Rural, human, digital: farmers get current information remotely thanks to Tresorit

Success model cooperative: tradition with future

"Agriculture has to serve people and not the other way around," said Franz-Josef Holzenkamp, president of the German Raiffeisen association at the ceremony in June 2019, when they celebrated the 100 year anniversary of the Raiffeisen cooperative Niedersachsen Mitte eG (Raiffeisen Mitte). Their human-centric slogan proved itself a worthy guide over the past hundred year as they became a flourishing cooperative.

More than just a slogan, the statement also embodies a living philosophy for all their activities. As IT-coordinator Sergei Krükov explains, "The aim of a cooperative is to economically support their members. It is not about profit maximization, but members should gain benefits from us." Their diverse operations and advisory services in agriculture fields, farm products and energy as well as events and markets support this one goal: to contribute to the wealth of the region and to support members with their agricultural topics.

After successful mergers with other cooperatives, storage capacity expansion and entering the renewable energy space, this company’s growth is unstoppable. To keep up with all the changes and to be able to react to digital challenges, they needed a secure cloud tool for storing, syncing and sharing information. It should enable sales managers to access up to date data securely, remotely and to help farmers in word and deed.

Secure fieldwork without restrictions: mainstream providers fall by the wayside

To promote development in local agriculture, state and technology must work more closely together – Raiffeisen Mitte are committed to doing so by using first class IT solutions to help their members. The need for a secure cloud storage service first emerged from their sales managers; they needed a solution for accessing their files remotely, so that being on the road wouldn’t present an obstacle to their professional advisory service anymore.

"We faced difficulties in the beginning because all our colleagues were using a different solution to share information on the go. To avoid chaos by using different tools, we started to look for a business solution that we could adapt to everybody’s needs," explains Sergei, who was in charge of searching for the right solution and subsequently came across Tresorit.

The first criteria on his list was GDPR-compliance. While researching materials, he was convinced by Tresorit’s cryptographic security technology. Tresorit offers more than just the standard requirements of fulfilling regulatory requirements and providing proper protection: end-to-end encryption, additional control options, data residency options and company values focusing on privacy guaranteed the best possible solution for protecting the cooperative’s confidential data. Sergei got to the heart of it: “Tresorit comes from Europe, the cloud is in Europe and with its reasonable offer it outperforms mainstream providers.”

Consulting services for farmers with Tresorit’s secure file sharing

"We provide our employees with IT-equipment, mostly software. These solutions have to match the needs of our colleagues and the company, so that they can work together efficiently", Sergei explains. He adds that "offline access and synchronization were also important" while searching for the right solution. Efficiency today requires constant availability and flexible remote working: "we are in the countryside and sales managers often visit farmers and need access to data, price sheets, product catalogues, newsletter etc. These can change every hour. With Tresorit we can ensure that our salespeople always have access to the most recent information and can keep farmers up to date."

Thanks to the clear folder structure work can be organized efficiently. Employees of Raiffeisen Mitte share tresors and work with directories, which get updated regularly in the network. Custom permission levels, like setting someone’s status to ‘editor’ so they can change files while others can only view them, gives you added control over file creation and updates. If you collaborate on files, Tresorit helps you avoid file conflicts and version trees with their editing badges. This feature allows you to mark files and show others that you are working on something, so that they don’t create parallel versions.

Security in combination with excellent customer service

Sergei Krükov is convinced that Tresorit’s strengths, security technology and its customer-centric focus go hand in hand with making the provider a favorite.

" The most important benefits to us are the support availability and response time. The portfolio and the features are the foundation, but the customer experience tips the scale. We used to use several different cloud solutions, but big tech companies make you wait longer. Our Account Manager at Tresorit always reacts quickly and focuses on finding a solution. Members of the Support Team are professional and live up to our expectations; we get immediate responses to our problems - without big changes - instead of the usual reply of "we’ll get back to you in a few days". You can find lots of cloud storage providers but no one as nice as Tresorit." - Sergei sums up his customer experience at Tresorit.