Difference Between Strategic Plan and an Operation...

To be successful in farming, the modern farmer needs to grab both opportunities and challenges with the same enthusiasm, thereby adapting swiftly to the changes to the immediate and global environment. Success in farming includes the knowledge and awareness of where you are as well as where you are heading. Thus, the farmer needs to have clear goals and directions in order to achieve sustainable success.
“Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal,” says Earl Nightingale, as quoted by Nell and Napier (2006).

Two important elements emerge from this definition:

1. Success is measurable only when there is a worthy ideal – a destination, a goal.
2. Success is present when the first step is taken in the right direction; success is not determined only after the last step is completed.

The modern farmer needs to broaden his/her focus from only production to a holistic strategy, where the production focus extends to a market focus where he/she builds relationships through the supply chain and consumers. The focus thus shifts from ‘I am a dairy producer’ to ‘I am a food producer’.

Modern agriculture tells us that the farm cannot be a fragmented, isolated part of food production; it has to be an integrated system where production targets are met through relationship and team building. In order to stay competitive, farmers need to operate independently on a micro-level (farm production pan); at the macro level, it is imperative to be integrated into the broader community of food producers in order to optimise the procurement as well as marketing environment.

When developing an operational plan from the farm, the management team cannot only focus on the current operational issues. They must have a broader focus on strategic issues and then break them down to operational targets. This learning unit will therefore start with strategic planning and then move on to operational planning and the monitoring and adjusting of plans towards the next cycle of planning – a continuous process.

Click here to learn more about the role of strategy in business.