Grain & Protein Technologies Migrates Dealer Portal to Liferay SaaS

Key Takeaways

Fast, low-risk SaaS migration under extreme time pressure
Grain & Protein Technologies migrated a highly customized, dealer-critical portal from a shared on-premises instance to Liferay SaaS in just six months – while grain harvest was just getting underway.
Dealer experience preserved while modernizing the platform
A lift-and-shift migration delivered a modernized portal with a new UI that felt familiar, allowing dealers to keep working without retraining.
Security and access control tailored to complex dealer hierarchies
Liferay’s extended security model enables precise brand-, product-, region-, and role-based access control across dealers, sub dealers, and contractors.
Dealer self-service for everything from parts to documents
Unified self-service tools for item masters, orders, CAD files, manuals, and invoices give dealers one place to manage work and reduce reliance on internal teams.

Background

Founded in 1972 by Craig Sloan and an initial team of three employees in Assumption, Illinois, Grain & Protein Technologies (GPT) began as a producer of steel storage bins and later grew into the world’s largest manufacturer in this category.

Today, the company supports a broad range of agricultural operations, bringing together major agricultural brands such as GSI (grain bins, dryers, and material handling), Automated Production (swine production equipment), and Cumberland (poultry production systems) into a single end-to-end offering for grain storage and animal protein production with annual revenues of roughly $1 billion.

Partner Portals

Customer Portals

Supplier Portals

Challenges

After the Grain & Protein division was divested from their former publicly traded parent, focused primarily on tractors and dealer-sold machinery, the new company had to separate from their parent company’s systems and stand up independent IT infrastructure. This included a mission-critical dealer portal used by 1,750 global users.

More than 200 applications had to be migrated within a year, and the dealer portal had to be transitioned within six months, ahead of the busy grain harvest. The effort was further complicated by limited internal development resources, extensive custom code, and the need to maintain functionality while rolling out a new corporate identity.

Rapid separation from a shared legacy platform
The dealer portal was tightly coupled to the former parent company’s infrastructure such as single sign-on, custom back-end services, and shared Liferay code. This required Grain & Protein Technologies to decouple and stand up an independent SaaS instance without disrupting dealer operations or losing functionality.
Limited internal resources and complex custom code
A small development team had to manage a portal built on Angular, Spring Boot, BIRT reporting, SAP integrations, and other inherited components, while the original development team remained with the former parent company and could not support the transition.
High-stakes dealer experience and granular security needs
Dealers, sub dealers, and contractors required different levels of access to products, pricing, and other content. With some partners selling competing products, exposing prices or discounts, or a dealer’s net price to a sub dealer, this posed immediate financial and competitive risks.

Liferay provides our dealers the content they need when they need it. It frees up our internal staff so they can do their day jobs - like making sales, entering orders, or finding parts for a repair.

Brad Lott

E-Business Leader, Grain & Protein Technologies

Implementation

After selecting Liferay SaaS, Grain & Protein partnered with Nirvana Lab to migrate the dealer portal under a tight six-month timeline while preserving functionality for all users.

Modernizing the dealer experience and rebuilding critical applications.
The team delivered a refreshed, brand-aligned design while preserving familiar navigation to avoid retraining during peak season. High-value tools, such as Item Lookup (700,000+ items), Order Lookup, Truck Load Details, CAD file access, Invoicing, dealer scorecards, and training resources, were rebuilt or migrated to ensure dealers could continue quoting, tracking, and servicing equipment without interruption.
Simplifying dealer management through an enhanced security model.
Nirvana Lab extended Liferay’s robust security model with a simplified interface that lets non-technical administrators manage complex dealer contracts, brand/product visibility, and content restrictions. This allows precise show/hide control for dealers selling only certain brands, or product categories, ensuring each partner sees only the materials intended for them.
Streamlining user administration and improving document governance.
User Management was redesigned to support dealers, sub-dealers, contractors, and employees with tailored access to regional and brand-specific price books and discounts. A mass-import tool enabled the team to migrate manuals and assets in hours, while new tagging options – by brand, product type, language, and file format – power faceted search and ensure secure document visibility across the portal.

also see:

Digital Experience Platforms: Designed for Digital Transformation

Results

The six-month migration to Liferay SaaS delivered a modern, stable version of the company’s newly branded dealer portal, Dealer Connect, ensuring a seamless transition while improving usability and governance for both dealers and internal teams.

Seamless Migration & Platform Stability
- Completed the lift-and-shift migration on schedule with no loss of functionality for 1,750 dealer users.
- Achieved a smooth go-live where support lines stayed quiet, confirming minimal friction for global dealers.
Improved Security & Access Control
- Implemented granular role-based permissions protecting sensitive pricing, discounts, and brand-specific content across dealers, sub-dealers, contractors, and employees.
- Ensured correct regional and product-line visibility, reducing the risk of exposing region specific pricing mismatches or dealer net prices.
Greater Dealer Self-Service & Efficiency
- Rebuilt high-usage tools, enabling faster dealer workflows and reducing dependency on internal staff.
- Enhanced document discovery of 2,400 tagged assets, improving accuracy and reducing time spent locating manuals and CAD file
Lower IT Burden & Faster Business Operations
- Empowered non-technical administrators to manage dealer contracts, user roles, and content access independently.
- Reduced IT workload by eliminating legacy dependencies and simplifying maintenance through a SaaS-based environment.

What’s Next?

With the foundation of Dealer Connect successfully migrated to Liferay SaaS, Grain & Protein is now focused on unifying and expanding the digital experience for their global dealer network. The next phase includes implementing single sign-on to consolidate the different logins dealers currently need across the configurator, training system, and other applications, easing daily access and reducing friction. Performance improvements are also a priority, as dealers expect faster load times and enhanced responsiveness from the new system.

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