Our Priorities
A perfect example of such work is Chernihiv cluster of Agricom Group. Almost all property of the companies «AgroIvanivka AG”, “Agrobioz” and “Krasne-Invest” and cultivated areas (about 10 thousand hectares on the territory of 11 village councils) were in a poor condition. However, we were ready for it; that is why we decided to stop further increase of the land and started building the efficient work as soon as possible. We focused on the most important things: skilled workers, innovation and building of relationships with the local community.
Staff. In our company, it was not enough to involve just agronomists and technicians. We also had to “straighten” such areas as procurement, logistics, finance and engineering in the main office. To bring together employees from different locations, our company has introduced something new: office workers leave Kyiv and go to the fields to have an opportunity to take part in the sowing or harvesting campaigns, in other words, to see and feel the main point of agrarians’ work.
Innovation. Proper management is impossible without control. Recently the company has introduced a number of information products that allow monitoring location of agricultural vehicles and controlling fuel usage. In fact, we had to develop the current technologies on the territory of Chernihiv cluster. We created maps of units and field maps as a part of geographic information system. Local administrative offices were integrated into a system of internal corporate communications and started synchronizing the most business processes including financial and logistics ones. Another important stage of “road map” was a variety of investment projects of equipment modernization. This process included both mobile equipment and devices. Some modern units were bought and partially transferred from Bilokurakyno cluster, others were transferred from our elevator complex (in October we started up its first line with 22 000 tons of storage capacity)
Communities and shareholders. Before the establishment of Chernihiv cluster, local enterprises did not pay much attention to the initiatives of local communities and were not concerned about their development. Besides, we “inherited” rent arrears. It was not easy to gain confidence of shareholders and reputation of responsible agricultural producers. First of all, we stopped growing crops that exhausted the fertility of land. Instead, we provided proper rotation of crops to save fertility and began to use only low impact technologies. The focus of Agricom Group is building of productive relations with the local communities, as their representatives are a part of a cluster. Therefore, last year we implemented a number of social projects and allocated money to modernize the infrastructure facilities. Having cleared the debts of the previous companies, we increased lease payments by 4,5%.
Choosing the development priority of the company every leader should determine a movement vector. Chernihiv cluster of Agricom Group has already showed positive results of the decisions made and use of allocated resources. Payback of the financial investment (millions of dollars) follows the schedule, but in my opinion, confidence of local communities is valuable as well. Partnership relations with the community is a guarantee of longstanding cooperation. As a result, everyone will be the winner.
Upon a condition that procurement prices of raw materials are coming up gradually to production costs, the priority of agribusiness is the improvement of economic efficiency. It is important to note, that based on the experience of Agricom Group with the enterprises that required improvement, the most significant things for agricultural companies are an effective use of financial investments and building of quality long-term relationships with staff and local communities.