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Planning Your Kenaf Business

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PLANNING AND MANAGING YOUR KENAF BUSINESS

The first thing that Luis did when he began his kenaf business was to develop a simple business plan. Anyone developing even the smallest business in a developing country should develop a small plan written out and kept by his or her side as they develop their business. This plan can be very simple to begin with. Once your business has grown to a larger size, you will want to develop a full fledged business plan.

A great deal of technical information as well as projections of planned expenditures and income for several years is a vital part of a full business plan. This will need to be developed and can be used once the business has gotten started and you know more about the costs of production and the prices you receive for your product. To produce a successful working business plan that can guide your business to greater profits, you need step by step instructions. For more details on creating your own profit making business plan as well an outline for what should be in a full business plan, as well as insights into how you can use a business plan as both a business development tool and financing tool, get the Special Report "You Can Profit from a Comprehensive  Business Plan", $20 from Dr. Cross, CODET, Barrio El Morero, Frente Bazar Reyna, La Esperanza, Intibuca, Honduras.

This information in this booklet gives you the insights to begin the planning process. In order to be successful in business, you need to know where you are going and why.

Planning and management are simply tools to enable you to do what you want to do most, create a successful lucrative business in your country. This information transfer will enable you to begin the lifetime activity of business development.

Let's look at a few simple concepts about What is business to begin with.

PART I. WHAT IS INVOLVED IN BEING IN BUSINESS?

The simplest way to look at a business is to say that a business is a systematic arrangement of decisions and activities related to making a profit from your efforts. Let' s look at 6 basic kinds of efforts, activities and decisions you will be involved in with your business

1. Deciding what your business will do

2. Production decisions and activities

3. Marketing your products

4. Keeping your business healthy

5. Dealing with the world

6. Managing the whole thing.

I. DECIDING WHAT YOUR BUSINESS WILL DO

Here you'll look at many alternative ways of developing a profit making venture. Once you select the area in which you want to develop a business or select the resources for your development ( it could be fish, vegetables, tropical fruits, timber, firewood, or whatever. Now you select the specific activities that will increase the value of the resources (processing, packaging, transportation),

Then you'll need to choose the best way to raise the money. You may choose from family funds, personal savings, bank loan, development group loans, and then you'll have to decide who are the people you'll want to work with who have the right skills for the necessary jobs. Then you have to hire the people.

As you can see Luis has already made all these decisions

a) resource agricultural and forestry resources

b) specific activities - processing the wastes into briquettes from kenaf

c) choosing the best way to raise money (Luis has saved his money while he went to school and after in the States)

d) the right people- Luis was going to work with his family as he knew them and could motivate them to work

II. PRODUCTION DECISIONS AND ACTIVITIES

This category includes those decisions and activities that result in manufacturing and adding more worth more money by doing something to it. It is increasing the value of a resource by building, assembling, improving, preserving, packaging, freezing, drying, canning, smoking, extracting or any other process. The activities in these category includes:

a) getting things to where they are needed when they are needed

b) making sure that there is enough of what you need, when you need it, but not too much of it

c) storing, protecting and safeguarding the product so that it can be sold at the best available price

d) making sure the right people are at the right place at the right time with the right tools and supplies

e) making sure that the right people are really needed so they do not waste their time and yours

f) making sure the product is being made in the right way, size, shape and weight so that it can be sold

g) making sure that whatever is done is done the easiest and least expensive way without sacrificing quality, it must be what the customers want, but done economically

h) making sure that whatever is done is done in one of the best ways to do it at that time

i) making sure that everyone affected by a production decision is included in the discussions before the decision is made

III. MARKETING THE PRODUCTS

The basic objective of business is to market the product or service for more money than you have spent making it. This category includes all those activities that have to be done to encourage people to pay you for your products and services.

