I have always believed that education, especially for sectors directly linked to production, such as agriculture, should be influenced and influence entrepreneurship and the labor market.
If there was a will to exploit the endless quality productive resources in this country, and there was the correct professional orientation of young people, then half of the students in Greece should be studying at the Agricultural University.
I have also always believed that both the business planning process and its results are necessary for the optimal development of an organization.
This is what the MBA Agribusiness program of the Agricultural University of Athens does in practice. In the business planning course, groups of students create business plans based entirely on their own innovative business ideas. Ideas that would make many consulting firms jealous, due to the completeness of the information, the thorough analysis of the data, and the final presentation.
This year, I had the opportunity, the honor and the fortune to participate in the evaluation process of these business plans and also to play a small role in the preparation and guidance of the Program’s students, regarding the essence and techniques of Business Planning.
There are two key factors that constitute the essence and key advantages for the existence of the Business Planning process.
1. Upon completion of a plan, we have available the predicted future results and estimates of all the basic financial figures of a business over time. These results reveal all the sensitivities and knowledge required to make the right decisions over time. And it is the predictions of these results that determine the compass, the roadmap, the reference point that defines success or not. Because without a compass, without a strategy, you will never know if you are in the right direction, and even if you are, you will never know.
2. The process of a business plan creates the appropriate sensitivity and ultimately the culture of planning and preparation throughout the team. At the end of the day, business planning is not just a process, nor just a course in a University, nor a Department in a company. It is a philosophy and a way of life, it is a way of thinking and mindset, it is a culture.
All of the above is an introduction to describe my experience from my participation in the evaluation process of the Business Plans of the postgraduate program of the Agricultural University of Athens, which has just been completed.
Four groups of students, with different innovative ideas that they had to transform into detailed business plans, creating a documentation file for all stages. From the initial investment, the production process, the individual processes, to the cash flow and results forecasts for the next decade.
Using modern tools such as the STRATEGY application for projecting results and indicators over a decade, the Business Model Canvas model for outlining the backbone of the plans, and qualitative environmental reports, this year’s business plans were completed with complete success.
The main protagonists, leaders and coordinators of this particular course of the postgraduate program are Professors Petros Soldatos and Konstantinos Lionakis, from the Agricultural University and the Athens University of Economics and Business, respectively, as well as Georgia Papaioannou, tireless supervisor of all processes. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for the trust they have shown in me, for my participation in the overall process and in the Scientific Evaluation Committee.
During this process, I came into contact with students who had scientific training, a lot of imagination, fresh minds, reasonable questions, honest concerns and a lot of appetite for work. Excellent ideas were heard, intelligently structured, well researched and questions were answered through the process.
I present to you the 4 innovative Business Plans that were presented this year, so that you can verify the level and quality of thinking.
1. The company “InSection” is active in the production of protein feed raw materials (insect meal, insect oil and whole insects) based on approved insects. This business idea contributes significantly to achieving sustainability, reducing the environmental footprint and solving the food crisis while fully satisfying the nutritional needs of each farmed animal (pig, poultry, fish).
2. The business plan of “Make it Eat it” refers to the establishment of a company that will supply consumers with high-quality raw materials accompanied by easy-to-use recipes (meal kits) with the aim of creating easy, quick and healthy dishes at home. The mission of the company is to facilitate the lifestyle of people today by offering meals that can meet many different nutritional needs.
3. The company “Capella Goat Cheese I.K.E.”, a medium-capacity cheese factory, will produce a total of four cheeses, from Greek goat milk, surface-ripened with fungi. Our main product, aged for 12 days, is distinguished by its intense organoleptic character, while the other three have been enhanced with the addition of black ash, herbs and peppercorns.
4. The MacAronia company will create two product lines: Cups in three flavors: Mediterranean, Mexican and Asian, and MacAronia in dry form, based on high nutritional value pasta, which is based on flour from unexploited pulp of the chokeberry plant. The aim is to analyze the costs and expected benefits of this business, as well as to analyze the strategy and marketing and promotion plan of its products.
What I will remember is the optimism I felt for the young scientists, their training, their mentality, and for the future of this country.
There is therefore optimism for the future of education, the future of literacy and the development of the next generations. There is also this Greece, after all, the Greece of science, production, work, entrepreneurship, goals, dreams and results.
Everyone involved, from the administration of the Agricultural University, the relevant Professors, to the students of the postgraduate program, are worthy of congratulations for this action, and an example to follow, because they not only create knowledge and expertise but also the characters of people who will influence the lives of all of us.
Also, finally, we must thank “Plaisio” which was the sponsor of the prizes given to the winning team Insection, namely eight state-of-the-art tablets, one for each member of the team. We hope that in the coming years the business community will become more aware with corresponding rewards and active participation in educational applications.
