The cost and complexity of managing such infrastructure made the move to a public cloud platform and modern service management an obvious next step for the farmer-owned agritech co-operative, says LIC chief executive Wayne McNee.

“The infrastructure is critical to our business. It supports our products, services and data that our customers rely on for the day to day running of their farming businesses.

“We also have staff that are increasingly leveraging platform services such as BI/analytics, AI and High-Performance Compute.

“What we had in place was working but we needed to modernise our back end systems to improve performance speeds and open up new opportunities for future development,” says McNee.

Wayne McNee LIC Chief Executive

With that in mind, LIC turned to Microsoft and Emerging Technology Partners to conduct a Cloud Readiness Assessment and develop and deploy a future-state plan for LIC.

“We are really proud of the work we did with LIC,” says Neil Cresswell, CEO of ETP. “So many organisations in the throes of transformation are not only trying to keep up with the present, the really smart ones are looking to keep up with the future. And the work we did with LIC is a strong example of that. We started with a full analysis of LIC’s data estate and then evolved their applications so that their system was future-proofed. We designed a future state architecture, built a detailed 5-year total cost of ownership, including a fixed price cost of change, then delivered all of that to LIC and Umbrellar on time, on budget and as scoped.”

Throughout this transformation, LIC was supported by Umbrellar who deployed a Modern Cloud Services Management framework around LIC’s complex needs. According to Umbrellar’s Head of Cloud, Dave Howden, the plan was detailed and comprehensive.

“The target state for LIC was a full infrastructure rehost of their applications to Microsoft Azure. We crafted a Modern Cloud Services Management partnership that not only supported LIC through its transition to the Microsoft Cloud, but endures as their Cloud Managed Services delivery partner supporting them as they continue on their digital journey.”

For Microsoft it was an opportunity to work with one of New Zealand’s leading agritech companies, says Microsoft NZ’s Enterprise Director Vanessa Sorenson.

“We are very proud of the partnership with LIC, ETP and Umbrellar to bring agility to LIC’s business, enabling them to leverage the core Azure platform to help them move faster and open up new opportunities and markets. A fantastic New Zealand success story which we are so happy to play a small role in.”

The outcome is a robust platform designed with 24/7 uptime and the ability to grow and adapt as the needs of the co-operative evolve, says LIC’s Wayne McNee.

“Umbrellar, Microsoft and ETP made sure the transition ran as smoothly as possible. It’s to their credit that we’ve moved our entire infrastructure with minimal disruption and impact on our customers.”

About LIC

LIC is a farmer-owned agritech and herd improvement co-operative that provides a range of services and solutions to improve the productivity and prosperity of farmers. This includes dairy genetics, information technology, herd testing, DNA parentage verification and farm advisory services. Subsidiary business LIC Automation also provides integrated automation systems and unique milk testing sensors that present real-time data while a cow is being milked.

With origins dating back to 1909, LIC has a long history of providing world-leading innovations for the dairy industry. LIC invests over 5% of its revenue in research and development ($13.6 million in 18-19 year), well above the New Zealand primary sector average of around 1%.

The New Zealand-based co-operative employs more than 750 permanent staff in New Zealand, swelling to 2000 during the peak dairy mating season. LIC also has offices in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia.

All LIC profit is returned to its farmer owners/shareholders in dividends or re-invested for new solutions, research and development.

www.lic.co.nz

About Umbrellar

Umbrellar is New Zealand’s leading Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), and home of the most comprehensive network of Microsoft Partners in New Zealand.

Our mission is to bring the best people, partnerships, resources, and expertise to New Zealand, empowering businesses to achieve more with the Microsoft Cloud.

As Kiwis, we believe it’s up to us to bring the world’s best cloud infrastructure, advanced data, AI technologies, and productivity tools to Aotearoa – so every business can achieve its brilliant potential through digital transformation.

In today’s world, that means giving you and your customers access to the growing power of the cloud through Azure, Azure Stack, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

www.umbrellar.com

About Emerging Technology Partners

Emerging Technology Partners is a boutique specialist services and solutions business focussed on Containers, APIs, Application Modernisation and the related new-generation technology ecosystem.

We leverage our 10+ years of experience serving medium-to-large customers to deliver business-critical infrastructure and cloud technology projects; Combined with our engagement methodologies and proven practises, we believe we are qualified to be a trusted adviser and partner for organisations looking to adopt these new generation, innovative and game-changing technologies.

www.emergingtechnology.co.nz