INNOVATION AND collaboration with customers is helping an Irish agricultural firm grow its business in Ireland and internationally.

Keenan Systems, which provides equipment and solutions on farm nutrition, has developed processes that can improve a farm’s feed efficiency by up to 20 per cent. “Farming is multi-dimensional now and we developed an insight into why we were getting, typically, farms at 78 per cent of where they should be in terms of efficiency,” said Gerard Keenan, executive chairman of Keenan Systems, who said they now use numerous key performance indicators to gauge efficiency.

“So, regardless of what farm or what customers we deal with, we had a process to help them improve their yield,” he said.

The company’s process, Performance Acceleration and Control Enhancement (Pace), works by applying carefully balanced formulae to cattle feed. This helps improve milk production from the same quantity of input, so farmers get more produce from the same amount of feed.

This has been developed through collaboration with the firm’s customers, with data from their operations being used to see what mix of nutritional components gave the best results.

The company now has customers in over 20 countries and has compiled data from over 1 million cows in 10,000 herds.

Keenan Systems’ experience reflects a wider trend in Irish businesses, according to the Customer Collaboration Designs Excellence report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), published today.

According to Alisa Hayden, partner with PwC, companies are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of innovation and close customer relationships.

“I think it comes down to one thing and that is a sustainable business,” she said.

Ms Hayden cited the latest PwC CEO Pulse survey, which found 65 per cent of those asked saw innovation leading to new revenue and giving a competitive edge.

She said keeping close to the customer was vital in achieving this because it allowed companies to see what they needed to do next to stay relevant. “They’ve got to keep close to their customers to make sure they are keeping ahead to see what their customers might be looking for and ensure they keep in business,” she said.

According to Mr Keenan, this was certainly the case for his company. “We started giving nutritional advice in the late 1980s because of a latent demand that we saw,” he said. “It wasn’t that our customers were asking for this, because you often find that if they are it’s because someone else is already offering it and you’re chasing the market.

“If you want to lead you have to try to find out what the customer might need.”