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August 20, 2012
September 1, 2005
Farm Business and Transition Planning
ongoing business needs to
think about where the business is going … generation”. In reality, only about 30% of family owned businesses … generation. Furthermore, only about 15% make it to the third …
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. Entrepreneurial
actions are based on creativity. They are driven by a way of thinking and
seeing that presents valuable opportunities which may be exploited for
the value they present. Given that entrepreneurs in conflict and post‐
conflict environments can be affected immeasurably by the subtle and
not‐so‐subtle events that define and characterize their experiences, their
ability to see opportunities and assess them is frequently affected by
these events. Thus, working in conflict or post‐conflict environments can
arduous because one has to negotiate one’s own sensemaking processes
as well navigate those of the people with whom one is working.
Despite these challenges, the work can be very rewarding if those
working on business development in these environments can develop the
right appreciation of the fundamentals of entrepreneurial business
development and understanding resource availability and constraints.
Their efforts can yield some positive effects if they can understand their
entrepreneurs’ capabilities and their capacities to overcome these
constraints as well as their audacity to drive towards their defined
objectives. These fruitful outcomes were observed in Japan and Europe
after the Second World War, when U.S. economic support under the
Marshall Plan helped leverage the inherent capabilities of Europeans and
Japanese to overcome the scourge of that conflict.
Research Problem and Paper Outline
This paper is framed to guide people working with nascent entrepreneurs
in conflict or post‐conflict environments embark on business
development initiatives. It focuses on the strategic aspects of business
development—opportunity discovery and assessment, resource
marshaling and execution of strategic plans. The tactical issues related to
business formation and marketing of products and services are treated
under a different title. Besides, the strategic issues discussed here are
less culture and location‐dependent than the tactical issues, allowing us
to discuss them in more generic terms. The paper’s overall objective,
2
then, is to provide the strategic processes that may be used to help with
business start‐ups and entrepreneurial renewal in conflict and post‐
conflict environments.
The people in conflict and post‐conflict environments are generally
different from the people who offer help and support that go beyond
culture. As Richard Nesbitt observed in his book The Geography of
Thought, these differences are embedded in the way people are
conditioned to “see” and interpret what they see. The tools for
seeing and interpreting are thought and language. Therefore,
the paper is divided into two principal parts. The first part
provides the philosophical framework for enhancing our
geography of thought capacity to facilitate business
development. It encompasses the development of a shared
seeing and a common language to communicate the thoughts
emanating from what is seen. Following that, I make the case
for clarity and completeness in the definition of the objectives
or the things that the business initiative seeks to achieve.
Stephen Covey defines this as “first things first” in his highly popular
bestseller, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
The second part of the paper uses the foregoing philosophical framework
to lay out a process for embarking on entrepreneurship‐driven business
development. The process presented here is based on the Cascade
Approach® I have developed and have been using with various
organizations for the past 15 years. The process involves the crafting of a
strategic direction for the business initiative—encompassing a vision,
mission and core value—and the development of an operations plan to
achieve the vision. We define the business’ objectives within the context
of specific business initiatives, developing a process for scoping for
opportunities and crafting strategies for translating the selected
objectives into exploitable value. The execution of the resulting plan
depends on resources and this is presented and discussed in the final
section of the paper.
The foundational philosophy of the strategic processes presented in this
paper is the metaphor of the river’s ultimate purpose: the desire to
empty itself into a larger body of water. The river’s commitment to this
purpose is such that it cannot be stopped regardless the size and might of
the obstacles in its path. It may be slowed down, but in the end, it
always achieves its purpose. This thought is reflected by Margaret
Wheatley in her book Leadership and the New Science. This metaphor is
appealing because the river exhibits the primary characteristics of
successful entrepreneurial business developers: tenacity, commitment
and passion.
3
PART I: PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK
The Geography of Economic Thought
Many years ago, I was a graduate student in Nigeria, working on the
economics of small farmer agriculture. My major professor, a respected
Nigerian production economist, invited me to accompany him to a
seminar at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) one
afternoon. The seminar was on the price response of Senegalese rice
farmers and was being presented by a visiting World Bank economist.
