IoB Meets…Matt Wong, Director, Fuse Smart Farming Technologies & Solutions – North America, AGCO

July 2, 2020
8 insightful answers in less than 8 minutes
Internet of Business’ IoB 8×8 Series is designed to reveal more about the people who have helped shape IoB’s live event and digital content over the years, picking the key industry brains who have dedicated time to educating peers. 
Matt Wong, Director of Product Strategy – Fuse Technologies, AGCO believes ‘IoT is the catalyst for that society and workplace transformation’. He explains how it has already transformed AGCO’s customer offerings and AGCO’s own digital transformation.
IoB: For those that don’t know, what’s the background of AGCO’s Fuse Smart Farming products? A: AGCO is one of the world’s largest, pure agriculture and farming equipment manufacturers, with well-known brands that have a deep history and brand following, such as Fendt, Massey Ferguson, Hesston, White, and Precision Planting. Leveraging our portfolio of brands and global products, Fuse is AGCO’s smart farming approach that leverages precision farming technologies, digital tools, and partnerships across the crop cycle.
IoB: When, how and why did AGCO turn from a traditional agricultural equipment manufacturer to a smart farming solutions provider?   M: Some of AGCO’s companies actually pioneered quite a few of the precision ag technologies, such as the Massey Ferguson yield monitor and Challenger auto-steering system. As the company has grown over the last 10 years, AGCO has significantly increased its R&D spend in Fuse technologies and acquired Precision Planting in 2018.
IoB: How has the farming community received AGCO’s Fuse products? Is there an understanding of IoT and how to manage data? To ask the classic question, what are the main opportunities IoT brings for farmers and what are the barriers to adoption? M : In general, farmers appreciate well-designed and integrated technologies on our machines, such as the GPS guidance systems and terminals [control screens]. In heavily automated combines e.g. our IDEAL, the machine, and agronomic [crop] data is used to optimize the harvesting operation automatically once the operator sets it up. That adoption is obviously high and almost seamless in the background. In other cases, those same machines and agronomic data are needed by the farmers to make other decisions later on in the crop cycle, such as nutrient management and seed selection, and the data has to be cleansed and shared with other software. That process is not as straightforward, and adoption is slowed. We view IoT as a capability to make data available and valuable, but ultimately, crops are grown based on science and agronomy. When we can combine the agronomy, data, and seamless user experience, we can really help our customers improve their profitability and adoption is easy.
IoB: What does your own partner ecosystem look like; how do you work with other technology...