These activities include:

a) telling customers that you have a good product

b) telling customer how much they will enjoy it

c) helping customer easily get your product

d) putting it in the right sizes and shapes so customers can use it

e) reminding the customers how good it was, is and will be

f) looking for new customers

g) moving the products to new customers

h) asking the customers how they like it, what they would like better, and what else they would like

i) making sure it is always the best that you can make

j) developing new products that the customers have said they want or that you think they will like

k) making sure that your product is better than other products the customers can get at the same price

l) making sure the price is right so that you keep your old customers and attract new ones

m) remembering that there are many good ways of selling your products

IV. KEEPING THE BUSINESS HEALTHY

The people involved in your business and you especially as owner, should discuss and decide together, what they really can do, what they enjoy doing, and what is necessary to keep the business operating. The activities involved include:

A) Selecting The Right People For The Right Job

B) Making The Jobs Interesting, Varied And Challenging

C) Using The Same People For Lots Of Jobs

D) Making Sure The People Who Are Doing The Jobs Decide Some

Of What Should Be Done On The Job

E) Deciding Which Activities Are To Be Looked After By Which Group

F) Deciding Pay, Hours, Schedules, Fringe Benefits

G) Deciding On Training, Job Rotation And Safety

H) Making Sure Everyone Is Informed And Treated Fairly

I) Dealing With The World

This category consists of the activities involving interactions between workers and management with the outside world -- everyone not directly working in the business which include:

a. dealing with the people in the town or village where the business is located

b. dealing with buyers, sellers, advertisers, sources of raw materials

c. dealing with other businesses

d. dealing with local regulatory agencies, police and the local government

e. dealing with state or provincial offices, licensing agencies, state regulators, and rules

f. dealing with bureaucrats from your federal government

g. dealing with consultants, foundations, and religious associations

h. dealing with the press, radio and TV

i. dealing with other villages or towns

j. dealing with foreign agencies or groups

k. dealing with any other outside agency, groups and individuals

l. developing new ideas and ways of dealing with the world, your markets, your government or any other outside influences

VI. MANAGING THE WHOLE THING

The management of your business is very vital to your success. It is so important to the management of your business and some of the activities you will need to involve yourself in.

The management of your business insure that all the activities listed above get done. Managing activities are choosing and deciding activities. Since choosing is in itself a form of deciding, we will talk about management as deciding for the rest of the paper.

Managing activities are deciding activities. Deciding is choosing, selecting, rejecting and guessing. There are many ways of deciding. Frankly you will make mistakes when developing your business. You can make your mistakes quickly or slowly. Your success will depend on what you do when you make a mistake and how you set up system for not repeating the same mistake twice. And you'll need to train your employees not to make that mistake.

What's important in deciding?

The key is to make small mistakes instead of big ones. In order to make fewer mistakes, you will need assistance in making decisions. You will need information as much as you can get. And you will need to talk it over with others. You'll need to share the deciding responsibility. Here a few advantages of sharing the responsibility:

a) you can get more than one point of view on problems. Two heads are better than one and many heads result in problems being examined in many ways

b) your employees often have good ideas and will work harder for you if you involve them in deciding the things that affect them while working for you

c) even if a mistake is made, it tends to be a lesser one since everyone has a thought about and has knocked about ideas about the problems

d) it keeps everyone informed  about what is going on

e) when something does not work everybody knows it right away and starts worrying about correcting the problem before it goes too far

f)  It insures that should one of your managerial staff become power hungry and keeps information secret, many people will still have access to the information

Through this system you ensure that employees are being treated fairly, that all have to work an equal amount of time, and that no one is stealing or getting away with anything in your organization,

There are many things that help groups make decisions about things. These are a few decision aids:

a) Good records of what has happened before. Keep track of what is decided, how it is done, and what the results are.