The essence of the presenter’s story was that an increase in rice price led
to a decrease in rice supply. He concluded from this that the African
small farmer is irrational because supply should increase with price
increases.
The room, filled with many of my professors, was very quiet after the
visiting economist completed his presentation. I could not understand
their silence because there was, obviously, something drastically wrong
with the irrationality conclusion. I knew this because I have lived with
some of these small farmers. But beyond my individual anecdotal
evidence, my master’s thesis was showing similar results—a negative
supply response—but I could not believe irrationality was a reasonable
explanation.1 I think my old professor invited me because he thought the
seminar will help me.
I asked the presenter what was measured as the farmers’ response to
price. “Did you measure production, acreage, marketed surplus or did all
of these return the same sign on price?” I asked.
After a little discussion, it became obvious that the measured response
variable was marketed surplus. That is, they measured how much the
farmers offered for sale, and not how much they produced.
“African small farmers will sell less of their total production when price
goes up and vice versa,” I heard my professor say something to that
effect. This is because African small farmers have a constant demand for
money—just enough to meet their purchase needs (school uniforms and
fees, books, salt, fish, etc. The negative sign on price was not due to
irrationality of the African small farmer at all, but to the capturing of the
wrong response metric to price.
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July 23, 2015
Grain Market Outlook
ng stocks
would be record high, with World percent ending stocks‐to‐use at their highest level since MY 2009/10.
There are emerging but as of yet largely unconfirmed concerns about potential problems with w … rices of $6.89 /bu in that marketing year.
Page | 2
I. U.S. Wheat Market Situation & Outlook
I‐A. July 10th USDA Reports & “New Crop” MY 2015/16 Projections
On July 10th the USDA released two reports, the July 2015 Crop Production report from the National
Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), and the July 2015 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates
(WASDE) report from the World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB).
In the July 10th Crop Production report the USDA released projections of the 2015 U.S. wheat crop.
Projections of 2015 crop size for wheat are based on actual farmer surveys and field trials conducted from June
24th to July 7th by USDA NASS – representing crop conditions and production prospects as of July 1, 2015. The
July 10th WASDE report contained U.S. and World wheat supply‐demand and price projections for the 2013/14,
“old crop” 2014/15, as well as the “new crop” 2015/16 marketing years. The “old crop” 2014/15 marketing
year for U.S. wheat ended on May 31, 2015, while the “new crop” 2015/16 U.S. wheat marketing year began
on June 1, 2015, and will last through May 31, 2016.
I‐B. CME KC Hard Red Winter Wheat Futures & U.S. Dollar Index Trends
Since market highs of $7.10 ½ per bushel for the CME SEPTEMBER 2015 Kansas hard red winter wheat
futures contract occurred on December 18, 2014, September futures have trended generally lower – down to
a low of $4.95 ½ on May 5, 2015. Then after trading in a range of $5.00 ½ to $5.74 ½ during the May 6th to
June 26th period, September 2015 Kansas HRW wheat futures rose to $6.11 ½ on June 30th – the day of the
2015 USDA Acreage and June Quarterly Stocks reports.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) SEPT 2015 Kansas HRW Wheat futures prices responded to the
release of the July 10th USDA reports by trading lower for the day. The USDA reports were released at midday
(i.e., 11 a.m., central time). SEPT 2015 HRW wheat futures prices opened at $5.78 on Friday, July 10th ‐ trading
as high as $5.86 ½ and as low as $5.66 ¾ per bushel during the session, before closing $0.07 lower for the day
at $5.72 ¼ /bu (Figure 1). Since then, September 2015 wheat futures have fallen to a low of $5.11 on
Wednesday, July 22, before closing at $5.12 ¾ per bushel that same day.
