Helping Keep a Global AG Giant Connected—from the Farm to the Market
Since its founding in 1902, when George A. Archer and John W. Daniels started a linseed crushing business—and later (in 1923) acquired the Midland Linseed Products Company—the company that is today known as Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE: ADM) has grown to a global powerhouse, with some 32,000 employees serving customers in 160 countries. Throughout its meteoric rise, ADM has had partner at its side giving it support when it needed it.
The solution
Maintenance and support for more than 20,000 users
Freedom to focus on business
Insight in migration to the cloud
Plans to move several locations to Microsoft UC solutions
The challenge
Avaya infrastructure with over 20,000 users needing maintenance
Support needed for hundreds of locations worldwide
Communication problems taking time and resources
Costs too high with the original provider
The story
Today, from its Chicago headquarters, the company that calls itself “The biggest little company out there,” operates 500 crop procurement locations, 250 ingredient manufacturing facilities, 38 innovation centers, and the world’s premier crop transportation network. In early 2017, for the ninth consecutive year, Fortune magazine named ADM one of the most admired food production companies. Ranked #49 on the Fortune 500 list, ADM reported annual revenues of $64.3 billion.
With its worldwide transportation network and more than 265 locations, ADM places a high value on communications and staying connected (“Everything we do starts with you”), connecting the farmers from whom it buys crops to the marketplace.
Important connections require large communication systems, and for a long time, ADM relied on its Avaya infrastructure for this. What ADM soon realized was that maintaining a system like this one wouldn’t be easy and doing so on its own proved to be a waste of time and resources. What it needed was a partner that could provide support for the system at a reasonable price
For most of the last decade Continuant delivered superior maintenance and support for some 20,000 Avaya users at ADM. With Continuant’s support, ADM no longer had to worry about tying up its time and resources with its communication systems and could now focus on its core business instead.
With ADM moving away from Avaya systems in the future, it may look as though its relationship with Continuant is at an end. Fortunately for both companies, this is not the case. Instead, ADM is working with Continuant in the early stages of a Microsoft Teams transition. As a first step in this journey, Continuant is currently installing Microsoft Azure voice messaging to replace their Exchange Unified Messaging in 8 locations.
Though its Avaya support is now a thing of the past, ADM can continue to count on Continuant to make its communication as simple as effective as it can be.
Communication and collaboration is at the core of your organization. With Continuant’s UC and AV solutions, you’re one step closer to better business outcomes. Discover how your technology stacks up with a 30-minute assessment today.
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