Keep good notes and minutes of meetings. Keep good personnel records on pay and other matters.

b) Good bookkeeping keeps tracks of your money. Your accountant will help you set your books up. keep track of income and expenses.

c. Good contracts. When dealing with outsiders make sure you have a good written agreement specifying amounts, quality, prices, terms of payment, penalties, conditions of contract terminations, et. Also written memos should  be used to confirm verbal agreements. You may want to consult your accountant or your attorney for general agreement format or contract. For important contracts always leave your attorney assist you.

d. Keep telephone logs so that everybody can see at a glance who called in or out, what was discussed, and what decision was made if any

e. Ask advice from your accountant, attorney or anyone else who you trust and who may have special or technical information that you need.

f) Above all, discuss the problems and explore as thoroughly as you can.

g. Trust your own decisions. You are closer to the problem. You know the environment and the people involved. You know the environment and the people involved. Suggestions by outsiders, however well meaning, may overlook the special consideration of the business culture you are creating. Remember the list of dumb decision made by big business and big government is longer and more impressive than anything you could possibly aspire to.

ORGANIZING YOUR BUSINESS

There are many methods of business organization you can establish. You know your people in your country and how your culture operates. So the way you organize your business will involve not only the cultural patterns you know but the business culture you live in.

1. The way you organize yourselves to get the job done should feel natural and be easily understood by everyone

2. The way you organize yourself to get0000 the job done should make the work flow smoothly from start to finish

Group activities should proceed in logical common sense ways so they flow into one another naturally

3. The way you organize yourselves to get the job done should insure that nothing is left out and that things are done when needed

4. Make sure that everyone has a little more work than they easily do

5. Make sure that activities overlap, so that more than one person is involved in each

6. Make sure that the most enjoyable and most distasteful activities are shared equally

7. Make sure that the dirtiest and most boring activities are rewarded, more than the easy entertaining activities

8. Assign people jobs so that the normal community ways are continued with the usual work patterns of men, women, the elderly and children

9. Set up activities so that everyone can, if necessary do everything--although people will tend to select jobs they can do well. Avoid allowing individuals to become over specialized.

Your business will be managed as an organization. YOU must develop an organization of people who work together and who function well together. That means you must set up a management system of people who will organize the activities and requirements of the business. In most cases, the teams will be involved in the work themselves as well as insuring that it is properly done. Getting the required jobs done is the key, not who does what. A person can look after a wide range of jobs both in your resources and in the business system. Further having more than one person looking after an activity is desirable as this adds a measure of accountability and quality control to the process which helps cure oversights and forgotten mistakes.

Perhaps the easiest way to overcome a shortage of skills and people is to create task forces or teams what look after one or more portions of the system.  Since many of these activities are only undertaken part of the time, the people on the team would also be a member of the other teams or taskforces depending upon seasonal schedules and workloads. Of course, the people who are interested in certain activities should be assigned to the team responsible for those activities. The team is responsible for insuring that the activities are properly accomplished. How and when they do it is that problem. 

They will manage themselves. They must check with other of the teams who depend on their output. Of course you can only use this method if you have the workers trained to their duties.

If you want to do group management

Your management teams should be selected on the basis of confidence, trust, skills, ability, interest and competence.

Your team must work together, learn together and establish a routine. For the few first few meeting, a leader facilitated open discussion is probably best.

One of the things to guard against is the natural tendency of some to get things organized under their control. Early in the process, some human relations training is desirable so that each member of the management  team can appreciate and understand their own natural tendencies in working in a small group.. To make group management work, the best qualified must be responsible for the taskforce even if he is a natural leader. If a person insists on being the boss, he probably should be removed from the management team. It is a team, and there can be no place for loners who thinks they have  all the answers.

A good place to start is to agree on what should be set up a list of priorities. Once this is done )(and it can always be changed) responsibility for coordinating,  acting on, and collecting basic information about each problems can be mutually agreed upon. Again these tasks can be shared.

The task force idea is one way to develop a team. 

YOU MIGHT HAVE THESE TEAM or TASK FORCES

1. Producing

2. Developing

3. Marketing

4. Maintaining the business

For more information on setting up your business using the task force/team basis write for the book

Special Report "How to Establish A Task Force Based Form of Leadership In Your Business $20. Dr. Cross, CODET, Barrio El Morero, Frente Bazar Reyna, La Esperanza, Intibuca, Honduras.or connect with Dr. Carol Cross at exportfacs@aol.com

THE MANAGERIAL METHOD

In this method, you establish who will be the manager of the business.  You might establish your business this way 

Whichever method you choose to use, you need to develop the entire concept before you present it to your staff or choose the members of your staff. 

