Paper Sample on Blackberry Hill Farm

Introduction

Blackberry Hill Farm was founded by a renowned family that found their 200-acre land covered with blackberries. It prompted building a farmhouse that engages in soaps, skin oils, milk, butter, essential oils, mineral oxides, fragrance oils, micas, and natural colorants. All these products do not have phthalate or palm oil added to them; thus, they are friendly o the skins (Blackberry Hill Farm, 2020). Also, the farm produces organic bread, organic vegetables, jam, and organic chickens. They raise different breeds of domestic animals in the woodlot alongside farming and Agri-tourism.

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Problems Experienced in the Farm

The main problems in this farm are associated with its complex operations management. Operation management is a professional function that includes control of the production of goods and provision of services. For instance, the farm initially specialized in growing cereals, fruits, vegetables, and dairy herd, but the firm was making small losses. The management decided to introduce the Pick Your-own Operation (PYO) strategy to improve the returns to help the farm turn the small losses into small profits. This strategy has created a complex system that requires complex understanding because it involves a museum of farming heritage, tractor rides, petting zoo, preservation kitchen, recreation playgrounds, café, bakery, picnic area, and open view. Therefore, it has become a multifaceted operation that requires interprofessional expertise to manage.

The other threat, according to Jim Walker, is unpredictable weather patterns that influence their Pic-Your Own operation management due to the inability to forecast various weather changes. Several business deals take place during the weekends amid the end of Springs and early Autumn seasons. This aspect means that rains keep several recurrent and potential customers away from the farm, minimizing the visiting days.

The other challenge includes inadequate inventory control mostly caused by limited resources such as machinery, finances, and laborers, more so land. The family finds it difficult to have the available workers enhance production due to limited capacities and knowledge. The operations in the farm include tourism and agriculture in a single ranch that requires to work with input resources such as poultry, mixed woodlands, crops such as cereals, animals, birds, catering, and heritage exhibits; thus, operations and keeping inventory records becomes challenging.

All these areas require different knowledge, skills, and experiences to allow efficient operations and profitable productions. These input resources can be classified in Hospitality, Agriculture and Horticulture, Veterinary, and Tourism educational backgrounds that cannot be found in the available workers on the farm. Also, the farm requires Human Resources, Managerial, Marketing, and Leadership skills to enhance productivity. However, these skills, experiences, and knowledge can only be obtained from professionals who lack among the employees on the farm. Furthermore, this farm finds it hard to attract the necessary talent because their employment is seasonal. Different employees are only required when the activities are at the pick, especially in the Summer months.

Creating a reliable brand that can earn the farm customer loyalty is becoming an issue due to inadequate capacity planning that makes the farm concentrate more on visitors than farming. Most consumers and investors do not consider Blackberry Hill Farm a genuine ranch because most operations and income are from tourists instead of agriculture. Gaining their identity as a genuine farm is one of the selling points that the business wants to retain despite the other activities. Therefore, the business has been striving to maintain their primary source of profits to sustain the farm and grow while maintaining its identity as a genuine farm simultaneously. Besides, the tourism operations have left the farm in need of more space for a parking lot necessary to allow visitors to access the farm efficiently and effectively. Attracting more visitors means that there would be more cars and school buses on the farm; thus, there is a need for larger space. This demand prompted the owners to reduce the wheat plantations to create enough room for all the farm operations. This aspect also demands individual specifications for the road distribution and density to ensure safety, access, and enhance the allocation of resources and farm outputs. Hence, there is an urgent need for the farm to reduce jam and queue time.

Reasons Why Blackberry Hill Farm Needs Forecasting Models

Considering that Blackberry Hill Farm operates differently depending on seasons all year long, the business needs to adopt forecasting models that can help the managers predict the future to make the necessary adjustments when they deem it crucial. Forecasting is Software essential tool for planning accordingly to ensure that the unforeseen changes are accounted for in management. It is a systematic attempt for the managers to probe the upcoming inferences from unknown occurrences to help integrate the entire management planning to create an integrated overall plan grounded into which department or division plans can mesh (Chand, 2020). Forecasting would enable the farm to commit the available resources with a maximum guarantee to revenue over the longterm through identifying future demand patterns to facilitate the development of new products or product differentiation for the existing products.

