Encouraging producer adoption via follow up activity

Summary

The Business EDGE follow-up workshops were designed and delivered by Bush AgriBusiness Pty Ltd with the objective of assisting participants from the full 2-day Business EDGE course apply the material to their own business. 

Feedback from Business EDGE participants is that they rate the course material very highly and intend to go home and make changes as a result of attending, but some later find they have not applied as much as they would have liked, either through being busy or not knowing where to start.

The opportunity to provide follow-up support and tools to implement changes saw the development of a one day workshop and purpose built spreadsheet. Invitations were extended to anyone who had participated in a Business EDGE workshop in 2016. 

Participants are asked to bring along their own information including livestock schedule, income and expenditure summary and asset register.  This information was used to develop the three pillars (income statement, cashflow statement and balance sheet) and whole business key performance indicators (operating return, capital return, total business return, equity percentage and finance coverage) for their own business. 

Whilst not all participants from the full Business EDGE course attended a follow-up workshop, those who did attend reported that they did get a lot out of the day and the material and spreadsheet tool were successful in enabling participants to apply changes to their business. 

Ongoing commitment to these types of changes will lead to greater understanding of the business, more informed decision making and improved performance in the long term and therefore, it is recommended that the follow-up workshops become an established next step to the Business EDGE course either through a PGS process or as a stand-alone activity.