Business management in the agricultural sector/ planning

Greetings dear readers, in the previous publication some basic aspects were addressed about the management of agricultural enterprises under a sustainable approach, this publication was the preamble of a thematic series that will be called "administrative processes in agricultural enterprises", where a brief analysis will be made on the different administrative processes that must be taken into account in an agribusiness.

We will begin by defining what is an agricultural enterprise? , we generally have different points of view, therefore, encompassing all the perceptions that we have can say that agricultural production units are considered companies since from some resources (inputs) get some products (outputs) which can be goods, tangible products or services of greater value or usefulness, which contributes to raising the standard of living of society, with a clear respect for natural resources, which enables the idea of corporate sustainability.

On the other hand, agricultural enterprises are systems where a series of administrative, technical, economic, social and environmental components are interrelated and where management from the administrative point of view is based on key functions such as: plan, organize and control the present resources (economic, biotic, abiotic among others) for the development of agribusiness.

In the same sense, the manager, owner or any person who effectively manages the agricultural enterprise, must manage an integrated process that meets certain arguments raised by different specialists in the area such as Fayol who mentions the following duties of the administration:

Planning: Design an action plan for tomorrow.

Organization: provide and mobilize resources for the implementation of the plan.

Management: direct, select and evaluate employees with the purpose of achieving the best work to achieve what is planned.

Control: ensure that things happen according to the planned and execution of the necessary corrective actions of the found deviations.

This article will argue about the planning process, which is the first step in the administrative process, where the preliminary analysis of the company’s weaknesses and potential is carried out, which will help to make more appropriate decisions about what will be done to achieve the required transformations.

In this sense, it could be said that the planning, seeks to determine where the company is located in financial terms; where the company wants to go to determine the objectives and how the company will reach those objectives, for this the strategies to be followed are chosen, This will determine the direction of the company since the activities to be carried out and the allocation of resources will be reflected. These plans take into account some unforeseen events that may occur in the agricultural enterprise, bearing in mind that we are referring to natural ecosystems.

An important tool for planning is the analysis of SWOT, Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Threats, these tools are fundamental to evaluate the internal and external aspects of the production unit, the strengths and weaknesses relate to agribusiness and its products, while opportunities and threats are external factors over which the company has no control.

Dear readers, based on the above, it can be inferred that the planning technique, allows to have valuable information from the administration of the agribusiness, and that once you have the knowledge of what is happening in the company you can contribute ideas for the future of the company, the experience and creativity of the people involved in the diagnosis is a fundamental part of the analysis process since for those who a certain situation seems to be an opportunity, for others it may go unnoticed.