Once you establish what you need, for people to do it, then you can  decide the job description for each position you will have.

MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES YOU WILL NEED TO APPLY TO YOUR BUSINESS

No matter which system you choose to apply, you will need to apply the five basic functions of management:

Let's take a look at each one of these functions in terms of producing briquettes from kenaf.

A. Planning

Planning is getting ready to do the work, not actually doing it.  Planning is the thinking, judging and deciding part of a manager job. There are several steps to the planning functions

A, the first step is to define establish the mission statement your business wants to achieve

B.. The second step is to define the objective of the plan.

Ask yourself what is to be accomplished. Perhaps the plan you are developing has more than one objective. If so then it will be necessary to list the objective in terms of order of priorities. Let' take the plan of producing briquettes from kenaf to market in the local area.

STEP ONE DEFINE THE MISSION STATEMENT

It is vital that your business have a mission statement. What does your business plan to produce? What kinds of people do you want to serve. How do you plan to be of service to your customers? what do you have to offer. What are you willing to pay to reach your goals. What is your personal motivation?  Why are you choosing this business.  What is the underlying reason you have to put together all the efforts you will need to keep going in adversity and problems.

There must be a deeper desire than simply to earn money if your business is to succeed to its maximum level.

STEP TWO DEFINE THE OBJECTIVES OF THE PLAN YOU ARE PREPARING

The second step is to determine the need in the area for briquettes from kenaf.

In order to determine this, it will be necessary to undertake a market survey. Once the market survey was  completed, Luis had discovered that there is a need in the local area for a certain quantity of briquettes from kenafand that the need is increasing each day. Fuelwood is getting shorter and shorter and more expensive. Therefore the plan to produce fuel briquettes from Kenaf is a good one and would result in profitable business that would continue to grow indefinitely..

Luis and his family plan to create  a business to produce fuel briquettes from Kenaf is based on these premises:

The next question  is - what is to be accomplished '

STEP THREE  SET UP YOUR INFORMATION GATHERING SYSTEMS

It is vital that you begin your business with adequate sources of information. You will need information on many areas- information on setting up your business right, information on setting up records, information on how to obtain raw materials, information on how to grow Leucaena, how to process or produce your product, information on how to motivate your employees and information on how to expand once your business is a success and finally information on sustainable ancillary businesses you can start. Setting up a continuous flow of  information is vital when beginning a business today in the highly competitive Global world. You business no matter how small in what small village is still affected by world events, the cost of oil, wars in the Middle East, you name it. You need a flow of information.

STEP FOUR HOW WILL THE PROJECT BE DONE - PREPARE ALTERNATIVES AND DECIDE ON WHICH ONE TO FOLLOW

The next step is to see how the objective will be accomplished. How would Luis and his family produce the Kenafs. How would they market them.

To answer these questions it is necessary for Luis and his family to find a reliable source of supply for the raw  materials needed for the production of the Kenafs. Luis must locate all local sources of agricultural and forestry waste and make definite contact with them for him to haul them away.

Then he would have to figure out how the group would collect the wastes. How would they be stored?   How would they set up a regular route to collect. 

STEP FIVE PREPARE A PLAN OF ACTION - WHERE WILL THE PRODUCT BE PRODUCED AND MARKETED

Luis and his group now need to make a map of the collection sites and map out the most efficient route for collection.

Where will the storage be placed. Where would the building for the factory be located. Where would the material for building the factory be obtained. Where would they be stored to prevent pilferage during construction?  Where will the machinery and equipment be purchased from. Where will they get the trucks to haul the equipment from the coast.

Where will the product be marketed. Will they market  through stores or have a route they regularly travel to market the product. Will they market in the central marketplace in the capital?  Where will the trucks be parked so they won't be stolen.

STEP SIX PREPARE A PLAN OF ACTION --- WHO WILL PERFORM THE TASKS

Who will be in charge of the factory. Who will be in charge of everything?  Who will be in charge of marketing. Who will be in charge of quality control who will produce the product and who will market the product? Under who can also be place the information? How much the machinery will cost and who will order it?

