Leveraging the Databricks lakehouse architecture, UPL could perform real-time analytics, advanced machine learning and data engineering tasks efficiently.
The Databricks Platform offers a unified and governed data management and analytics environment, enabling UPL to develop a more accurate demand forecasting model. This capability helps UPL mitigate risks such as product spoilage and optimize their supply chain operations.
The demand forecasting model couldn’t have been built without Databricks Unity Catalog. This component democratizes data across the organization, making it accessible and usable for a wide range of stakeholders. “As our metadata becomes more complex, governance becomes more critical. Unity Catalog helps with this by providing a centralized place for all data and AI assets,” stated Rao. “This enables consistent and secure access control across our entire data ecosystem.”
UPL relies on Databricks SQL, a serverless SQL engine, because, according to Rao, “Data pool efficiency is important to us. The SQL capabilities provided by Databricks let us process and analyze data quickly to support timely and accurate decision-making.”
Optimizing agriculture supply chains across 20 countries and counting
The implementation of Databricks has transformed UPL’s business, driving significant improvements across various agricultural use cases. By leveraging the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform, UPL has enhanced their demand forecasting capabilities, leading to more accurate predictions and optimized supply chain operations. This accuracy has minimized product spoilage and ensured that agricultural inputs are delivered precisely when needed, supporting farmers in achieving better crop yields and quality. “Databricks has enabled us to harness the full potential of our data, driving significant improvements in our products and services, and ultimately supporting our mission of sustainable agriculture,” said Rao.
The real-time analytics and advanced machine learning models powered by Databricks have also facilitated more effective crop management and pest control strategies. This has not only increased farm productivity but also contributed to sustainable farming practices, aligning with UPL’s commitment to securing the world’s food supply. The democratization of data through Unity Catalog has empowered various stakeholders within UPL to make informed decisions, enhancing collaboration and innovation across the organization.
“We’re constantly listening to our customers to better understand their pains so that we can then prioritize which solutions to deploy,” explained Rao. “That’s why it’s so important that we can enable data scientists and business leaders alike to leverage these AI solutions, no matter their technical proficiency. By breaking down data silos and enhancing collaboration across teams, we’ve successfully accelerated the deployment of AI models to better serve our customers.”
Looking ahead, UPL plans to further scale their AI solutions, intending to expand their deployment from 20 to 50 countries. This expansion will enable more farmers worldwide to benefit from UPL’s advanced agricultural solutions, driving global agricultural productivity and sustainability. Additionally, UPI is focused on exploring generative AI capabilities through Databricks AI/BI Genie, which will further streamline their data management and AI model development processes.
UPL is committed to addressing ongoing challenges in data ingestion and orchestration, particularly with complex source ecosystems like SAP. By continuing to collaborate with Databricks, UPL aims to refine these processes, ensuring seamless data integration and enhancing their analytics capabilities. “We’d love for Databricks to be all-in analytics for us,” noted Rao. As UPL continues to leverage and expand their partnership with Databricks, they’re well-positioned to lead the agricultural industry toward a more sustainable and data-driven future.
