Accelerated Growth Resources
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is the controlled process of developing and maintaining a strategic balance between your company’s objectives and resources and changing or emerging market opportunities. The MSU Product Center’s AGS team works with clients to help define goals and objectives, conduct competitive assessments and develop strategies implementation tactics and measurement metrics.
Accelerated Growth Services Team (AGS) The AGS team is experienced in helping companies’ complete strategic audits to ensure that resources and competencies are quantified and evaluated through resource appraisals, value chain analyses and performance analyses.
Financial Planning
A solid financial plan helps ensure you can reasonably make a profit in your venture and validate the project to external partners, no matter what stage. With assistance from the MSU Product Center AGS team, the financial planning process can be made simpler or more complex depending on several variables:
- Size of your venture
- Stage of business or product life – building a new business or expanding an existing one
- Ability to experiment during the planning process
- Risk factor of the venture
The AGS team is experienced in working with stage two organizations for cost of production, marketing, distribution, sources and uses of proceeds and breakeven and related financial analyses.
Feasibility Study
If you are looking to create a new value-added entity, add a new product line or expand your food business, a well- executed feasibility study will identify strengths and weaknesses of an existing business or proposed venture, potential market opportunities and threats, resource requirements needed for implementation, and the comprehensive chances for success.
The MSU Product Center’s AGS team specializes in applied economic analysis of agriculture, food and bioeconomy issues and works with clients to determine a project’s viability through outlined objectives and scopes of a business feasibility study.
Feasibility studies will encompass a review of all aspects of the business, including:
- Market Assessments
- Production & Procurement Assessments for food and ag-based businesses
- Processing & Technical Assessments
- Business, Organization, & Management Assessments
- Financial & Economic Assessments
Utilizing extensive qualitative and quantitative research, The Product Center AGS team helps clients determine the total investments needed for potential projects. The experienced team will analyze both hard cost investments such as labor and future cost of raw materials along with indefinable variables such as consumer perception and product trending.
Market Research
Market Research is a crucial aspect of business strategy that provides a factual basis for a company to gain insight, support decision-making and ensure that their products are positioned to succeed in the marketplace. Market research can also improve market performance by improving the understanding of problems in a product, its marketing and distribution.
The MSU Product Center’s AGS team has access to an extensive array of internationally recognized market research databases that define customer demographics, values and decision processes as well as competing product features and claims. The AGS team also assists in interpreting market research results to guide marketing strategies reflecting the correct pricing, distribution, service, product mix and brand management necessary for companies to grow their businesses.
Resource Assessment
A resource assessment initiative assists companies in businesses to review their activities to identify and implement resource efficiency improvements. By undertaking an energy or materials assessment or additional scoping work such as design analysis or business case development, companies can more easily proceed with implementation of a growth or expansion venture.
The MSU Product Center AGS team can help provided companies with the following:
- Access to targeted information, tools and resources to help improve efficiency
- Funding source assistance to identify and implement efficiency improvements
- Business support programs to facilitate internal leadership and external networking opportunities