All equipment, plans for building, etc should be itemized under whom because someone has to perform each tasks and there will be cost

What training will be required by your management staff. What training will have to be given to workers. When will training be done and where?

STEP SEVEN PREPARE A PLAN OF ACTION FOR WHEN THINGS WILL BE DONE

When will the plant itself be ready for producing Kenafs?. Does Luis have to wait for the family. How will they build the factory and have it ready by the time the machinery comes. When will they begin collecting raw materials. When will they purchase the needed trucks and collection equipment. When will workers be hired.

When will they be trained.

Luis set himself up a month to prepare the plan for scheduling all the activities of the project. He got a big roll of brown paper from the capital city and set down a timeline all the activities needed in the project.

STEP EIGHT PUTTING YOUR PLAN INTO SIMULATED ACTION

All the plans in the world won't help you unless you put them into action. This part of the planning process can include what is called scenario running or simulation. You with a group of your management staff may role-play various situations, crises, such as loss of a particular market, project, cash flows, etc.

STEP NINE EVALUATING THE PLAN AS IT PUT INTO ACTION

As the work progressed on the implementation of the plan after Luis completed it, he kept up running evaluations to see how close they came to the timetable he had set up. He made notation on the timetable and outline to see how close the actual carrying out of the objective followed his planned schedule.

These notation will help Luis in the future so he will know we here improvement so corrections should be made.

The fact is, planning is continuous and overlapping the field of management. As a matter of fact, Luis had already began his implementation of this project by the time he had completed his plan because he knew he would be getting a lot of managerial assistance from ISAI's consulting services and the Leucaena Production Society turnkey system.

STEP TEN PREPARE TRAINING PROGRAM PLAN

(Information to be offered in Kenaf Seminar in Honduras August 2007..

STEP ELEVEN PREPARE TIME LINE FOR COMPLETION

Information to be offered in  Kenaf Seminar in Honduras August 2007..

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Need More Information about Kenaf?

More information on KENAF is available to you from kenaf@kenafdoyen.com Our kenaf web site is http://www.satglobal.com/kenafbas.htm.

http://www.satglobal.com/kenafbas.htm Email us at kenaf@kenafdoyen.com

Return to Kenaf Page

Order kenaf seeds today by emailing Dr. Carol Cross at  kenaf@kenafdoyen.com . Kenaf seed buyers must pay in advance through international money order, certified or cashier's check

Need More Information About Leucaena?

More information on Leucaena is available to you from  kenaf@kenafdoyen.com. Our Leucaena web site is http://www.satglobal.com/leucaena_entry.htm.

http://www.satglobal.com/leucaena_entry.htm Email us at  kenaf@kenafdoyen.com

Return to Leucaena Page

Order Leucaena seeds today by emailing Dr. Carol Cross at kenaf@kenafdoyen.com . Leucaena seed buyers must pay in advance through international money order, certified or cashier's check.

Consulting firm seeks 1,000,000 pounds

Here is a recent email I received

To whom it may concern,

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Consultant and my consulting firm is currently working on several large projects in China including high tech manufacturing, environmental remediation, power production, and agricultural.

I am closely affiliated with one of the partners of a Chinese venture group that is currently in the process of securing up to 1 million acres in several provinces for the purposes of growing and processing Kenaf.

The project is a joint venture between the private group and Chinese government offices in the respective provinces.

The purpose of this email is to begin the process of sourcing the initial 500K - 1 million lbs of seeds (of various varieties) necessary for the first phase of the project. Once available quantities and supply capabilities have been established, the group is prepared to enter into a contract for purchase according to agreed upon terms.

The venture group is also interested in securing an exclusive supply contract to China upon confirmation of bona fides and confidences between both parties.

I can provide timelines and other pertinent information once I have received a response from your company.

I await your reply.

Respectfully yours,

Consultant

------

Become a Certified Kenaf Seed Producer and cash in on the Chinese kenaf initiative.

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