Boot camp stimulates insights

The outcome of the Boot Camp, which was held two weeks ago at Stanford University, has not – for obvious reasons – been widely trumpeted, writes industry commentator Allan Barber.

 

After all, the objective was never to produce yet another sector strategy, long on analysis of the problem and short on achievable actions to produce a state of nirvana.

Bill Falconer, chairman of the Meat Industry Association, was chosen as the spokesperson for the Boot Camp because he did not represent a single company, but an industry body. The senior executives who attended did not see the merit of or justification for purporting to speak on behalf of their peers from a wide range of rural sector businesses. Therefore, Falconer was the obvious person to speak on their behalf.

The Boot Camp’s objectives, simply stated, were seen as:

  1. To allow the attendees to learn from the professors and to visit US companies in different industries, which would enable them to see how to become consumer driven.
  2. To take six days out of day -to-day business and examine their business from a different perspective.
  3. To see how or whether individual companies could collaborate to their mutual advantage.

Falconer told me that is was one of the most stimulating and encouraging gatherings he had attended, with 20 CEOs and top managers from across the agricultural sector learning from six outstanding marketing professors how to lift their game for the benefit of their companies, industry sectors and agribusiness as a whole.

The conclusions from the Boot Camp can be looked at against the backdrop of the Government’s growth agenda to double exports or otherwise expressed as lifting exports from 30 percent to 40 percent of GDP by 2025.

The visits to companies near Stanford were immensely helpful in gaining an understanding of how the export target might be achieved. The first important conclusion is that there is no point in increasing production on-farm, or in any other environment for that matter, unless you can sell it.

In order to start working out how to sell the extra production, an understanding of consumer demand is necessary, becoming market- not production-driven and planning how to lift performance accordingly. A major insight was the scale of social media used by all the companies visited, a country mile ahead of any New Zealand company, including Icebreaker, which is seen as a leader in the New Zealand context.

I suspect, although Bill Falconer didn’t say so, that tangible results from the Boot Camp will of necessity be slow to eventuate. Nor is it likely that companies will feel the need to make a lot of noise about any specific programmes they develop, either in collaboration or on their own, until there is something concrete to report.

However, if the Boot Camp has achieved a change in attitude about the nature of the task and provided a blueprint of how to go about lifting sales and marketing performance, this will prove to be the best outcome. There has been too much navel-gazing analysis of the size of the problem and the same old strategies to solve it, without any real change in behaviour.

Ideally, agribusiness needs a Messiah to preach the new marketing gospel until the sector as a whole becomes customer- or consumer-driven.

Hickson buys Welsh meat plant

A meat processing plant in Wales is under new ownership. Progressive Meats’ Craig Hickson and his wife have just bought Cig Calon Cymru (CCC), a meat processor close to Llanelli in South Wales.

CCC is a multi-species plant, primarily processing Welsh Black and cattle and also lambs, employing over 30 staff. The British Farmers Guardian newspaper reports that the deal includes an all new management team, as well as an export partnership for beef. New Zealander Hugh Brown is to take the role of general manager and there is a newly created livestock supply manager.

New Zealand Federated Farmers has supported the move and says that while a recently released PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report for New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE) points towards growing New Zealand agribusiness in newer markets such as South America and China, Hickson has proven there is opportunity left in New Zealand’s traditional markets.

“While we must maximise the potential of New Zealand’s land resource, there is an inescapable logic about taking our intellectual property and skills globally,” says Jeanette Maxwell, Federated Farmers meat and fibre chairperson.

“If we take a leaf from the automotive industry, Toyota now makes most of its vehicles outside Japan. The challenge is in having capital markets which can help us seize these opportunities. We also need to be mindful there is still a lot of life left in our ‘old’ markets.”

Maxwell says this is an example of a progressive New Zealand meat company investing offshore. “There are others and they are not intended to simply be a meatpacker for our red meat, but to work in-market with local farmers to build their businesses and the overall market.

Getting inside markets, is what PwC/NZTE is calling for, she says.  “It is not dissimilar to how Fonterra works globally, or how Brazilian meat processors have become strong through global logistics and supply chain management.

“As New Zealand is a leading global exporter of red meat, we start to match that by becoming a leading global processor and marketer as well.”

The move maximises opportunities, markets and above all, returns, Maxwell believes.

In addition to owning Progressive Meats, Craig Hickson, who was named Federated Farmers’ 2012 Agribusiness Person of the Year in July, is also a B+LNZ Ltd director and a major shareholder of sheepmeat processor and exporter Ovation New Zealand. He and his wife also own a 1,500 hectare sheep, beef and venison farm.

KPMG’s Agribusiness Agenda points the way forward

Link

The KPMG Agribusiness Agenda 2012, released this week, contains interesting observations which have been gathered from conversations with nearly 100 business leaders, says Allan Barber, who recently reviewed the report.

But like most strategy documents I have ever read, the conclusions never quite seem to live up to the anticipation. However, this is a solid document with good ideas. Read more …