In this role, one is expected to have deep knowledge about how the finances work across the entire Agri Value Chains. One should be able to analyse the risks involved in credits, Agri Finances, Cash flows of the Agri businesses across the value chains.
You can expect specific questions around the positioning of the company in the value chain and product/service categories in which they operate. The questions suggested below provide can serve as a good preparatory questions set for a sales roles across the value chain:
- What are the financing challenges faced by small & medium scale farmers? What approaches/solutions are currently popular in resolving smallholder finance issues?
- What is value chain finance? Under what conditions would value chain finance work for small & medium scale farmers?
- What elements need to be taken into consideration while designing a value chain finance product?
- What is the role of each financial statement in exploring different dimensions of the financial position of a company?
- What are the fundamentals and principles beneath the standard accounting practices that are followed by companies?
- How to analyse the output of cashflow tool?
- What are the challenges in scaling up the cash flow financing?
- What are the different elements involved in building a cash flow tool?
- What is the role of incentives in building strong complementary partnerships?
- Can a business with a weak value proposition generate profits in the long-term?
- What mechanisms can be used to align incentives for players within a value chain?
- How can digital technologies can reduce the risk for financial institutions while financing the smallholders?
- Which regions & product categories are receiving investments with the food & agribusiness?
- How are incentives distributed for different stakeholders in a food distribution system?
- What preparations should a farmer make in relation to getting optimal price (returns) for their produce?
If you are comfortable in answering and having a good discussion on the above questions we wish you a lot of success. If you would like to have preparation support we recommend you the following digital school courses:)
- Agriculture Business Models (relevant for all kinds of roles in to understand the relevance of business model for the profitability of a business)
- Food & agribusiness industry trends and developments (Helpful to study the consumer trends and potential financial implications on agribusinesses)
- Introduction to Agri Finance (relevant for roles dealing with designing/analyzing the financial aspects of Agri businesses)
- Cashflow financing in Agribusiness (relevant for roles with Finance backgrounds)
- Basics of Accounting and Finance (relevant for roles with Finance backgrounds)
- Introduction to urban agriculture value chains (relevant for roles specifically in urban agriculture value chain financing)
- Digital Innovations in Agriculture Extension (Helpful to understand the role of technology to improve the farmer profitability and their credit score)
- Introduction to Food distribution system (Helpful to study the mechanism of food distribution from farm to fork and flow of finance)
- Agriculture basics (relevant for all roles to understand the production dynamics)