Development of Agribusiness Enterprises - Asian Productivity ...

makes the difference between success and failure? It is “doing the right thing, and doing it
right”.
To gain a clear understanding of what is the right thing to do or the correct intervention
to undertake, it is necessary to have a system for exploring available options, evaluating them
properly, and executing and institutionalizing the chosen program accordingly. This entire
process, as well as how effectively and efficiently it is implemented, determines the quality
of decisions and success rate of any enterprise.
A four-step framework can be adopted starting with: finding out what is wrong or
needs to be done, followed by the selection of the intervention to be used, implementation
of the program, and keeping it stable and healthy. The transformation (input-output) model
is also given as a simple but effective tool for systematically scrutinizing Q&P programs.
Relevant considerations such as resource limitations, strategic positioning, urgency,
opportunities and conservatism should be made in view of prioritization that needs to be
done.
There are many cases of large enterprises working with cooperatives and third party
contract “partners” that depict win-win arrangements with SMEs. On the other hand, lessons
have also been learnt from mistakes in design standards and breed selections that have
become costly decisions as a result of a lack of information. Therefore, it is critical to
consider the value of information and its important role as an equalizer for SMEs to compete
against larger enterprises.
In that regard, there are a number of steps that can be taken towards achieving business
success, such as:
(a) pursuing benchmarking, competitive comparison and best practices sharing at various
levels;
(b) sustaining information dissemination programs (i.e., television documentaries, radio
broadcasts, publications and assistance from extension workers);
(c) continuing to strengthen IT and telecom infrastructure (i.e., the Internet);
(d) encouraging networking and linkage promotion (i.e., tripartite partnerships between
the government, farmers/SMEs and large companies);
(e) broadening training curricula to include basic management, people development,
networking, market research and intelligence; and
(f) exploiting the use of national quality awards criteria as a framework.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE COUNTRY PAPERS
The country papers that were presented at the seminar highlighted the fact that
agriculture continued to be the primary source of employment and livelihood for people in
the Asia-Pacific region. However, although production volume had been increasing through
the years, there had been a gradual shift to other higher value industries (e.g., garments, IT
and semiconductors) in some countries, resulting in a lower share of agribusiness,
percentage-wise, in the total GDP. For some countries, this had led to further urbanization
and migration of people to the cities, which had subsequently resulted in the reduction of the
workforce in the rural agricultural areas. That, in turn, had affected the viability of some
small enterprises, especially those operated by family units.
From the demand side, customers had started to become more sophisticated in their
tastes and specifications. This could be seen in the growing demand for more varieties of
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