Germains Seed Technology & Graydon, a success story

Germains Seed Technology

Fast and efficient credit decisions improve customer satisfaction.

Germains Seed Technology was founded in 1871 to develop solutions to maximise the yield of sugar. Germains revolutionised how sugar beet was planted by introducing one of the first seed pellet technologies to the agriculture industry.

Graydon at work

Horticultural and agricultural sector

Today, Germains Seed Technology delivers industry-leading innovative seed technologies for sugar beet, vegetable and flower seed producers and growers across the world.

Martijn ten Velde is Assistant Accountant at Germains Netherlands, an independent branch to the parent company ABF Grains UK. They provide services to the horticultural and agricultural sector by cultivating seeds for a higher crop yield. Martijn started at Germains in 2016 within the Finance department.

“My role makes me the main point of contact for relevant internal and external stakeholders, such as Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivables.”

Implementing a unified approach

“In order to understand more about new prospective customers, the sales department uses Graydon’s credit report functions. They also keep an eye on how customers’ businesses are doing financially, gaining useful insights into their current situation.”

Germains Netherlands relies on Graydon’s credit reports to take a deeper look at the financial status of their (potential) customers. This means that they have excellent knowledge of their customer at all times. Both the Sales and Finance departments rely on Graydon to gain insights and make financial decisions.

Germains Seed Technology & Graydon, a success story

Trust and transparency are vital

Germains follows the advice of the credit reports and assessments they receive via the Graydon platform to inform credit decisions that they make. The Sales team at Germains play a part in offering customers the most appropriate payment terms and with the report from Graydon in hand, they collaborate with the Finance department and explain why a credit limit should be offered.

The Finance department will offer advice on the specific customers’ circumstances and if they feel they cannot give the customer credit, the sales team will require payment before delivery.

“The information and the advice we get from Graydon form part of our payment terms negotiations with our customers. We sometimes we show the customer the Graydon report on their business so they can see for themselves how we’ve come to a decision, so we’re transparent.”

Uniformity and high customer satisfaction

The credit reports and solutions help Germains to ensure there’s uniformity in how the company makes credit decisions, whilst speeding up the process to do so as there is no need for manual research and reporting.

“We can easily and quickly see how our customers are doing financially and our sales managers are able to look behind the front door to truly understand the customers”.

Germains is constantly working to improve customer satisfaction through speedy service and the most innovative seed technology solutions for their customers.

“With Graydon’s solutions, we now serve our customers with a speed and efficiency that was previously impossible. This has led to higher customer satisfaction.”

“With Graydon’s services, we now serve our customers with a speed and efficiency that was previously impossible."

Response times are vital

“Graydon has a very good customer service team and is willing to assist wherever possible. The best part of working with Graydon is their response time. Sometimes we receive a notification of our customer that there is a change in their financial structure. This is months before an annual report is available. Our contact at Graydon is using Graydon’s worldwide network of agencies and is then able to independently check if this is true or not. This partnering is for me a big advantage of Graydon.”

To Martijn at Germains it means that an additional fact check takes place when they receive new information about a customers’ financial circumstances.

Germains in brief

Germains Seed Technology DEVELOPS innovative industry-leading conventional and organic seed solutions, specialising in Prime, Pellet, Filmcoat and Health.

Germains’ mission is to deliver long term, SUSTAINABLE AND PROFITABLE GROWTH for all stakeholders and partners by providing the best seed technology solutions for their needs.

Germains has four research and development facilities in the U.S. and EUROPE, where they perform ongoing research and development in all areas of the core brand.

WEBSITE: Germains Seed Technology

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