Best if printed in landscape.

Management Discussion
Workshop Outline for Marketplace 2006

Title: Pursuing Market Opportunities -- What May Not Be Obvious

Description: Business managers are always seeking market opportunities and many of these opportunities are discovered when interacting with other business managers. After learning of an opportunity, the next step is analyzing the opportunity to decide whether and how to pursue it. But what business and economic principles may help a manager analyze a market opportunity?

This workshop offers managers a setting in which to discuss the challenges and strategies of identifying and pursuing business opportunities. The facilitated discussion explores how managers assess market opportunities. The discussion also integrates relevant economic and management principles such as assessing competition, and integrating market opportunities into business planning and overall business management. Participants also will explore the inevitable relationship between personal goals, business/career goals, and business strategies.

Workshop objective/goal: assist managers identify and pursue business opportunities by enhancing their understanding and ability to apply economic and management concepts. To achieve this objective, the discussion will strive to have the managers think about and discuss their business operation on a more abstract level that emphasizes decision making/business planning concepts and economic principles.

Managers will be encouraged to consider concepts such as level of competition, business resources, the impact of information and risk, business planning, and the impact of business and personal goals.

Target audience: managers of small or rural businesses, but especially individuals who are assuming a management role for the first time, such as 1) a small business owner whose activities have evolved to encompass marketing, staffing, business relationships, and information and risk management and 2) persons whose career advancements have shifted them to a management role.

Promotion strategy: collaborate with an existing group at Marketplace?

Marketplace provides the region's business managers an opportunity to interact with other managers. It also is an opportunity for education and professional growth.

It was suggested that the title of the session emphasize marketing because business people are always looking for new markets. The assumption is they know what they want to produce and how to produce, but they need to identify buyers to be successful. However, this session is not about finding new markets; the focus is on applying basic economic concepts to help business people analyze and understand their business and the business environment in which they operate. The challenge for the educators is to explain the workshop so it attracts business managers who may not be interested in learning how to operate their business, may not be interested in discussing economic concepts, but instead are looking for market opportunities.

A second suggestion was to market the discussion as "101 Ways to Spend a MIllion Dollars." That is, the "catch" would be "let's talk about spending the money you will earn from successfully operating your business." The assumption is that the discussion would then shift to "operating the business to earn the spending money," and thus lead to a discussion of the management/economic topics listed in this outline. This suggestion was based on the idea that business people are tired of talking about how to earn a profit; they may be more interested in thinking about how to spend money for family, pleasure, etc.; but once they have those goals in mind, they will then be ready to shift back to the question of "how to earn the money I want to spend." This may be a good suggestion, but we need to think about how to make it work as a "marketing" strategy for the workshop.

Workshop format: This educational workshop is organized to make the most of the idea that participants learn as much from each other as they learn from presentors. The workshop leaders will facilitate interaction among participants as well as serve as a resource during the discussion. The leaders are responsible for initiating, sustaining, and guiding the discussion. The workshop is a combination of directed or facilitated discussion periods and short presentations.

Discussion Questions and Resources

Facilitated discussion will begin by having participants discuss strategies and challenges of identifying and deciding whether to pursue market opportunities. For example, participants will be asked to discuss questions such as "what do you consider when deciding whether to pursue a market opportunity? Why are these your considerations?" Responses to these questions then allow the facilitators to introduce additional topics, for example:

• "I think I can achieve my goals" which allows the discussion to transition to business planning (e.g., the three questions of "where am I, where do I want to go, and how do I get there");
• "I can earn a profit" which implies a goal (another link to business planning) and allows the discussion to address "levels of competition, factors that determine the level of competition, consequences of different levels of competition, strategies to influence the level of competition, and consequences of pursuing these strategies;" and
• "This is what I am already producing" which introduces the topic of resources needed to operate a business (land, labor, capital, information and risk exposure) and strategies for managing these resources.

An alternative question would be "what would keep you from pursuing a business opportunity." Again, the responses will allow the facilitators to transition to several economic and management topics.