Figure 1. SEPT 2015 & JULY 2016 CME Kansas Wheat Futures Price Charts (electronic trade) …
December 18, 2014
Grain Market Outlook
ins states. Also, no other major production
problems in competing World wheat exporting countries have yet emerged to the degree that the “large crop‐
over‐supply” situation in World wheat markets has been affected. However, there are developing concerns
about dry wheat production cond …
June 18, 2015
Grain Market Outlook
in MY
2014/15, and c) World wheat ending stocks would be record high, with percent ending stocks‐to‐use at their
highest level since MY 2011/12. There are emerging concerns about potential wheat supply pr … 0.9% S/U in MY 2007/08.
Page | 2
I. U.S. Wheat Market Situation & Outlook
I‐A. June 10th USDA Reports & “New Crop” MY 2015/16 Projections
On June 10th the USDA released two reports, the June 2015 Crop Production report from the National
Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), and the June 2015 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates
(WASDE) report from the World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB).
In the June 10th Crop Production report the USDA released projections of the 2015 U.S. wheat crop.
Projections of 2015 crop size for wheat are based on actual farmer surveys and field trials conducted from May
25th to June 5th by USDA NASS – representing crop conditions and production prospects as of June 1, 2015. The
June 10th WASDE report contained U.S. and World wheat supply‐demand and price projections for the
2013/14, “current” 2014/15, as well as the “new crop” 2015/16 marketing years. The “current” 2014/15
marketing year for U.S. wheat ended on May 31, 2015, while the “new crop” 2015/16 U.S. wheat marketing
year began on June 1, 2015, and will last through May 31, 2016.
I‐B. CME KC Hard Red Winter Wheat Futures & U.S. Dollar Index Trends
Since market highs of $7.03 ¾ per bushel for the CME JULY 2015 Kansas hard red winter wheat efutures
contract occurring on December 18, 2014, July futures have trended sharply lower – down to a low of $5.37 on
February 2, 2015. Then after rising to a high of $5.86 on February 17, 2015, JULY 2015 futures fell again to
$5.22 ¾ on March 6th. Another round of an upward price trend to above $5.90 in early April was followed by a
decline to below $4.90 in early May, and then a rise to $5.63 ¾ on May 18th, and $5.64 ½ on May 21st. Then
after a decline to as low as $4.95 ¾ on May 29th, prices rose as high as $5.53 ¾ on June 5th and $5.54 on June
9th – the day prior to the June 10th USDA Crop Production and WASDE reports.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) JULY 2015 Kansas HRW Wheat efutures prices responded to the
release of the June 10th USDA reports by trading sharply lower for the day. JULY 2015 HRW wheat efutures
prices opened at $5.48 on Wednesday, June 10th ‐ trading as high as $5.53 ½ and as low as $5.29 ¼ per bushel
during the session before closing $0.17 ¾ lower for the day at $5.30 ½ /bu (Figure 1). The USDA reports were
released at midday (i.e., 11 a.m., central time).
Since the June 10th USDA report, CME JULY 2015 Kansas HRW wheat futures have traded sharply lower –
from a high of $5.34 on Thursday, June 11th to a low of $5.05 ¼ on Tuesday, June 16th, before closing at $5.05 ½
on Wednesday, June 17th.
Similarly, CME DEC 2015 Hard Red Winter wheat efutures prices opened at $5.76 ½ on Wednesday, June
10th – the day of the release of the USDA reports at midday (i.e., 11 a.m., central time) – and traded in a high‐
low range of $5.82 ¼ down to $5.56 ¼ during the session before closing $0.20 lower for the day at $5.32 ¾ /bu
(Figure 1). Since the June 10th USDA report, CME DEC 2015 Kansas HRW wheat futures have traded sharply
lower – from a high of $5.60 ¼ on Thursday, June 11th to a low of $5.32 on Tuesday, June 16th, before closing at
$5.33 ¾ on Wednesday, June 17th.
Page | 3
Figure 1. JULY 2015 & DECEMBER 2015 CME Kansas Wheat Futures Price Charts (electronic trade) …
July 18, 2012
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