EXCLUSIVE: New To Cannabis? Avoid Costly Mistakes & Save Time And Money, This Software Can Help

Finding a software system off the shelf to keep things organized in cannabis can help businesses survive the current market.

Cannabis software platforms must be intuitive and flexible enough to adapt to different regulatory environments while complying with international standards and encompassing the entire supply chain.

Indeed, systems have to be able to adapt to the unthinkable. All of these conditions for software are not arbitrary, but rather, conditional to simplify production processes, saving time, and money while avoiding mistakes along the way.

Fortunately for cannabis companies, a few software companies are already assembling solutions of this type. To put it simply, everything starts with a scanner.

“Our scan helps log absolutely everything that happens. If a leaf falls off, that weight automatically gets transferred into the application. Because we connect the scales, printers, and scan guns and sensors altogether,” said Andrew Wilson founder & CEO of GrowerIQ, a leading cannabis management platform, and cannabis cultivation software for high-quality producers.

Wilson told Benzinga in an exclusive interview that the platform has modules for every team in the facility, whether cultivation, sales, processing, manufacturing, inventory, or quality teams.

“Most service providers in our space, forget about the quality side or have to use platforms that were designed for pharmaceuticals. You have to piece all of that together. Oftentimes some of the bigger groups would have their own I.T. department. They're 50% cannabis company and 50% software developers," Wilson said. “In terms of analysis, it allows us to then build a base, a data set, in our view, the most comprehensive data set in the business. We can predict yields for example.”

The Value Of Cannabis Compliance

Governments around the world want to track everything. From cultivation, to manufacture and retail, this task can be costly. But what if instead of a cost, we look at compliance as value added to our cannabis products and services?

And, yes, you guessed right: a software platform like GrowerIQ can help.

“We have various functions where you can A/B-test your batches, our system allows you to set the dates to switch crops from stage to stage, and the cultivation team can play around with the lighting, the time, the temperature, or the nutrients,” Wilson explained. “We can get plants up to that certain height, flip that batch and move more through the system, making those growers more productive.”

He pointed out what makes GrowerIQ the software of choice for cannabis companies in more than 10 countries beginning with the fact that the platform's modules were built for cannabis workers.

“There are other platforms that are primarily just imagery track, and then you use another CRM and then you use another accounting integration, etc, where for us we have modules that serve each team. Other differentiators are usability, intuitiveness, and design,” he said.

“We've got the most complete modules, including the quality management system module, which is unique in our space. Our focus has always been on high quality. So we really designed and started the platform designed to EU GMP standards, which has been really helpful because we've it's allowed us to go into various markets around the world. We're now in 14 countries around the world.”

Global Coverage

Wilson explained that GrowerIQ is designed based on Health Canada's specifications at the beginning of the development of the Canadian industry.

“There are multiple sorts of column reports that producers have to export to the government every single month. Our platform can accommodate 2000 columns of data,” he explained. “When we expand to other emerging markets, the data, that they have to deal with, it's typically only a subset of the information that we have available on our platform. We have a standardized process.”

When it comes to global expansion, many entrepreneurs, investors, and local firms attempt to reconvert their activities to somehow tap into the cannabis economy. This is important because capital can flow from established industries such as agribusiness to cannabis.

However, the stakes, as well as interest rates, are high. So why would someone whose business is proven adventure into cannabis? And how technology can facilitate this transition?

“We can help speed up those new producers in new markets to get them over that learning curve and perhaps try not to make the same kind of mistakes that we know that we've seen from other producers. Part of our unique differentiator also is service and institutional knowledge about best practices and jurisdictions all around the world. We have the tech, but we also have the really burdensome, onerous documentation that governments expect,” Wilson said.

“Let's say you start up your business, you want to log everything on paper and you've got binders. It is a nightmare. In these facilities, if a leaf falls, you can't just throw it in the garbage. You have to pick it up, and put it in a bag, print a custom label from our platform with a unique barcode, and put it into a queue for destruction. And someone has to go clear that queue and follow the destruction procedures, and every one of those steps along the way gets logged.” 

Reduce The Costs Of Mistakes

Wilson explained that the biggest challenge for the industry is finding software solutions that can work around local practices.

“There's often a reliance more on local labor. The labor costs are less than say, in Switzerland and companies do not have to build an indoor temperature-controlled facility. The facility setups and the ways of working are also very different in each market as well as the willingness to pay. Often we have to get into a few mapping exercises with local operators and tell them: ‘Here's what you would do manually, here's how many mistakes you would make. Here's how much those mistakes cost,’” he said.

“Investing in technology can help your business move faster, release quicker, and just get your product to market in a faster, more efficient, higher quality way.” 

Wilson also explained that relying on GrowerIQ can reduce the cost of mistakes and contribute to the education of producers and new cannabis investors.

“New businesses are everywhere people work so hard, they navigate lawyers and applications and forms. And it's just it can be a multi-year process. And as soon as that license comes, Now what? My license has come in. Our standard operating procedure set up documentation, training, and other activities ahead of time so that we can make sure everything kind of moves seamlessly once the license comes in,” Wilson concluded. “But, it doesn't replace the institutional knowledge, the knowledge of a grower, or the varieties they produce. Nothing replaces humans.”

Photo Credits: Andrew Wilson - scottshoots on Shutterstock and photo Courtesy of GrowerIQ.