strategic business planning for commercial producers what are the risks? how can i manage them?
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Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
What is Risk?• RISICARE
– Origin of word Risk– Italian word– “TO DARE”
• Risk implies– Element of choice– Action-oriented– Potential Reward as well as Potential Loss
• Manageable!
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
But how is risk manageable?
• Choices– Good vs. Bad
• Outcomes– Good vs. Bad
• Where can you make a difference?
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
What do we mean by “riskier”?
• Higher likelihood of bad occurrence• Larger magnitude of loss (or gain)• Expected value
(equals magnitude times probability)
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Risk Management: A Road Map
Adapted from Hardaker et. al.
BusinessEnvironment
Define Risks
AssessRisks
ManageRisks
Monitor and Review
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Categorizing Risk
• Production risk• Market risk• Legal/institutional risk• Human relations risk• Financial risk
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Risk: What does it mean?
• Write down the business environment in which your farm operates?
• What are the Top 10 risks you face?• Place the risks into the five
categories.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Adapted from Hardaker et. al.
BusinessEnvironment
Define Risks
AssessRisks
ManageRisks
Monitor and Review
Risk Management: A Road Map
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Assessing Risk
Assess Risk
Generate Tactics
Assign Likelihood &Consequence
Use DecisionTools
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
How can we manage risk?• Avoidance
• Reduction
• Transfer
• Assumption
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Avoidance• Planning activities or structuring the business
so that risks are avoided.• Football: “Call for a fair catch.”• Ag. Example: supplying your own forage for a
dairy operation to eliminate quality problems.
Watch Out!An avoidance tactic can generate a whole new
set of risks in its place.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Reduction
• Taking action to reduce the uncertainty of the crop, livestock or horticultural outcome.
• “Use Your Blockers”• Ag. Examples:
– Preventative maintenance on machinery– Diversification – to smooth income.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Transfer
• The act of shifting risk to another.• “Handing the Ball Off”• Ag. example: Singing a contract for a
particular output price.
What does this mean in terms of the risk/return trade-off?
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Assumption/Retention
• Recognizing and accepting risk that would have been borne by another party.
• “Run with the Ball”• Ag. example: A contractor retaining
ownership of and contracting with growers to finish hogs.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
How do we use the tactics?
• Formulate the Tactic for the Farm Business– Avoidance– Reduction– Assumption– Transfer
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Which Tactic to Adopt?
Depends on:
– Your preference for risk
– The farm’s ability to handle risk
– The uncertainty of the outcome
– The size of the gain or loss relative to cost
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Assessing Risk
Assess Risk
Generate Tactics
Assign Likelihood &Consequence
Use DecisionTools
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Probability – How Likely?
• Coin Flip:– 50% chance of heads, 50% chance of tails– Outcome = Heads – Likelihood = 50%
• Tomorrow’s Weather– 65% chance of rain– Outcome? Likelihood?
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Assessments: Subjective Measures
• Subjective - assessment based on our own experience and intuition.
Likelihood: “likely,” “almost never,” “75%”
Outcome: “minor” “catastrophic”“$50,000”
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
• Objective – Use mathematics or statistical models to assess a probability and likelihood of an event.
Likelihood: “50% Chance Price < Loan” “5% Chance Deviate from
Trend”Outcome: $$$
Assessments: Objective Measures
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Objective Assessment: MBC Farms Corn Yields
Year Yield Year Yield
1988 102 1993 134
1989 151.3 1994 174
1990 144.7 1995 113
1991 79.8 1996 141
1992 117.6 1997 108
Average Yield: 139.3 bu. Std. Dev. 36.3 bu.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
55
75
95
115
135
155
175
195
1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
bu
shel
s p
er a
cre
Trend YieldAverage Yield
Standard Deviation
Standard Deviation
MBC Farms Corn Yields
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
What are the key points?• Using the “average” outcome can be misleading –
especially in a budgeting process.
• Deviations around the average are one way to understand how variable an outcome is.
• Understanding trends can help make a more realistic forecast.
• How can the average and standard deviation be useful?
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Question: What do you prefer?
Alternative Plans
AverageNet Revenue
Std. Dev.Net Revenue
Plan A $100 per day
$5 per day
Plan B $ 95 per day $ 10 per day
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Average Comparisons• Most people prefer more to less – so a higher
average• Most people prefer less variability in revenue to
more variability.• So an alternative with a higher average and
lower variability might be preferred to a lower mean and higher variability. (beware the downside!)
• But decisions are not always this simple – unfortunately, the alternatives with high average revenues are often accompanied by high variability too.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Alternative Plans
AverageNet Revenue
Std. Dev.Net Revenue
Plan A $100 per day
$10 per day
Plan B $ 95 per day $ 5 per day
Question: Which do you prefer?
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
How do we use an average and standard deviation?• Compare the alternatives in pairs based on
their average and standard deviation.
• If an alternative has a higher average and a lower standard deviation, then it is a preferred alternative.
• Group the preferred alternatives together and then discard those that aren’t in a preferred set.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
But …• Sometimes we’re not interested in just the
average or overall variability of an alternative. Rather, we need to worry about the worst (or best!) that can happen.
• In this case, an entire distribution of returns is important.
• In addition, looking at a distribution of returns might help sort out alternatives which you can’t choose between based on averages and standard deviation.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Another Measure: The Probability Distribution• A way to characterize all of the
possible outcomes for our crop yields, or revenues or other uncertain events.
• The probability distribution gives both the outcome and the likelihood (probability) of an event for the entire range of feasible possibilities.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Monthly Farm Level Corn PricesSept. 1975 - April 1999
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
4.00
4.50
Sep
-75
Sep
-76
Sep
-77
Sep
-78
Sep
-79
Sep
-80
Sep
-81
Sep
-82
Sep
-83
Sep
-84
Sep
-85
Sep
-86
Sep
-87
Sep
-88
Sep
-89
Sep
-90
Sep
-91
Sep
-92
Sep
-93
Sep
-94
Sep
-95
Sep
-96
Sep
-97
Sep
-98
$/bu.
Historical Corn Prices
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Corn Price Frequency: Monthly Prices
Sept. 1975- April 1999
Perc
en
t fr
eq
uen
cy
Corn price per bushel
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Cumulative Historical Frequency: Monthly Corn Prices
Sept. 1975- April 1999
Perc
en
t fr
eq
uen
cy
Corn price per bushel
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Exercise Build a Frequency
The best way to learn is to do – let’s take a look at Smith Farms hay/beef cattle enterprise.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
One Way to Use A Cumulative Frequency
• Using historical data, forward looking forecast, or subjective analysis, assign outcomes or probabilities to build the frequency
• Choose a “critical value” and assess the likelihood of reaching it.
• Based on the likelihood of reaching the critical value, the consequences of failing to meet the critical value, and your preference for risk, choose an alternative.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
What’s Left Out? • In our example, there was just one uncertain
variable – the amount if hay needed.• In reality, hay production, the amount horse owners
are willing to pay, and the forecast of what it would cost to buy hay later would all factor in the decision.
• We can use computer software (like AgRisk®) to handle many random variables, but the concept of choosing critical values doesn’t change. In these cases, we might us the computer software to build net revenue distributions.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
How else can you use cumulative distributions?
• Does it make sense to pre-pay our inputs (e.g. fertilizer this year)?
• Can I meet the production standards (e.g., rate of gain) in the proposed hog feeding contract?
• Do we really need to add an employee for harvest/planting (how likely are we to be that we are short of help, what’s the value of the crop, how much does the employee cost)?