• Facilitators will be prepared to address a variety of topics (described below) based on the issues raised by the participants. The facilitators also will be ready to introduce additional topics if the discussion lags, and to direct the discussion back to the topic if it deviates too far.
• Facilitators will introduce the session by emphasizing the value of learning from one another and the value of respecting a diversity of thinking and experiences. They will also explain their role as the session's facilitators.
• Facilitators will use web sites as the primary educational tool during and after the workshop.

A third question to initiate the discussion may be "in your role as a manager, what is the greatest challenge for you in making decisions?"

• This may lead to a discussion of decision making processes, as well as business planning, the role fo goals, understanding economic resources.

Workshop topics will reflect participants' interest but also broaden their perspective. For example, the presentations will enhance the participants' understanding of business management by challenging them to recognize their own decision making process, the role of business and personal goals in their decision making, and their long term vision for their business. Due to the diverse interest and experiences among participants, production techniques and specific marketing strategies will not be emphasized. Instead, commonalities among the business will be emphasized such as application of economic and management concepts to enhance understanding of business opportunities. Perhaps the most obvious commonality among business managers is the desire and need to identify market opportunities and deciding which ones to pursue.

Another important topic is the impact personal goals and personal interests have on the business goals and business operation.

Possible Order of Discussion

• Examples of marketing opportunities and the challenges of pursuing such opportunities as a way to expand a business
  • For example, an awareness of market opportunities is "information;" pursuing market opportunities involves "risk."
• Expect that the challenges of pursuing opportunities will lead to a discussion of "level of competition," that is, perfect competition and imperfect competition
• Factors that determine level of competition -- review characteristics of perfect competition and that lacking one of the characteristics places a business in a situation of facing " less than perfect" (imperfect) competition
• Consequences of differing levels of competition -- limited or no opportunity for extra or economic profit v. opportunity for economic profit
• Factors that influence level of competition (size of market) -- production and market information, transportation and communication technology
• Strategies for influencing level of competition -- consider each of the factors/characteristics of perfect competition and what does it take to break out of perfect competition, especially information
• Consequences of engaging in strategies to break out of perfect competition -- increased risk
• Review impact of technology on level of competition and potential for profit; also review the importance of information in managing competition, and risk in responding to opportunities and competition.

Additional topics -- participants will be asked to identify "issues that interfere with or slow business growth." Likely topics include labor, contracts, patents, insurance, production technology, financial analysis, risk, information, communication, knowing when to out-source, etc. Each of these topics can include

• Alternative explanation of economic resources -- land, labor, capital, information, risk
• Defining each category and the type of return for investing the resource
• address points such as management as labor, and distinguishing between equity and debt capital
• Recognize what resource needs to be invested to be entitled to the business earnings
• Possibly address the difference between asset ownership and business ownership
• Issues related to managing each economic resource, especially labor
• Government role in managing each resource
• Commonality between impact of information on level of competition and information as an economic resource
• Relationship between risk management and opportunity to earn profit

Business planning process -- participants will then be asked to discuss the challenge of preparing a long-term vision for their business.

• three basic business planning questions -- where am I, where do I want to go, and how do I get there
• describe the multiple compoments of business planning (use a 10-step planning process)
• discuss the role of goals in making business decisions
• discuss the functional areas of a business
• review "managing information and risk "
• discuss the role of analytical techniques, especially for financial issues
• discuss identifying alternatives
• describe relationship between the functional areas, strategies for managing the functional areas, and topics previously discussed such as level of competition and economic resources

Topics that May Arise

• Marketing -- finding/creating markets
• Labor -- finding, training, retaining workers
• Risk -- contractual relationships
• Information -- production and marketing information
• International transactions
• Capital -- debt and equity
• Financial analysis -- project profitability and feasibility
• Profitability --
• Business planning

Conclusion:

• We are in the information age and must manage accordingly.
• Evaluate market opportunities and business expansion in terms of level of competition, business resources, and business planning.

Can these thoughts also be adapted for Extension Conference and as continuing education for economic developers? These sessions would probably be "train-the-trainer."

Last updated October 20, 2005

E-Mail agecinf@ndsuext.nodak.edu
Published by Agribusiness and Applied Economics
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