FAR studies new moves
food and agribusiness
Milking knowhow
One of the results to emerge from the brainstorm session held in
Holland at the end of June was the need for a different approach to
knowledge and knowledge-sharing. What's NewS follows up on
FAR's efforts at a major revamp of its offerings.
Ad hoe work
Missed opportunity?
Dating info
What'sNewS Issue 6 October 2000
F&A Research, better known as FAR,
bas come a long way since it began life
in the early 1990s as a back-up, almost ac
ademie department for our thrust into the
■tlobal marketplace. In the meantime, the
W\ay it works, the way its publications are
structured and its commercial importance
have changed beyond all
recognition. And now, it
seems, it's time to change
again. A couple of years
ago, FAR generated three
main publications - its
global sector studies, strate
gie sector analyses, and so-
called positioning papers.
The latter are perhaps the
least well known around RI.
Their aim was to identify
risks in every conceivable
area, including market, op-
erational, price, delivery
and so on. They also offered suggestions
for handling these risks, using FAR
fcknowhow to find solutions. Sounds pretty
^ood, really. So why has the role of the
Positioning Paper now become so pivotal
in the evolution of FAR's approach?
The basic problem is that positioning pa
pers, although highly valued by their
The World Wine
Business
users, tend to be a by-product of
sector studies, rather than a goal
in their own right. 'To some ex-
tent,' contments FAR chief Frans
van Bijsterveld, 'they've become a
victim of our own success. Over
the past 12 months, the number
of studies produced by The World Food
FAR people around the Markets
world has declined be-
cause they are increasingly work-
ing with local relationship man
agers and product specialists on
ad hoe projects for clients. We've
always wanted to promote the
commercial integration of
FAR work, so we're obvi-
ously very pleased this is
happening. Don't get me
wrong, we're not becom- k
ing commercial per se.
It's more that we're team-
ing up with the commercial peo
ple to add value.'
scope the information tends to be pretty
generie,' Van Bijsterveld explains. 'In
other words, because we needed to offer
an integral explanation of the whole
chain, it had to be fairly general in the
kind of information it provided. We also
wanted to avoid "dating" in the sense that
the numbers had to be
pretty general, as well.
Ultimately, it was too
generie for the purposes of
some of our commercial col
leagues. At the sarne time,
others really like these stud
ies because they show the
breadth of our knowhow.
So, they are more a market
ing rather than a commer
cial support tooi.'
This development comes at a time
when demand for information
throughout the organization is
changing. 'If you look at the sec
tor studies (market studies) - however irn-
pressive - then you see that because of the
Ar the brainstorm in June, FAR partici-
pants were able to talk through various
options for improving the topicality and
depth of information. A number of op
tions are currently on the table. 'What
we're looking at now is a
more varied product offer
ing,' says Van Bijsterveld.
'One example is a more
modular approach to sector
studies, which would he
short, focused and which
could be updated regularly.'
The strategie analyses will
also get a new look. 'We'11
tailor a specific customer-
based presentation and put
it onto Power Point. That
gives us so ntany options,
also to select, edit and then
reuse the information. This
is one of the reasons we need to do more
corporate analysis. Again,
The Dynamics of the
Cocoa and Chocolate
Industry
The most recent addition to our
small but growing team of Global
Industry Specialists is FAR's Adrie Zwa
nenberg. He joins Gordon Butland
(poultry) and Roger Bradshaw (sugar
sweeteners) as expert in dairy. The In
dustry Specialists main role is to sup
port the F&A network as it builds high
level business contacts and puts RI
firmly on the agendas of top CEOs in
food and agri. 'This is the first time
we've had an appointment to industry
specialist from the research side,' says
Zwanenberg, 'so that makes it even
more challenging for me.' He sees his
new role as an extension of what he and
his dairy team were already doing. 'I'm
off to Turkey this week,' he says, 'to ac-
company a relationship manager on a
cliënt visit. This is an important contact
for our people in Turkey, so they are us
ing me as a kind of door-opener and
marketing tooi. Hopefully, we can offer
some advisory as well.' In addition to
the relationship management support,
Zwanenberg is also responsible for pro
moting communication between people
working on dairy around the network.
'Another factor is InSight,' he adds. 'I
think it is extremely important to pro
mote the dairy side of this database and
we'11 be working on dedicated input
from our sector to support it.'
