Organization Structure
Planning
and conducting business involving renewable and non-renewable
natural resources requires orgnization. The organization
allows all pieces of information and actions taken to
be directed toward achieving goals set by a landowner
/ manager with feedback for remedial action and control.
Organizing a resource management operation requires continuous and dynamic changes to be made concerning personnel and allocation of resource with adequate records. Records are important in evaluating progress and understanding which decisions are not meeting expected (planned) standards of performance.
The types of decisions and actions can be categorized into three groups:
Strategic Decision
Why do you own your property? The answer to this question may appear obvious, but reflect on it. Prioritize your reasons. This will provide the direction the use of resources must take to maintain ownership and/or meet overall goals. Most ranches must first succeed financially if they are to survive. If this is true for your land, then identify making a profit as a top priority.
Strategic decisions must be made on policies that affect all levels of the ranch and its long-term direction. These policies should spell out where you want to go concerning growth of the business, development of the resource, capital investments, profit level, retirement plans, risk, labor, machinery, conservation and diversity of resources, off ranch investments, reserve capital, etc.
Strategic policies should be reviewed annually to see if results are leading to long-term accomplishments. Strategic policies should also include family objectives. Do you want the children to manage the land when they reach adulthood?
Tactical Decision
Once you have decided on why you own and manage the land and identified your expectations, you must plan, organize, implement and control how you will get there. These tactical decisions compare alternatives for producing and achieving the desired results. The enterprise is selected, based upon expected performance within the ecological capabilities of the land.
Everyone associated with the land and its management is involoved in developing the plan and carrying it out. After strategic level decisions have been made, tactical decisions on how to accomplish these objectives are spelled out. How will these enterprises be managed to achieve the strategic goals? The needed responses become the performance standards for management and personnel.
If your strategic goals are to maintain land ownership and a reasonable net profit for growth of the business, then how can you continue producing camels if there is no market! The point to remember is that a landowner porduces whatever products from the land resource that consumers will pay for. You sell consumer satisfaction. Capitalize on all resources effectively and maintain the flexibility to change products as consumer demand changes.
Operational Decision
Operational decisions are the daily activities to fulfill tactical plans. These decisions require constant readjustment based on the current environment, market conditions, etc. Each decision must have a specific objective and level of accomplishment that when combined with other activities results in the "best" outcome tactically.