Forecasting is also essential in that it provides reliable and relevant information regarding the past and present performance of the business through evaluating the events (Sznajder, Przezborska, and Scrimgeour, 2019 pg. 109). Strategic evaluation is crucial for the farm because it can help the managers check whether the performance aligns with the goals and objectives. This notion is so because it reflects on the shortcomings and achievements of the business and reexamining the already set goals that may have been set at a different era under different circumstances to make necessary adjustments. Besides, the evaluation would provide the Walkers with a systematic method to study their practice, program, initiatives, and interventions to understand how their operation management can increase business profitability. In this notion, they can make improvements or changes in different areas as they necessitate.

Another role forecasting can play on the farm includes giving the owners the confidence to make vital decisions, especially when creating changes or introducing new farm ideas. This confidence can keep them alert and active to face any setbacks or changes in the environment because forecasting would help them foresee these events before they occur (Harvey, 2011 pg. 89). Therefore, they can plan and develop response strategies for different events that can affect the business negatively.

The projections that can be developed from forecasting include economic forecasting, which involves evaluating the economic trends that can lead to the growth of this agritourism business. This projection has demographic dynamics and variations in the international markets that affect currency and money value in the local markets. Hence, making predictions of how populations and global market changes can help the Walkers make appropriate plans accordingly. The other projection can involve technological forecast. This forecast foresees the new innovative technologies that may improve the operation of the farm. This projection means looking out on the technologies that can render some farm activities obsolete (Ramasubramanian et al., 2014).

Competition projections are another vital forecast that the farm should employ. This farm is competing against farmers, recreation centers, and tourism sectors in Canada. The flooding of commodities in the market is one of the main reasons why the farm has been making small losses on vegetables and fruits. It is therefore crucial for the Walkers to forecast the strategies the competitors may use to acquire the market share, which may be at the cost of the farm's share. Projecting competition means that the competitors might plan to introduce a different strategy for competing products or introduce a substitute commodity or service that could be readily accepted or cheaper. It is crucial to consider the social forecast, especially for the tourism department on the farm. This projection involves predicting variations in customer demands, tastes, and attitudes because consumers usually indicate established trends for comfort, convenience, and goods that they can use and manage easily. Therefore, preferences and tastes may change with time due to environmental and demographic dynamics.

The Preferred Forecast Model

The aim is to introduce a Multiple Binary Logistic Regression method that can combine dependent variables are the probability of either marketability or demands. In contrast, independent variables include either storage periods, product quality, or demand in the market (Díaz-Pérez, Carreño-Ortega, Salinas-Andújar and Callejón-Ferre, 2019 pg.1). This combination continues to highlight the case of binary (dichotomous), qualitative forecast, evaluating how logit regression can be employed in integrating probability forecasts, and the integration of the probability-mixtures and pure qualitative forecasts. Also, it looks at the polychotomous aspect in which the study may involve more than two categories that introduces the multinominal logit.

The logistic models can allow managers to determine how the independent and dependent variable affects the sought outcome. For example, it can reveal whether preservation is the primary determinant of vegetable marketability by determining the weightless percentages that can render the products rejectable. Supply and demand in farming are affected by atmospheric, weather changes, and problems related to land and skills, thus affecting the operation management of the farm. These factors make forecasting in agricultural commodities rely heavily on fundamental analysis instead of consistent and accessible technical evaluation based on volume and price. Agritourism is a complex practice that requires proper forecasting models that can ensure human health, sustainable development, and environmental conservation (Ciolac et al., 2019). The techniques used in forecasting and analyzing the demand for agritourism businesses have been diverse. The most common econometric and time series models have been introduced to a great extent. However, as far as accuracy in forecasting, there lacks a single model that can be deemed more accurate than others in all aspects. Therefore, the farm should have forecast accuracy in mind and consider integrating both qualitative forecasting approaches.

Conclusion

However, one of the most effective ways of combining qualitative forecasting techniques includes Logit or Binary Logistic regression model. It is a computationally convenient technique that requires using statistical equations as a presentation to make projections on Marketing, demand forecast, and supply chain management (Caniato, Kalchschmidt, and Ronchi, 2011 pg. 413). Multiple and Simple Linear Regression Models evaluate the connection between several independent variables, say X and a sole continuous and dependent variable, Y, and when Y results in one or two outcomes. It is known as a binary variable like alive/dead, heavy/light, and so forth. The Y variable is typically considered as the indicator variable that the analyst assigns the value of 1 to the result he could be trying to predict and an amount of 0 to the other result (Abdulqader, 2017. Pg 330).