USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, the Warehouse and Commodity Management Division (WCMD), relied on a decades-old paper process to receive, review, approve and distribute licenses to warehouse operators across the United States.
The Division’s United States Warehouse Act (USWA), sometimes referred to as the “FDIC of corn,” had accrued over 2 million pieces of paper. It was challenging to keep up with the latest versions. The outdated paper process led to manual errors, and the time it took to assemble, label, seal and mail final documents was painful, to put it bluntly.
In today’s digital age, where nearly everything is automated and accessible 24/7, WCMD decided it was time to transform. Beyond the manual paper process, the Division was operating on seven legacy systems, with some running on mainframes from the 80s that only operated from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Government business days.
The WCMD team knew that to achieve stakeholder buy-in for success, they needed a trusted advisor to join them on their journey. And that’s where a true partnership was established.
WCMD’s Digital Revolution
Veracity had the opportunity to help WCMD enter the digital age. Our team led with curiosity, asking several questions that got to the root of their challenges while also envisioning their future: issuing licenses at mission speed.
WCMD, with Veracity’s support, determined that the ServiceNow Now Platform® had several features and functionalities to address the Division’s core challenges. Using the Now Platform, Veracity and WCMD established digital relationships between the business, its warehouses and the licensing, storage contracts and financial position, as well as the examination of those warehouses.
The Now Platform also lets users with little to no technical backgrounds quickly create and launch business- and mission- critical applications through the App Engine, an out-of-the-box feature with built-in governance. As WCMD continues to expand functionality and increase usage, this will enable the team to push low code and no code apps throughout the entire agency with no new costs in overhead and infrastructure.
Award-Winning Results
The WCMD team can access the Now Platform to enter data, review projects and create digital workflows 24/7, from anywhere across the globe.
After digitizing over 2.2 million pages of hardcopy files, sunsetting seven legacy systems, condensing the license timeline from 60 days to 30 minutes, and moving into a single, cloud-based solution, WCMD received the prestigious Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Administrator’s Award.
We’re honored to call USDA’s WCMD our partner and we’re proud to work with the team as they lead the government in modernization at mission speed.
It’s time to stop pushing paper. Contact our team to replace manual processes with digital workflows. As a ServiceNow Premier Partner, we got this.
