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September 1, 2009
Assessing Business Opportunities
Abstract
Business development is crucial for sustained economic progress and individual well‐being.
This paper describes how to provide support for business development efforts in communities
in conflict environments or only recently emerged from conflict environments. It uses the
Cascade Approach® to provide a clear and practical framework for developing businesses that
are carefully and deliberately discovered by people who are passionate about them and are
capable of marshaling the requisite resources to transform ideas into exploitable value.
The author is an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State
University. He may be reached by telephone at (785) 532‐3520 and by email at
vincent@ksu.edu.
There are worksheets accompanying this paper and they are available at www.Agmanager.info.
Contents
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 1
Research Problem and Paper Outline ......................................................................................... 1
PART I: PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................... 3
The Geography of Economic Thought ........................................................................................ 3
Our Assumptions Are Not Necessarily Universal ........................................................................ 4
Establishing the Purpose for Action ............................................................................................ 6
PART II: OPPORTUNITY DISCOVERY AND ASSESSMENT.................................................................. 8
Defining the Person Searching for Opportunities ....................................................................... 8
The Conscious Search for Opportunities .................................................................................... 9
Assessment of Identified Opportunities ................................................................................... 11
Transforming Opportunities into Exploitable Value ................................................................. 12
Marshaling of Strategic Resources ........................................................................................... 16
Assigning Responsibilities ......................................................................................................... 18
PART III: FROM STRATEGIC THINKING TO STRATEGIC ACTION .................................................... 19
There Are No Islands ................................................................................................................. 19
Executing the Ideas ................................................................................................................... 20
There Are No Linearities, Expect Breakdowns .......................................................................... 22
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................. 23
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................. 24
1
Practical Strategies for Business Development in
Conflict and Post‐Conflict Environments
Vincent Amanor‐Boadu
August 2009
INTRODUCTION
Conflicts can have adverse effects on people’s decision‐making capacity
and influence their relationships. This is because conflicts affect the
sensemaking that people bring to events and situations. Entrepre …
August 19, 2016
General Session Presentations
Copyright © 2016 AgResource Company. All Rights Reserved.
Every 7‐14 Years a Significant Weather Event Occurs to Rally World Markets
Global Average Yields for Wheat/Corn/Soybeans Combined
Copyright © 2013 AgResource Company. All Rights Reserved.v … in SevastopolThe Guardian Friday 28 February 2014
Russia and the west are on a collision course over Crimea after Moscow was accused of orchestrating a "military invasion and occupation" of the peninsula, as groups of apparently pro‐Russian armed men seized control of two airports.
Geopolitical Events Have An Impact on Crop Prices
Copyright © 2013 AgResource Company. All Rights Reserved.v …
October 1, 2015
USDA METSS Project
1)
where S is the nominal exchange rate, P is the U.S. price level and P* is the price level in the country of
interest, say Ghana. When the real exchange rate is appreciating, it means the U.S. price of the bundle
3
of goods in the basket is increasing relative to the Ghanaian price. Now, when the real exchange rates
appreciates, then the real value of the dollar has depreciated, suggesting a decline in its purchasing
power, relatively speaking.
To get to know how Q affects the poverty level, it is necessary to try to understand the factors that
influence changes in Q. The real exchange rate between the currencies of the two countries may
change when there is a change in the relative demand for U.S. goods as a result of preference shift,
leading to total expenditure on U.S. goods increasing. The shift may arise from two principal sources.
An increase in global private and public demand for U.S. goods is one source of such shifts. This shift is
exacerbated when the relative increase in demand for U.S. goods is much higher than the increase in
demand for Ghana goods. In an increasingly interconnected world, imports tend to account increasing
share of development countries’ consumption. Another source of the shift is an increase in U.S.
Government expenditure on U.S. goods, an event that increases during rec …
April 1, 2005
Industry Economics & Trade
Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Events … number of cattle tested in 2002 relative to
2001. The Japanese …
July 19, 2017
Grain Market Outlook
4.40‐
$5.20
($4.80)
Page | 9
Table 1a. U.S. Wheat Supply‐Demand Balance Sheet: “New Crop” MY 2017/18 as of the June 30, 2017
USDA Acreage and Grain Stocks and July 12, 2017 WASDE reports, with alterative probability‐based Kansas
State University estimates of harvested acres, yields, production, and export use.
This “expectation” proved to be true, but not to the full degree anticipated. The June 30th USDA Acreage
report indicated that the percent harvested‐to‐planted acreage for all U.S. winter wheat in 2017 was 78.44%
(i.e., 25,760,000 acres harvested relative to 32,839,000 acres planted) – down from the 2000‐2016 average of
80.04% and median of 79.84%, but within the range of an extreme low of 71.21% (in 2002) to a high of 85.50%
(in 2008). So, the reduction in U.S. winter wheat harvested acres relative to planted in 2017 was not as large
as had been anticipated by wheat market analysts (including this author!).
Of this total amount of 2017 U.S. Winter Wheat planted acres, Hard Red Winter wheat planted acres are
estimated to be 23.8 ma in 2017, down 22.0% from 26.59 ma in 2016. Soft Red Winter wheat planted acres
are projected to be 5.61 ma in 2017, down 6.8% from 6.02 ma in 2016. White Winter wheat planted acres are
projected to be 3.415 ma in 2017, down from 3.53 ma in 2016.
Item
USDA
2017/18
KSU
10 Year Avg.
% Harvested Ac.
plus
5 yr Avg Yield
2017/18
KSU
10 Year Avg.
% Harvested Ac.,
5 yr Avg Yield,
& Higher Exports
2017/18
KSU
Lower Harvested
Acres plus
10 yr Low Yield
2017/18
% Probability of Occurring (KSU) …
March 26, 2013
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online … 1977 1982 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 2012
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April 17, 2024
Hog Pricing
operation sizes and sales for 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017. Note … 0%
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100%
2002 2007 2012 2017
SALES OF … HEAD)
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2002 2007 2012 2017
SALES OF …
January 15, 2013
1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 … projections, decision aides, these events…
• Do you know your …