Consulting Engagements Portfolio
Export market identification and ROI
The executive management team of a U.S. export entity asked WPI to identify new global export markets for a diverse basket of processed agricultural products. After comprehensive analysis of several pre-selected markets, WPI’s team recommended that promotional efforts be conducted in Colombia. Promotional investment was committed and the subsequent increase in exports resulted in a 6:1 return-on-investment. Identifying markets with attractive export opportunities requires keen understanding of specific products and their most appealing attributes, parallel to a comprehensive exercise to find linkages between product characteristics and key market dynamics.
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.
Diverse challenges, diverse solutions
WPI’s team provides market and policy analysis primarily to agricultural organizations that represent domestic sectors, promote U.S. exports to global markets, or operate across borders, in addition to private firms across the agricultural value chain and government agencies.