John Deere Navigating New Opportunities And It’s Technology Offensive Strategy

Moline, Illinois – Deere & Company (NYSE: DE) has been quite active as it has announced major directional moves recently on top of earnings reports. Most recently Deere announced all marketing and manufacturing agreements between John Deere and Hitachi Construction Machinery will be fully subdued by February 28, 2022.

The two companies will enter into new license and supply contracts and with the novel arrangements, fresh changes will be going into effect.

John Deere is set to control and operate the Deere-Hitachi factories in North Carolina, Brail, and Canada. The company will additionally continue with the manufacturing of Deere construction and forestry excavators while Hitachi branded excavators will cease production. Deere will also no longer market Hitachi mining equipment.

President of John Deere Construction & Forestry Division and Power Systems, John Stone, has stated that John Deere’s successful foundation is attributed to the company’s immaculate quality and quick technological advancements.

The two companies initially began a business relationship during the 1960s but genuine prosperity didn’t come until 1988 when the Deere-Hitachi manufacturing facilities began producing excavators in Kernersville, North Carolina. Forestry swing machines were introduced into production in 1998.

Deere-Hitachi expanded its marketing efforts in America throughout 2001 before creating a factory in Indaiatuba, Brazil in 2011.

Deere Reports $1.667 Billion in Third-Quarter Net Income

Deere & Company announced net income of $1.667 billion, or $5.32 per share, for the third quarter ended August 1, 2021, up from $811 million, or $2.57 per share, for the third quarter ended August 2, 2020.
Net income attributable to Deere & Company was $4.680 billion, or $14.86 per share, for the first nine months of the fiscal year 2021, compared to $1.993 billion, or $6.30 per share, for the same period last year.

Worldwide net sales and revenues increased by 29% in the third quarter of 2021, to $11.527 billion, and by 27% in the first nine months, to $32.697 billion.

The equipment operations generated net sales of $10.413 billion in the third quarter and $29.461 billion in the nine months ended September 30, 2018, up from $7.859 billion and $22.612 billion in the same periods last year.

“Our strong results, driven by essentially all product categories, are a testament to the exceptional efforts of our employees and dealers to keep our factories running and customers served while enduring significant supply-chain pressures,” said John C. May, chairman and CEO.

Net income attributable to Deere & Company is expected to range between $5.7 billion and $5.9 billion in fiscal 2021.

“Looking ahead, we expect demand for farm and construction equipment to continue benefiting from favorable fundamentals,” May added.

“We are, at the same time, excited by the growing engagement with our digital platform, the John Deere Operations Center, as well as continued adoption of precision technologies, which unlock greater value for our customers.”

John Deere Acquires Bear Flag Robotics

The Silicon Valley-based startup was founded in 2017 and is focused on developing autonomous driving technology that is compatible with existing machines. The agreement accelerates the development and deployment of automation and autonomy on farms and is consistent with John Deere’s long-term strategy of developing smarter machines equipped with advanced technology to meet the unique needs of individual customers.

“Bear Flag’s talented team of agriculture professionals, engineers, and technologists has a track record of successfully bringing advanced technology solutions to market. By combining that knowledge and experience with Deere’s autonomy expertise and our world-class dealer network, we can accelerate the delivery of solutions to farmers that address the enormous challenge of feeding a growing world.”

Deere began working with Bear Flag in 2019 as part of the company’s Startup Collaborator program, which aims to strengthen relationships with startup companies whose technology can add value to Deere customers.
Bear Flag has since successfully deployed its autonomous solution on a limited number of farms throughout the United States.

“One of the most significant challenges farmers face today is a lack of skilled labor to perform time-sensitive operations critical to farming success. Bear Flag’s mission to increase global food production and reduce the cost of growing food through machine automation is aligned with Deere’s and we’re excited to join the Deere team to bring autonomy to more farms.”

The Bear Flag team is made up of agricultural professionals, engineers, and technologists who are passionate about autonomy, sensor fusion, vision, data, software, and hardware. They will remain in Silicon Valley and collaborate closely with Deere to accelerate innovation and autonomy for Deere’s global customers.

Deere has been working on its digital platforms the past few years as it has slowly progressed into farming productivity and financial software.

Deere’s Security & Hackers

Deere has increase platform and operational security over 700% the past 7 years. Ransomware and hackers have been a threat to all companies in the U.S. with even more pressure the last year.

John Deere recently partnered with HackerOne, a security platform in which businDeesses can have their systems examined for weaknesses by cybersecurity researchers. A outfit, Sick Codes, was invited to join the program after contacting them regarding bugs they found in April, but soon withdrew from the program after he realized he would need to sign an NDA. 

Their research discovered a vulnerability in Case’s JavaMelody server, exposing highly sensitive data such as locations, IP addresses, session IDs, and full names. An attacker can use this to replicate the session and impersonate users in order to gain access to their system.

The hackers obtained access to John Deere’s administrative Pega credentials, which they described as a master key for gaining access to mission-critical data. Additionally, they discovered a vulnerability in the system’s username enumeration process, which could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to access personal user information such as user ID numbers, full names, and addresses.

The company’s machine book, which is used to reserve demonstration units for trade shows and conferences, contained vulnerabilities. Once they gained access, they could book units, change or cancel appointments. Additionally, they were able to retrieve every demo unit ever provided, as well as the email addresses used to book them.

The researchers claimed they obtained the company’s original decryption password and signing certificate for Okta, a single sign-on platform used by workforces to grant employees access to all of the company’s software.

Per Sick Codes an attacker could have used it to log in as any user, upload or delete any data they pleased, as well as delete accounts.

John Deere stated in the message that while they do not offer bug bounties, they do provide safe harbor for researchers to investigate and report vulnerabilities without fear of retaliation.

John Deere states that no personal data was leaked, effected or at risk despite claims. John Deere encourages the ethical hacker community to report any potential vulnerability identified in our assets.